Israel rejects UN allegations on Gaza as biased

Israel has strongly rejected the report of a United Nations fact-finding mission in Gaza mandated by the UN Human Rights Council and headed by South African Judge Richard Goldstone. The conclusions of the Goldstone inquiry allege that the Israel Army “committed actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity” during the January 2009 Gaza operation. The report claims that Israel used disproportionate firepower and disregarded the likelihood of civilian deaths in Gaza. The report, released on Tuesday, also urged Israel to conduct an independent investigation into its war conduct or face the prospect of referring the case to international war crimes prosecutors.

The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said it was “appalled” by the UN report and called the Goldstone committee’s “mandate clearly one-sided". Several commentators pointed out that the allegations were almost exclusively based on unverifiable testimony by Palestinian groups in Gaza.

Israeli officials had refused to cooperate with the Goldstone investigation because it was ordered by the UN Human Rights Council which is perceived as having a clear anti-Israeli bias. Israel's military conducted its own inquiry and others remain pending, but so far has not found any significant wrongdoing. Government spokesman Mark Regev rejected an independent inquiry, saying: “"This report was conceived in sin and is the product of a union between propaganda and bias… Everything done by the military in Israel is open to judicial review by the independent judiciary." The Foreign Ministry launched a special webpage in an effort to rebut the allegations by the Goldstone committee: http://www.mfa.gov.il/GAZAFACTS.

Referring to the upcoming speech of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said: “The same UN that allows the president of a country to announce on a podium its aspiration to destroy the State of Israel has no right to teach us about morality."

Judge Goldstone, who is Jewish, rejected allegations of an anti-Israel bias. He said:"As a Jew, I have an affiliation, and I have had an affiliation, and have made many visits to Israel…To accuse me of being anti-Israel is ridiculous.".