UN-Truth

Israel is mobilizing its considerable resources in a new war — against the findings about last winter’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza and the policy that surrounds it, as well as its effects, presented yesterday in a report by a committee appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and headed by South Africa’s Justice Richard Goldstone.

Today, an email arrived from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, chock full of facts and arguments in response, including this:

“Following the Gaza operation, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Ashkenazi appointed five colonels who were not directly in the chain of command for the operations in question to investigate issues raised by, among others, international and non-governmental organizations and the international and Israeli media. The decision to initiate these field investigations emanated from the IDF’s professional, moral and legal obligations to examine all claims made in relation to the conduct of the warfare. The full findings of each of the field investigations were presented to the IDF Chief of Staff. A summary of each investigation has been presented to the Military Advocate General, who has the authority to decide whether there is sufficient basis for opening a military police investigation. Due to the significance of the issues involved, the conclusions of the IDF field investigations and the opinion of the Military Advocate General will also be reviewed by the Attorney General. This process is still underway. In addition to the aforementioned field investigations, the IDF Military Advocate General is awaiting the findings of field investigations into other specific incidents, acting chiefly upon reports received from local and international NGOs. After reviewing the field investigation findings, the MAG will decide whether to order Military Police investigations into the incidents, but it may order criminal investigations without waiting for the results of a field investigation. Decisions of the MAG are made publicly available, and are subject to review by the Attorney General and possibly by the Supreme Court. In addition to the field investigations, as of July 1, 2009 the IDF Military Police has also been in the process of conducting criminal investigations of incidents that gave rise to suspicions of misconduct by IDF personnel during the operations in Gaza”.

OK.

I, for one, would advise Israel to stop saying much of anything else for the time being.

Filed under: Gaza, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians