The fighting that rocked civilians in and around Gaza 14 months ago will be revisited once again on Friday when the United Nations General Assembly is slated to discuss the roles played by Israel and the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement Hamas.
While UN member states are likely to agree to give the two sides more time to conduct investigation, it's doubted that the further probe could get any substantial result.
The upcoming parley was preceded on Wednesday by a meeting between UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Ban is expected to travel to the Middle East soon for meetings with Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
While the UN chief wants to help advance a return to the negotiating table, his remit also has him looking back at the events that hit Gaza at the end of December 2008 and Israel's military campaign that lasted for three weeks.
NEW PROPOSAL
The General Assembly will be asked on Friday to approve a proposal from the Arab League to agree to a five months extension for the Israelis and Palestinians to carry out their own investigations into the fighting that left hundreds of civilians dead and wounded.
Initially, the parties should have presented their findings by the first week in February. Now the UN is expected to okay the extra time.
A probe into the fighting conducted last year by a team appointed by the UN suggested that both the Israelis and Hamas were guilty of war crimes and perhaps crimes against humanity.
Israel maintained the findings of the team headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone were slanted. At the time, Israel did not cooperate with the fact-finding commission. The Goldstone report was initially presented to the UN Human Rights Council, a body that Israel claims is hardly independent and raises more concerns about Israel than any other country.
However, as a result of international criticism, Israel has begun seeing into the nature and results of what it dubbed Operation Cast Lead. While it has not launched a formal independent inquiry, questions are being asked at home.
Yet the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) still insists its behavior during the war was legitimate. This was last stressed by the head of the Armored Corps Agai Yehezkel when he spoke at a graduation ceremony this week.
"We do not have a problem facing criticism, when it is topical. You -- the graduates, your parents and your families -- will be the unequivocal reply to this report. Those graduates testify more than anything to the education on ethics, the sense of volunteering and morality," he said.
"BURYING" GOLDSTONE REPORT
The proposal to give the parties more time to carry out investigations in accordance with international standards is being criticized by UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories Richard Falk.
"I think it's part of the wider effort basically to bury the recommendations of the Goldstone report, unnecessarily delaying the implementation of its recommendations," Falk told the Palestinian news agency Ma'an.
Falk, who is persona non grata in Israel, said the more that time passes, the less likely the UN is to bring war criminals to justice. In theory the matter could be taken up by the UN Security Council and subsequently forwarded to the International Criminal Court.
The five-month window is unlikely to bring about truly independent reports either from Israel or Hamas, said Bassem Eid, the executive director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. He is highly skeptical of their ability and willingness to launch any kind of inquiry that will meet the demands of the international community for impartiality and transparency.
"I will be disappointed if each government investigates itself, which means a completely independent inquiry should have to be adopted by the Israelis and Hamas if they are to bring out the truth of what really happened during the war in Gaza," Eid told Xinhua on Thursday.
Arik Ascherman, the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, disagrees with Eid regarding an Israeli inquiry. While he said any form of investigation carried out by the IDF could never be perceived as robustly independent, he does think that Israel is sufficiently democratic to carry out a rigorous, transparent inquest.
"Israel is a democracy and we do have a history of commissions that have had far-reaching implications, that have been extremely critical of the government in power and or the army," said Ascherman.
"DON'T DWELL ON PAST"
Whatever is eventually decided by UN member states regarding the events of December 2008 and January 2009, Eid believes is largely immaterial. He argued that in this case the world should leave bygones to be bygones and all efforts should go into preventing a future repeat of the fighting.
"I want Israel and Hamas to reach only one conclusion, that is no more shooting either in Gaza or from Gaza into Israel," he said.
"Let us forget the past but let us remember all the time the future of the people whether they are Israelis or Palestinians," added Eid.
Ascherman agreed in principle with Eid but argued that the lessons of the past are important when looking to the future.
"The only way you're going to change the future is to confront the past," he said. That does not only mean looking at the actions of the parties to ensure no repeat but also examining international law.
When Ban visits the region he will be hoping to persuade the parties that they need to take a real, hard look at themselves and the way they conduct themselves in military conflict. Perhaps more importantly, he will be seeking ways to end their differences, so that such questions will never need to be asked again.
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