Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

U.S. to Israel: Investigate Goldstone Report Allegations

The Obama administration is urging Israel to address the allegations in the Goldstone Commission report.

“We felt very strongly that while these investigations should be investigated and addressed, that we thought on the one hand that Israel had the kind of institutions that could address these allegations,” Ian Kelly, a State Department spokesman, said Monday, speaking of the U.S. role last week in deferring until March further United Nations consideration of the report accusing Israel and Hamas of war crimes during last winter’s Gaza military action. “And of course, we urged Israel to address these very serious allegations.”

U.S. officials had said previously that the report, its recommendations and the mandate creating the fact-finding mission were flawed. The United States backed a failed resolution in the U.N. Human Rights Council that encouraged Israel to investigate the report’s findings. Instead, Palestinian diplomats – who wanted the council to refer the report to the U.N. legal system – agreed to defer consideration until its next session in March.

Kelly’s comment Monday was the most direct urging Israel to pursue an investigation.

Israeli spokesmen have said that the army is investigating some of the charges, including those involving the killing of civilians bearing white flags, but no charges have been filed.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.