Jerusalem, January 27: Israel will not set up a special panel to investigate last winter’s Gaza offensive, a Cabinet minister said Tuesday, rejecting a key demand of a UN report that accused the military of war crimes.
Information Minister Yuli Edelstein said Israel would submit a document to the UN later this week that deals only with Israel’s own investigations of its conduct during the three-week war. Those investigations have been conducted by the military, which has exonerated itself of any systematic wrongdoing. “To the best of my knowledge, there is no intention to create an investigative committee,” Edelstein told Israel Radio, saying he had checked with his colleagues in the Cabinet.
The UN report accused both Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers of war crimes and urged both to independently probe their wartime conduct. The UN General Assembly endorsed the report last November, giving the sides until Feb. 5 to respond. By rejecting calls for an independent inquiry, Israel could open itself to international war crimes proceedings. But Israeli leaders are worried that forcing soldiers to testify could hurt morale and make troops wary of taking part in future battles. Nine Israel-based human rights groups issued a call Tuesday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order a full-fledged inquiry. In a joint statement, they said the internal probe “does not satisfy Israel’s obligations to investigate.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli Foreign Ministry in a report accused Turkey’s prime minister of fueling anti-Semitism with his criticism of Israel. The report comes weeks after Israel’s deputy foreign minister enraged Turkey by summoning Ankara’s ambassador for a humiliating public reprimand.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon summoned Ambassador Ahmet Oguz Celikkol to protest a Turkish TV show depicting Israeli agents as cruel, and refused to shake his hand while making him sit on a low sofa. Israel was forced to apologize after Turkey threatened to recall the ambassador.
The new report concluded that Turkey viewed the incident as a “severe blow” to its pride, but added that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had gone overboard in his repeated criticism of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians.
The report, excerpts of which were published in the Haaretz daily, accused Erdogan of using anti-Semitic language in his speeches and creating “negative public opinion” toward Israel. “He does this by repeating motifs in his speeches of describing the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza and blaming Israel of committing war crimes, going as far as using anti-Semitic expressions and incitement,” the report said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu rejected the charge. “To criticize Israel is not anti-Semitism,” he told independent NTV television.
——-Agencies