Israel PM to World: Back Our Self Defense

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday rejected a new U.N. report alleging that Israel committed war crimes during its Gaza offensive, warning world leaders that they and their forces could be targets for similar charges.

Netanyahu spoke to Israeli TV stations on the occasion of the Jewish New Year holiday, which begins Friday.

The U.N. report ignored Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and the years of rocket attacks that preceded Israel's invasion, he said.

Netanyahu said world leaders cannot wait for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement to affirm Israel's right to protect itself.

"So I am telling international leaders: You are telling us that you support our right of self defense. Don't tell us that after the next agreement, tell us now," Netanyahu told Channel 2 TV. "Reject the findings of this commission."

The report of the U.N. commission headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone faulted Israel for civilian deaths in Gaza. Israel charged that Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers were responsible for placing rocket launchers and forces in crowded neighborhoods.

The U.N. commission also charged Hamas with war crimes for firing rockets at Israeli civilians.

Netanyahu said he would accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza if it were demilitarized, as a way of "avoiding the next Goldstone report" on an Israeli operation against Palestinian militants.

President Barak Obama's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, is scheduled to meet Netanyahu early Friday after extending his stay in the region by several days. But Netanyahu did not indicate he is giving in to the main U.S. demand - a freeze of construction in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

"There is a slowdown in settlement construction, but not a freeze," he told Channel 10 TV.

Mitchell is hoping to arrange a meeting between Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas next week in New York, during the session of the U.N. General Assembly. Netanyahu said no meeting has been scheduled so far.

"At this moment none has been arranged," he said. "I hope there will be one. I never asked for one and I never laid down conditions for one." Abbas has said peace negotiations cannot resume until Israel halts all construction in the settlements.