Netanyahu: Throw Goldstone Report into dustbin of history

Sure. Start by bringing back to life the hundreds of innocents murdered in cold blood and we'll shelve the zionist Goldstone Report right next to the Evil Talmud

Following op-ed in which Goldstone says report would be different if Israel had cooperated in probe, FM says he "had no doubt the truth would come out"; PA, Hamas: Goldstone "retreat" doesn't erase war crimes.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyhau on Saturday called on the UN to "nullify the Goldstone Report."

Netanyahu delivered a short televised address to the media in both Hebrew and English in which he addressed Friday's op-ed article in the Washington Post in which Goldstone said the findings of his investigation into Operation Cast Lead would have been different had he possessed all of the information.

"Goldstone himself confirmed what we have already been saying," Netanyahu stated.

"I think our soldiers and army behaved according to the highest standards" during Operation Cast Lead, Netanyahu said.

"We expect this farce to be rectified immediately," he said of the report which charged Israel with committing war crimes by targeting civilians in the Gaza Strip.

The prime minister added that the fact that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was part of the UN Human Rights Council, which commissioned the report, proves the absurdity of the findings. "It's time to throw this report into the dustbin of history," he concluded.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Saturday praised Goldstone for the op-ed article, in which he stated that Israel did not intentionally target civilians during Operation Cast Lead.

Lieberman said in an interview with Channel Two's Dana Weiss on the program "Meet the Press," that while he praised Goldstone's comments he was not surprised that the judge came to the conclusions that he did.

"We had no doubt that the truth would come out eventually," said Lieberman.

The Foreign Minister said that Goldstone actually came to the same conclusions that the two follow-up committees to the Goldstone committee came to. Lieberman stated that Goldstone as well as the other committees agreed that Israel did not intentionally fire on citizens in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. They all agreed, as well, that Israel's court system acted objectively and professionally in investigating war crimes allegations. In addition, both Goldstone and the follow-up committees agreed that Hamas had done nothing to address allegations of war crimes or human rights violations that the Goldstone report accused them of during Operation Cast Lead.

Lieberman also expressed satisfaction with the fact that Goldstone recognized the anti-Israel bias of the UN Human Rights Council.

When asked if he believed, given Goldstone's comments, that Israel should have been more cooperative with Goldstone's fact-finding mission, Lieberman said that Israel did not want to set a precedent of international bodies interfering in the governments internal decision-making process.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak also addressed Goldstone's comments, saying that the IDF was "a moral army that operated according to international law."

Barak added that in order to repair the damage done by the Goldstone Report, the judge should present his current conclusions before all of the international bodies who were presented the original report and not merely give his opinion in a newspaper article.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri dismissed Goldstone's remarks saying that "his retreat does not change the fact war crimes had been committed against 1.5 million people in Gaza," and noted that the group cooperated fully with the fact finding mission.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad aL-Malki said Goldstone's comments did not change a thing. "The report was as clear as the crimes that Israel committed during the war," he said.

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=214864


Israel urges U.N. to cancel Gaza war crimes report
Israel Saturday called on the U.N. to cancel a report which said it had committed war crimes during its December 2008-January 2009 Gaza offensive, after its author said he may have been wrong.

Goldstone op-ed praises Israeli investigation of Gaza war crimes, but UN committee paints a different picture