Israel on Monday slammed as "slanted" a BBC documentary suggesting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should be indicted for the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon two decades ago.
"Israel takes a grave view of the slanted and unfair nature of the Panorama program," the foreign ministry said in a statement, cited by Israeli papers.
"The timing of the program, 19 years after the events ... constitutes an attempt to sully the name of Israel and its leader by any means," it said, accusing the BBC of turning itself into a "televised court."
On the program aired Sunday night, former International War Crimes Tribunal chief prosecutor Judge Richard Goldstone said Sharon should be held responsible for the massacre of up to 2,000 refugees at the Sabra and Shatilla camps by Lebanese Christian militiamen during the 1982 Israeli invasion.
Sharon, a 73-year-old right-wing former general, was forced to resign from his post as defense minister after a 1983 Israeli inquiry concluded that he was indirectly responsible for the killings.
"In the case of Sabra and Shatilla, clearly the Kahan Commission found that very serious crimes had been committed and I have no doubt that any decent person would regret the fact that not a single criminal prosecution followed," Goldstone told the BBC program, entitled "The Accused."
Richard Falk, professor of international law at Princeton University, said of Sharon: "There is no question in my mind that he is indictable for the knowledge he had or should have had."
In a statement the BBC said it stood by the story, which it called "a legitimate analysis of a human rights issue."
Meanwhile, a Palestinian official welcomed the BBC program, according to the official Kuwait news agency (KUNA).
Ahmad Abdel-Rahman, the Palestinian cabinet secretary general, said he was glad that the world had started to listen to what “Palestinians had been calling for for a long time, to present Sharon and other Zionist leaders who are responsible for other crimes perpetrated against Palestinians and Arab people.”
In an interview with KUNA, hours after the documentary television program was aired, Abdel-Rahman said that the Arab League should follow up on the legal measures to put Sharon on trial at the international war crimes court in The Hague – Albawaba.com
