Today, speaking to journalists at a press conference at the presidential headquarters in Cairo (after his meeting with Egyptian President Husni Mubarak), the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gave some new details about the circumstances surrounding the fiasco concerning the Goldstone report in the UN Human Rights Council on 2 October.
According to a report of Abbas’ remarks published by Ma’an News Agency, when “Asked why he asked the UN Human Rights Council initially to defer the vote, Abbas said, ‘When the report was revealed in Geneva, Arab countries, African countries, the Non-Aligned Movement group, and the Islamic group submitted a proposal, but the superpowers rejected it. Then … the US submitted a very low-level resolution to be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council, and we rejected that. It was necessary to defer discussion of the report, and this decision was made by the four groups: the Arab countries, the Islamic countries, Palestine, and the Non-Aligned group.”
The Ma’an report also says that in the press conference in Egypt today, “Abbas alleged that the controversy following the delay of the vote was manufactured by his opponents. ‘It was a campaign full of lies and false accusations. When we requested submitting the report after it was deferred, 25 member countries voted for the report, and had it not been deferred, only 18 members would have voted for it’.”
This Ma’an report can be read in full here.
The Palestinian Investigative Committee appointed by Abbas nearly two weeks ago is presumably still doing its work.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu convened his security cabinet on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the Goldstone report’s findings, which accuse Israel of committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during last winter’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. The Jerusalem Post reported that, according to Israel Radio, “Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz had been expected to propose setting up such a commission, but that he was set to face strong opposition from security cabinet members, particularly Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Those inside the government advocating an independent inquiry into the Gaza offensive have argued that this would be one way to remove the threat of Israel being hauled before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, since the International Criminal Court does not take up cases where credible and independent investigations are being conducted by the countries involved”. The JPost also stated that “The Prime Minister’s Office on Monday would not divulge the nature of Netanyahu’s response to a joint letter sent on Friday by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urging the premier, among other things, to set up an independent inquiry into Operation Cast Lead”. This JPost report can be read in full here.
In another report, the JPost said that South Africa’s Justice Richard Goldstone also said that Israel would be let off the hook if only it launched its own independent investigation into the report of his Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza conflict: “If the Israeli government set up an open investigation, that would really be the end of the matter, as far as Israel is concerned”, Goldstone told American rabbis in a telephone conference call organized on Sunday night by Taanit Tzedek-Jewish Fast for Gaza. The JPost explained that this is “a group composed of US rabbis who have been organizing monthly fasts since July to protest Israel’s closure of the Gaza crossings to all but humanitarian aid … During the call, he repeated some of the charges outlined in his report, [inccluding] that the level of civilian destruction in Gaza ‘was not by error, it was by design. It was not a mistake, the IDF does not do those things by error … It was a collective punishment. I do not believe that significant distinction was made between civilians and combatants in that respect’, Goldstone said”. According to this JPost article, Goldstone indicated that the “report is meant to be a blue print for further judicial investigations … It was meant to be the result of a fact-finding mission. ‘We weren’t conducting a judicial investigation. We didn’t make our findings according to the criminal standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I would say it was a prima facie case, reasonable on weighing the evidence … [but] The information we’ve got would not be admissible as evidence in a criminal court’.”
And, this JPost story reports, “Goldstone rejected Israel’s assertion that the report would damage the peace process … The Israeli claims ‘are shallow and false’, Goldstone said. ‘What peace process are they talking about? There isn’t one’.”
And, the JPost said, Goldstone added: ‘I don’t believe you can have a lasting peace until these things have been put on the table’.” This report can be read in full here.