Western Allies Of Israel Pressing It To Look Into Goldstone Report

Thursday October 15, 2009 17:50 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Israeli sources reported Thursday that western allies of Israel are pushing it into launching a credible investigation into the findings of the Goldstone report, especially war crimes allegations.

Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported that the United States, Britain and France called on Israel to investigate the findings of the report of Judge Richard Goldstone.

John Sawers, the British Ambassador to the United Nations, called on Israel to conduct a proper and credible investigation into the findings of the report.

Also, Gerard Araud, French Ambassador to the UN, called on Hamas and Israel to launch independent investigations based on international standards.

Israeli totally rejected the report and even considered it incitement against it and described it as encouraging racism and terror.

The 575-page report accused both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during the war.

Israeli ambassador to the UN said that the report is a ‘waste of the time of the UN’, and that it ‘encourages terrorism’.

Meanwhile, Alejandro Wolff, the United States Ambassador to the UN stated that his country has serious concerns as the report ‘focuses on Israel in an unbalanced war’, but added that the U.S. believes that Israel should look into it, Haaretz added.

Wolff branded Hamas as a terrorist group and claimed that the movement is not willing to investigate its actions.

Yet, Hamas showed full cooperation with Goldstone and his investigation team while Israel refused to cooperate and instead presented its own report.

In his report, Goldstone said that should the Palestinians and the Israelis fails to take up serious measures, the issue should be referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The United States initially rejected discussing the report during the UN Security Council monthly meeting in New York, as it stated that this report was commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council, therefore should be discussed by it. The Council will vote on the report Thursday.

It is worth mentioning that until this year, the United States never joined the Human Rights Council.

Haaretz said that the U.S. joined the council earlier this year vowing to change it from within ‘since it became a panel to attack Israel’.

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