‘The Palestine Cables’: Obama Killed Off Independent U.N. Investigation Into Israeli War Crimes in Gaza

A report was published in May 2009 on nine incidents where U.N. facilities were attacked by Israel. The full report was never published, although a summary of the U.N. report stated that the "Government of Israel is responsible for the deaths and injuries that occurred within the United Nations premises" in seven of the nine incidents investigated.

A number of recommendations were made for further follow-up, which included seeking compensation from Israel and seeking public statements from Israel that allegations of Palestinian fighters firing from within UNRWA facilities were unfounded. The most controversial recommendation included in the report was the call for an "impartial inquiry" into violations of international humanitarian law. But the possibility of that inquiry was quashed in the cover letter to the summary of the report, written by Ki-Moon. "As for the Board's recommendations numbers 10 and 11 [which called for further inquiries], which relate to matters that did not largely fall within the Board of Inquiry's Terms of Reference, I do not plan any further Inquiry," Ki-Moon wrote.

And despite Moon's insistence at a press conference that the work of the board of inquiry was "completely independent," State Department cables tell a much different story of U.S. pressure on Moon to kill off the possibility of an independent investigation.'

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