State to weigh inquiry panel on Goldstone report

The diplomatic-security cabinet will meet today to discuss Israel's diplomatic and legal response to the Goldstone report and its endorsement by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Sources close to the government said one possibility is setting up a governmental inquiry committee to look into some of the report's findings regarding Palestinian casualties.

Speaking yesterday to Likud Knesset members, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "the report is going to the UN [organs in New York]. We're going to see to it that it's vetoed."

He said he expects the report to be discussed by both the General Assembly and the Security Council.

The UNHRC's endorsement of the report, along with the likelihood that it will be discussed by UN institutions in New York, "give the report an aura of international legitimacy that may lead the general prosecutor at the International [Criminal] Court in The Hague to indict senior Israeli officials," Netanyahu added.

At today's meeting, the Foreign Ministry will propose a strategy for an informational and diplomatic response to the report, while the Justice Ministry will suggest a legal strategy. One option likely to be considered is a governmental inquiry committee, which would investigate the report's claims regarding the circumstances of some Palestinian civilian casualties.

Many countries have told Israel that launching an independent local inquiry would stall the report and prevent it from being forwarded to the International Criminal Court.

This proposition enjoys strong support from the justice and foreign ministries, which believe it would be of great help in dealing with the report internationally. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has not ruled it out, but is keen to ensure that any external civilian investigation not undermine the status of the army's investigative and legal authorities.

A government source said Netanyahu is considering the idea, but is unsure what scope the investigation should have.

An in-depth investigation of the report's claims, government sources explained, could remove the report from the international agenda, but it might also undermine the status of the IDF's own prosecutorial and investigative agencies. A superficial inquiry, however, would look like a cover-up and merely increase international pressure over the report.

Former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak has been mentioned as a leading candidate to head such an inquiry committee.

A source in the Prime Minister's Office said that setting up an inquiry committee was not on the agenda for today's meeting, but if one of the ministers, or the attorney general, should bring it up, it will be discussed.

No decisions are expected from this meeting, the source added.

Sunday night, the septet of top cabinet ministers held its own discussion of the Goldstone report. Following this discussion, the prime minister instructed the Foreign Ministry to prepare a special informational campaign to combat the report.

The central message Netanyahu wants the campaign to stress is that Israel will be willing to make diplomatic, and especially territorial, concessions only if its right to self-defense is guaranteed.

The Goldstone report concluded that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during their three-week war in the Gaza Strip in January. It recommended that both sides be given six months to launch their own inquiries into the report's charges, and said that if either party failed to launch an inquiry within this time, or if the inquiry was not deemed credible, that party should be referred to the International Criminal Court for prosecution.