After finally realizing that there is just too much evidence proving that Israel has committed war crimes in what Israel called operation cast lead Israel, Israel has told UN chief Ban Ki-moon it will reject a UN demand to carry out a probe into allegations the Jewish state committed war crimes during the Gaza war, a minister said on Tuesday."Israel has no intention of creating a verification commission," Information and Diaspora Minister Yuli Edelstein told Israel public radio from New York a day after meeting the UN secretary general.
Edelstein, who was to present Israel's rebuttal to the so-called Goldstone report on Thursday, said he informed Ban of Israel's intention during the meeting late Monday.
But the respected newspaper Haaretz said Israel might agree to set up a limited inquiry to deflect some of the massive international criticism over the offensive that killed 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis in three weeks just over one year ago.
Such a committee would review everything and attempt to cover up the fact that the operation cast lead was planned months before (some reports state as early as 6 months)as punitive action against Gaza's civilians.
A senior Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity a decision on whether to set up any sort of commission had not yet been taken.
"Discussions are under way on the creation of a commission of verification, but nothing has been decided yet for tactical reasons," he said.
Also Tuesday, eight leading Israeli human rights groups sent and open letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging the government to "establish, without delay, an independent and impartial investigation mechanism to thoroughly examine the allegations raised regarding violations of international law during Operation Cast Lead."
Since it was released in September, Israel has sought to discredit the Goldstone report and In recent days, Israeli officials have sought to portray the 575-page report as anti-Semitic despite the fact it's author -- South African judge and international war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone -- is Jewish.
Israeli officials are playing all the cards at once with ant-semitism and the holocaust being taken to a whole new level in an attempt to deflect their crimes and on going siege of Gaza.
In the Goldstone Report - The UN report recommended its conclusions be referred to the International Criminal Court prosecutor in The Hague if Israel and the Hamas rulers of Gaza fail to carry out credible investigations within six months.
In November the UN General Assembly endorsed the report and called on both sides to carry out investigations "that are independent, credible and in conformity with international standards" by February 5.
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