Netanyahu rejects inquiry, sets up special panel to counter Goldstone

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman to coordinate a task force of professionals who will present a series of recommendations for countering the Goldstone report and its implications.

Netanyahu held a meeting on the subject yesterday and said that the establishment of an independent committee of inquiry on Operation Cast Lead is not under consideration.

"No soldiers or officers will be brought before a commission of inquiry," Netanyahu said.

The Justice Minister will head the task force that will also include representatives of the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces. The team will offer recommendations for actions that can be taken on the legal and diplomatic-political fronts, as well as on public relations efforts that can be made internationally.

"There are different views on the actions that we should undertake," said a source at the Prime Minister's Bureau. "What we will not do is clear and now we need to find something else."

But international pressure for Israel to set up an inquiry into allegations made by the Goldstone report to the effect that Israeli soldiers carried out war crimes in Gaza last winter has continued to mount.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman that he wants Israel to establish a commission of inquiry to investigate the incidents mentioned in the Goldstone report, a move that would obviate the need for UN institutions to continue dealing with the report.

Ban said such a probe was in Israel's interest.

Lieberman has not responded to the recommendation, but he is inclined to embrace the idea of an independent Israeli probe of the report's findings.

A statement issued by Lieberman's office after the Thursday night conversation included the foreign minister's sharply worded criticism of the UN report and a demand that Ban prevent the report from being brought before the UN Security Council or the General Assembly.

Ban told Lieberman that he cannot become personally involved in the matter, and that such decisions are for the UN members to make.

Government sources in Jerusalem said Lieberman has gradually come to view the creation of an independent commission of inquiry as a possible solution to the onslaught against Israel that resulted from the Goldstone report. The establishment of such a commission may prove particularly effective in blocking the report from being discussed by the Security Council or the International Criminal Court at The Hague, one of the sources said.

The Foreign Ministry has yet to formulate a clear position on the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry, but senior officials said that in light of the views being heard from the Americans and the European Union, Israel should view the idea favorably.

At the Prime Minister's Bureau they were keen to stress that a commission of inquiry is something Netanyahu will not agree to.

"The regulations for inquiries and examinations in place at the army are appropriate," sources at the bureau said yesterday.

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni said the Goldstone report was "based on a distorted system of values." Livni, who served as foreign minister during the Gaza war, made the statement while touring Nitzan, a Negev community largely inhabited by families evacuated from Gush Katif during the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai suggested yesterday that Israel release the transcripts of cabinet meetings held during the Gaza war, as a substitute for establishing a commission of inquiry, which he said would prove Israel's sensitivity toward the situation.