Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Arab diplomats agreed today to ask the United Nations General Assembly to set a three-month deadline for Israel and Hamas to investigate allegations of war crimes during Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Envoys of 22 Arab nations completed a draft resolution they will present to the General Assembly on Nov. 4. It would endorse a UN-backed panel’s findings that Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during the December-January conflict and ask both sides to conduct investigations. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would be asked to “transmit” the report to the Security Council.

The Security Council would consider “further action” at the end of the three months in the event the sides didn’t follow through, according to the draft. The panel, headed by former UN war crimes prosecutor and South African judge Richard Goldstone, recommended referral to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for possible prosecution of war crimes.

The Arab move threatens to impede resumption of peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government, which rejects the Goldstone report. Israel “cannot resume the peace process as long as this is on the table,” Ambassador Gabriela Shalev said on Oct. 14.

“If Israel thinks peace talks on one side and them committing violations of international law on the other side is the way forward, we don’t accept that,” Egyptian Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz said. “We are against any kind of impunity.”

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations broke down in December when Israel began the military incursion in Gaza to stop the firing of rockets on Israeli communities. The Obama administration’s high-profile efforts have failed to bring the two sides together again.

‘Bash Israel’

“We will not comment on the merits of any first draft of a resolution because we feel the whole exercise is yet another pretext to bash Israel in the political forum where the Arabs enjoy an automatic majority,” Israeli Deputy Ambassador Daniel Carmon said in an interview.

The Arabs rejected a set of European proposals to soften the language of their draft resolution. The EU amendments didn’t specifically mention Israel or the Islamic militant group Hamas, which the U.S. and Europeans consider a terrorist group, and didn’t include any referral of the matter to the Security Council.

The U.S. opposes involvement of the Security Council with the Goldstone report.

Israel says its operations in Gaza were a defensive response to eight years of rocket attacks by Hamas, which controls the enclave. The Israeli army presented the results of its own probe on April 22 and rejected the allegations that it committed war crimes. The UN panel said those investigations “lack the required credibility.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Varner at the United Nations at wvarner@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 2, 2009 15:24 EST