UN rights body ready to debate Goldstone probe

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The United Nations Human Rights Council will reopen a debate about
alleged war crimes in Gaza later this week, officials said Tuesday, after Palestinians succeeded in gathering enough support to call a special meeting.

"The holding of the special session is at the request of Palestine," the United Nations said in a statement circulated on Tuesday in Geneva, where the 47-member body is based. The debate will start Thursday, a day after the UN Security Council in New York discusses the Goldstone report, which accuses Israeli forces and
Palestinian militants of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity
during their Dec. 27-Jan. 18 war.

Israel has rejected the report, claiming the investigators led by former South African judge Richard Goldstone were biased and misled by Palestinian propaganda.

UN officials say 18 of the council's 47 members have signed a motion calling for the debate. The backers are: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Senegal.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1120776.html

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1. Israel urges world: Reject Goldstone report

Defense Minister Ehud Barak told world diplomats on Tuesday that the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of having committed war crimes in Gaza, is "false, distorted and promotes terror."

Speaking to the foreign ministers of France, Britian, Spain and Norway, among others, ahead of a United Nations debate on the report scheduled for Thursday, Barak said that adopting the report would give terror organizations around the world an advantage.

"The democratic nations of the world must understand that adopting the report will cripple their ability to deal with terror organizations, and terror in general," Barak said.

Earlier Wednesday, it emerged that the UN Human Rights Council's debate over the Goldstone report will also deal with Jerusalem, the Temple Mount riots and the siege of Gaza, according to a resolution the Palestinian Authority and a group of countries intend to submit.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121036.html

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2. Haaretz exclusive: Palestinian draft resolution on Goldstone, Gaza and Jerusalem

Haaretz has obtained a copy of the draft resolution that the Palestinian Authority will present to the United Nations, calling for condemnation of Israel over its actions in Jerusalem, the Gaza conflict of last winter and the closure on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121025.html

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3. PA seeks UN censure of Israel over Gaza, Temple Mount

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According to a political source in Jerusalem, the PA's ambassador to UN institutions in Geneva, Ibrahim Khraishi, told the ambassadors of the countries involved, most of them Arab and Muslim, that the main motivation behind the Palestinian request to discuss the Goldstone report stemmed from "Israeli provocations in Jerusalem." The Palestinians had originally decided not to have the report discussed.

The Palestinian ambassador said Israel must be shown that it cannot evade international law.

The new draft resolution is entitled "The human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem."

The resolution, which Foreign Ministry sources have described as "very extreme," has three parts: East Jerusalem, the Goldstone report on Operation Cast Lead, and the report by the UN's human rights commissioner on conditions in the Gaza Strip.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1120972.html

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4. Palestinian UN draft / The more extreme, the better for Israel

We should not get unnerved by the heartbreaking cries coming from Jerusalem regarding Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' decision to appeal to the UN Human Rights Council with an upgraded Goldstone report. Wise men have said in the past, "the worse it is, the better it is." The more extreme the Palestinian offer gets, the chance of it winning support in the West dwindles.

On the other hand, this is another chance for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to portray the new initiative as "proof" that Abbas is entrenched by Hamas. As a bonus, Netanyahu can celebrate the slap on the face the new Nobel Peace Prize laureate will receive, since the world knows that Barack Obama persistently plead with Abbas to pull the proposal in order to clear the way for a permanent peace agreement.

Abbas also understands that the upgraded report he served to Geneva will not go far. He doesn't really believe that Netanyahu will have to rescue Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, and Tzipi Livni from the claws of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. That was his only way to free his hands from his critics from Hamas and from his own party. Not only did he return the Goldstone report to the council in Geneva, but added more and more topics to it.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121030.html

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5. How this shakes out will be truly interesting

personally I would much rather see if possible sanctions rather than relatively meaningless ICC indictments come out of this for the Israeli side

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6. I am studying the rhetorical positions of the various parties.

This bit is interesting:

According to instructions being sent out to Israeli ambassadors, "We must make it clear to our interlocutors that we are opposed to any resolution on which there would be a vote, and we expect that their delegations will oppose ."

If will be interesting, even indicative, to see whether that works out or not, i.e. whether the matter is brought to a vote.

Also, the PNA now seems to be saying that their reversal on debating the report is because of the brouhaha about the temple mount, not because Abbas realized he had made a big mistake in "withdrawing support" for a debate on the report.

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8. Another version of the reversal

Fatah official: Abbas' adviser gave him bad advice over Goldstone

Those who advised President Mahmoud Abbas to defer the Goldstone report gave him bad advice, Fatah Central Committee member Nabil Sha’ath told a Paris panel on Wednesday.

Sha’ath spoke at an online panel discussion of the issues raised by the recent Palestinian Authority decision to delay the decision on whether or not to adopt the Goldstone report into UN policy. The discussion was organized by the Paris-based Arab European Studies Center.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=232223

ah yes that's it Abbas has "unwise" ears

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9. Well I think there have been easily half a dozen now.

A considerable recoil, it makes me wonder, I rather thought they would get by with it at the time, that perhaps some sort of deal was cut. I seem to have been thoroughly wrong about that, or else there is something else at work, public reaction, or something else.

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7. Why Barak went to Barak

The prime minister has once more leveled a barrage against the Goldstone report, denouncing it for undermining Israel's right to defend itself, encouraging terror and endangering peace. This matter, soon to be taken up at the United Nations, is becoming knottier and knottier. Was Benjamin Netanyahu's Knesset speech a signal that he and his top ministers are pulling back from the initiative to set up a panel to examine the events of Operation Cast Lead?

Three ministers have appealed to former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak to help the government disentangle itself from the thorn bush in which the report has landed it. Defense Minister Ehud Barak consulted the former chief justice about how to handle the report, and suggested that he head a panel to look into its allegations.

Two other ministers, both lawyers, met with Barak with the consent of the prime minister. They are familiar with the material and are aware that after the operation and before the publication of the report, hundreds (some say 2,000) claims by Palestinians piled up at the Justice Ministry. They know that no carpet is big enough for all the complaints to be swept under. The two discussed with Barak the possible judicial repercussions of, and the practical steps toward, setting up a panel. Their impression was that Barak would accept if the government decided to launch an inquiry and invited him to head it. This could prove to be brilliant move. No one is better or more suitable than the country's most senior judge, a man with an international reputation, to navigate a complicated confrontation with the results of a military operation. The decision alone would go some way toward lowering the flames ignited by Goldstone. Why hasn't it happened? The cabinet discussed the subject but decided not to decide, and it is inclined not to initiate a probe, reporters have been told. We know what happened next. The Palestinians moved to have the report taken up by UN institutions, had second thoughts under U.S. and Israeli pressure, then had third thoughts, this time with the backing of the UN secretary general.

According to sources close to the defense minister, the Barak-Barak meeting was no more than an initial attempt to put out feelers, after which the minister briefed Netanyahu and the chief of staff. Leaking it to the media the day before the cabinet discussion was apparently meant to torpedo the proposal. The defense minister's basic position, it was stressed, remains as it was: The Israel Defense Forces investigates itself very effectively, the Goldstone report should a priori not be accepted, and establishing a panel would be interpreted as at least partial agreement with its conclusions.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1120980.html