As the UN General Assembly debated the Goldstone Commission's report on Wednesday, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev charged that the report, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes during last winter's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, was "irreparably tainted" and "bends both fact and law." Shalev warned that the "report and this debate do not promote peace - they damage any effort to revitalize negotiations in our region."
Shalev told the assembly that report ignored "the reality of terror" from the 12,000 rockets and mortars fired by Hamas into southern Israel - "and the complexity of military challenges in fighting terrorists in urban warfare."
She dismissed the Goldstone panel as "a politicized body with predetermined conclusions."
"Rather than discuss how to better stop terrorist groups who deliberately target civilians, this body launches yet another campaign against the victims of terrorism, the people of Israel," Shalev said.
"Time and again," Shalev said, "the report inverts Israel's unprecedented extensive efforts to save civilian lives as proof that any civilian casualties were therefore deliberate."
Shalev also criticized the report for dismissing Israel's independent legal system, its investigations of misconduct in the armed forces, and its right to self-defense.
Meanwhile, former Israeli ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman left Israel for New York Wednesday evening at the behest of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in order to assist with Israel's public relations campaign concerning the Goldstone Commission's report.
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