Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to present a proposal to his cabinet Thursday for the establishment of an investigative committee to probe the findings of the Goldstone Commission report on the Gaza conflict between Israel and Hamas, Haaretz reported.
The report, which accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes during the Israel Defense Forces' three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip this January, was formally presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council Tuesday.
The Palestinian Authority is urging the council to adopt the Goldstone Commission report in full and pass it on to the General Assembly for action.
Top officials in Jerusalem have stated that the report is full of lies and distortions, which demand an examination of how Goldstone arrived at his conclusions.
Sources in Defense Minister Ehud Barak's bureau denied Wednesday reports that Barak had called for the establishment of an investigative committee into the Goldstone report, but confirmed that Barak asked former Israel Chief Justice Aharon Barak to support efforts to challenge the UN report's findings.
In an op-ed piece which appeared Friday in the Wall Street Journal, Barak slammed criticism of the Israel Defense Forces during the offensive as "a theater of the absurd."
On Tuesday, a British court deferred until further notice an appeal by local pro-Palestinian groups to issue an arrest warrant against Barak for his conduct as defense minister during Operation Cast Lead. Israel launched the three-week offensive in December, in an effort to halt rocket fire on its southern communities, but came under fierce criticism for the conduct of its soldiers during the operation.
The president of one of Israel's leading academic institutions warned Tuesday that if Israel does not investigate the operation in Gaza, it will be forced to do so by the international community.
"A commission headed by a Supreme Court justice must immediately be established to examine Operation Cast Lead. And although the [Goldstone] report is very much not fair and borders on incitement, it also raises questions regarding our actions in Gaza," said Prof. Uriel Reichman, president of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.
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