As various individuals and organizations file petitions abroad against Israel for war crimes, including at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, there is growing criticism in Tel Aviv that Israel is taking too laid-back an approach to the matter, and not going on the offensive.
"[Attorney-General Menahem] Mazuz is involved, and a committee has been set up to deal with any lawsuits filed, but these are all defensive measures," one Israeli government source said. "We are not taking the offensive."
The best example of this, the Israeli official said, was Tel Aviv's silence when the Palestinian Authority urged the ICC to investigate Israel's war crimes during “Operation Cast Lead†in the Gaza Strip that killed over 1300 Palestinians, including 420 children and wounded over 5300 others.
Some 210 groups, including the PA, have urged the ICC to deal with the matter and the ICC's prosecutor has said a "preliminary analysis" is underway.
The Israeli official claimed that Israel could have come out and said this was not the way the country's peace partner should act, but instead remained quiet. Another example of the low key approach was Israel's complete silence when an Arab League delegation entered Gaza this week to investigate alleged war crimes and report back to the League's secretary-general, Amr Moussa.
One Israeli Foreign Ministry official said that it would have been possible to sharply reply to the PA's actions, but because of Israel's pre-election, and now post-election, transition period, there was "no one to take the initiative."
The official further said that neither Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who spent much of his tenure developing a relationship with the PA, nor Foreign Ministry Tzipi Livni, who led negotiations with it, had a political interest in publicly attacking it.
The official said that the policy was also dictated by other considerations, foremost that Israel did not want to give these petitions any more momentum, and a widespread feeling that the best way to "ride out" the current storm was to avoid giving the petitions more publicity.
Last month, Prime Minister Olmert publicly said at a weekly cabinet meeting that Hamas was "using the international legal arena as one of the main arenas in which they are trying to hurt Israel and strike at its soldiers and commanders. With the typical moral acrobatics, these organizations and their supporters are trying to turn the attacker into the attacked and vice-versa."
At that meeting, Olmert appointed Israeli Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann to chair an interministerial team to coordinate the state's efforts to provide a legal defense for those who took part in the military operation. That committee has met and is mapping out where the potential problems are and how to deal with them.
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Source: AJP
"[Attorney-General Menahem] Mazuz is involved, and a committee has been set up to deal with any lawsuits filed, but these are all defensive measures," one Israeli government source said. "We are not taking the offensive."
The best example of this, the Israeli official said, was Tel Aviv's silence when the Palestinian Authority urged the ICC to investigate Israel's war crimes during “Operation Cast Lead†in the Gaza Strip that killed over 1300 Palestinians, including 420 children and wounded over 5300 others.
Some 210 groups, including the PA, have urged the ICC to deal with the matter and the ICC's prosecutor has said a "preliminary analysis" is underway.
The Israeli official claimed that Israel could have come out and said this was not the way the country's peace partner should act, but instead remained quiet. Another example of the low key approach was Israel's complete silence when an Arab League delegation entered Gaza this week to investigate alleged war crimes and report back to the League's secretary-general, Amr Moussa.
One Israeli Foreign Ministry official said that it would have been possible to sharply reply to the PA's actions, but because of Israel's pre-election, and now post-election, transition period, there was "no one to take the initiative."
The official further said that neither Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who spent much of his tenure developing a relationship with the PA, nor Foreign Ministry Tzipi Livni, who led negotiations with it, had a political interest in publicly attacking it.
The official said that the policy was also dictated by other considerations, foremost that Israel did not want to give these petitions any more momentum, and a widespread feeling that the best way to "ride out" the current storm was to avoid giving the petitions more publicity.
Last month, Prime Minister Olmert publicly said at a weekly cabinet meeting that Hamas was "using the international legal arena as one of the main arenas in which they are trying to hurt Israel and strike at its soldiers and commanders. With the typical moral acrobatics, these organizations and their supporters are trying to turn the attacker into the attacked and vice-versa."
At that meeting, Olmert appointed Israeli Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann to chair an interministerial team to coordinate the state's efforts to provide a legal defense for those who took part in the military operation. That committee has met and is mapping out where the potential problems are and how to deal with them.
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