Goldstone challenges US over Gaza report

The United States has criticised the Goldstone report into Israel's war on Gaza, calling it one-sided.

In an interview with Al Jazeera's Shihab Rattansi, Justice Richard Goldstone challenged the US government to justify its claims that his findings are flawed and biased.

Goldstone said the attacks on him have become personal and he believes most critics have not even read the report. Goldstone tells Obama: Show me flaws in Gaza report

Land Thieves split over calls for war crimes inquiry

Ministers at loggerheads over UN's Goldstone report as pressure mounts for them to hold investigation

A meeting of Israel's inner security cabinet yesterday left ministers split over whether to yield to growing diplomatic pressure to hold a major public investigation to deflect the findings of the UN's Goldstone report on last winter's war in Gaza.

The meeting postponed any decision on an independent investigation as it emerged that the Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, has so far led opposition to the setting up of an inquiry.

Officials in the foreign and justice ministries have been urging the establishment of an inquiry – possibly under a senior Israeli judge – as the best means of neutralising the adverse diplomatic fallout from the report, which Israel has fiercely rejected as biased.

The report, which calls for an investigation into possible war crimes by both Israel and Hamas but devotes most of its 570 pages to fierce criticism of Israel's conduct, was referred to the UN General Assembly last week by the Human Rights Council. While the US opposed the resolution and Britain and France did not vote, the governments of all three countries have advised Israel to hold its own inquiry.

In the face of Mr Barak's opposition and with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, yet to reach a firm conclusion, yesterday's meeting did not discuss the form or scope of any inquiry, let alone whether it would be allowed to initiate criminal prosecutions as envisaged in the report by Richard Goldstone, a respected former South African Supreme Court judge.

Instead the meeting decided to intensify Israel's diplomatic efforts to urge more countries to reject outright the Goldstone report after Mr Netanyahu told ministers: "Our struggle is to delegitimise the continuing attempt to delegitimise the state of Israel. The most important sphere we need to work in is the sphere of public opinion in the democratic world."

While some Israeli officials predicted that in the end pressure – including from within parts of the Israeli establishment – to hold an inquiry would be irresistible, others indicated there was still strong opposition to an inquiry outside the justice ministry.

The defence ministry is partly arguing that such an investigation could compromise or even discredit the 100 separate investigations – including 20 criminal ones – it says it is still holding into specific allegations about the conduct of units in the operation, which left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead.

Other ministers argue that no inquiry will offset what they regard as the systematic bias against Israel of many Muslim and other countries who lined up to endorse last week's Human Rights Council resolution, pointing out that it did not even explicitly mention Hamas.

Against this is the fear that the absence of further action inside Israel could up the risk of proceedings against generals and politicians when they travel to Europe, or even of proceedings by the International Criminal Court.

While the US has indicated it will veto any Security Council resolution calling for proceedings by the ICC – of which Israel, like the US, is not a signatory – a UN General Assembly decision in favour of such proceedings cannot be ruled out.

Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that Mr Goldstone, who is Jewish, himself told a group of American rabbis in a telephone conference call on Sunday night: "If the Israeli government set up an open investigation, that would really be the end of the matter, as far as Israel is concerned."

*A Palestinian was manhandled by Palestinian security guards in the West Bank city of Hebron yesterday after shouting "You are a terrorist" at the international Middle East envoy Tony Blair. The man, who was carrying a bag, shouted: "He is not welcome in the land of Palestine," as he was backed into a corner. An aide to Mr Blair said last night that there had been no threat to the former prime minister and he had otherwise been warmly welcomed.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-cabinet-split-over-calls-for-war-inquiry-1806267.html

115 countries want Israel to be responsible for Gaza war crimes

Palestinians Holocausted by Jews

115 countries of the Non-aligned Movement (NAM) have called on the UN Security Council to hold Israel responsible for atrocities committed in Gaza during its offensive.

NAM Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz asked the Security Council on Wednesday to "seriously consider and act upon the recommendations" of the UN Fact Finding Mission headed by Richard Goldstone.

The move comes while the US Administration was planning to stall efforts by the countries to condemn Israel.

Washington says the war crime charges in the Goldstone report, should be dealt with in the Human Rights Council, not the Security Council.

The Security Council decided to review the issue in its Wednesday meeting despite the US pressure. However, the attempts by Washington to stall the process has sparkled outrage by right groups.

"That President Obama is receiving the Noble Peace prize after his failure to speak out during the Gaza war, and after his administration's protection of a state that has committed war crimes, is an abomination," Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, told Inter Press Service.

"Sadly, its conduct at the Human Rights Council [in Geneva] where it called the Goldstone report deeply flawed shows that it will again do all in its power to try and bury any investigation of Israel for war crimes," he added.

Ratner warned that such moves would embolden Israel to continue its atrocities.

The failure to refer the Gaza matter to the ICC (International Criminal Court) undercuts any claim that the law is applied equally to Israel and the Palestinians.
'

Jewish Blackmail:

Israel: No peace talks unless UNHRC drops Gaza report

[F*** P*** Talks lets try the evi war criminals first!]

A day before the UN Human Rights Council convenes to debate on a UN report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, Tel Aviv threatens to scrap peace talks with Palestinians unless the damning report is dropped.

The threat came Wednesday as the report was being discussed at the UN Security Council (UNSC)'s regular monthly meeting on the Middle East.

During the UNSC meeting, Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki urged the 15-member body to adopt the report, compiled by a fact-finding mission headed by South African judge and international prosecutor Richard Goldstone.

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) will hold a special session to debate the issue on Thursday. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak called the foreign ministers of France, Britain, Spain and Norway on Wednesday and asked them not to back the Gaza report.

The Geneva-based body was initially set to vote on the report last week, but it was delayed until March 2010, after the Palestinian Authority withdrew its support for the report.

Having faced an unprecedented wave of condemnation and accusations of treason over his controversial decision, Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas made a U-turn and called for a special session of the UN Human Rights Council to vote on the report in order to save his image.

Different Palestinian factions, including Hamas, had accused Abbas of betraying the victims of the three-week war by bowing to pressure from the US and Israel. Both Israeli and US officials dismissed the report as biased.

If adopted, the UN Human Rights Council could refer the report to the UN Security Council. The UNSC can call for the prosecution of senior Israeli officials in the International Criminal Court, if Tel Aviv fails to launch its own investigations into the Gaza war under international scrutiny.

PressTV

U.S. Slammed for Appeasing the Nazis

A U.S. decision to stall Security Council action against Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas for war crimes during the 22-day conflict in Gaza last December has come under heavy fire both from inside and outside the United Nations.

Addressing the Security Council Wednesday, the chair of the 118-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz of Egypt urged the powerful 15-member political body to "seriously consider and act upon the recommendations" of the U.N. Fact Finding Mission headed by Justice Richard Goldstone.

But the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama says the charges of war crimes in the Goldstone report, which was released last month, should be within the purview of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, not the Security Council in New York.

Despite reservations by Western nations, the Council agreed to hold a special meeting Wednesday on the Middle East: a meeting which provided member states with an opportunity to discuss the Goldstone report and focus on the serious violations of international human rights during the Gaza conflict, both by Israel and Hamas.

"That President Obama is receiving the Noble Peace prize after his failure to speak out during the Gaza war, and after his administration's protection of a state that has committed war crimes, is an abomination," Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, told IPS.

The number of Palestinians killed during the conflict is estimated at between 1,387 and 1,417, mostly civilians, compared with four Israeli fatal casualties in southern Israel and nine soldiers killed during fighting, four of whom died as a result of friendly fire.

Ratner said one would hope that the United States would not block the referral of both Israel and Hamas to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for an investigation of war crimes committed in Gaza.

"Sadly, its conduct at the Human Rights Council [in Geneva] where it called the Goldstone report deeply flawed shows that it will again do all in its power to try and bury any investigation of Israel for war crimes," he added.

By doing so, Washington is giving Israel a green light to continue to commit atrocities, said Ratner, who heads the non-profit human rights litigation organisation.

The failure to refer the Gaza matter to the ICC undercuts any claim that the law is applied equally to Israel and the Palestinians, he noted.

"That the United States attacked the report, authored by Judge Goldstone, one of the pre-eminent jurists in the world, demonstrates that it is willing to debase both the law and a respected jurist in its effort to protect a client state, despite its crimes," Ratner declared.

The Goldstone report has recommended that the Security Council require Israel to report to it, within the next six months, on investigations and prosecutions it should carry out with regard to the violations cited in the report.

During the ruthless military operation, codenamed 'Operation Cast Lead', the Israelis destroyed houses, factories, wells, schools, hospitals, police stations and other public buildings.

The report also recommended that the Security Council should set up its own body of independent experts to report to it on the progress of the Israeli investigations and prosecutions.

"If the expert's reports do not indicate within six months that good faith, independent proceedings are taking place, the Security Council should refer the situation in Gaza to the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Court (ICC)," the report recommended.

The report also recommended that the same expert body report to the Security Council on proceedings undertaken by the relevant Gaza authorities with regard to the crimes committed by the Palestinian side.

But the report's strongest indictment is not against Hamas but against the state of Israel, which is accused of imposing a blockade on Gaza "amounting to collective punishment" carried out as part of a "systematic policy of progressive isolation and deprivation of the Gaza Strip".

Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, told IPS the Obama administration and Congressional leaders of both parties appear to be continuing the policy of the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush in ignoring and denouncing those who have the temerity to report violations of international humanitarian law by the United States or its allies.

"They are particularly concerned about the matter going before the International Criminal Court where those Palestinians and Israelis guilty of war crimes might actually face justice," he said.

The Obama administration appears determined that such war criminals be granted impunity, said Zunes, who is also chair of the Middle Eastern Studies Programme, and who has written extensively on the Security Council.

He said that although U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice had argued just a few months earlier during a U.N. debate on Darfur, Sudan that war crimes charges should never be sacrificed for political reasons, she is now claiming that similar action on the Gaza conflict could be an impediment to the peace process.

"It's ironic that the Obama administration is insisting that the issue stay confined to the U.N.'s Human Rights Council, which they have repeatedly labeled as anti-Israel," Zunes said.

U.S. officials recognise, however, that if the matter is taken to the Security Council, as the Goldstone Commission recommended, it would place debate on violations of international humanitarian law by a key U.S. ally before a body that, unlike the Human Rights Council, has an enforcement mechanism.

"It would also allow far greater media exposure of Israeli war crimes, the bulk of which were implemented using U.S. weapons systems and ordnance," he noted.

Yvonne Terlingen, Amnesty International representative at the United Nations, called for the prompt establishment of an independent committee of experts in international humanitarian law and human rights law to monitor and report.

Such a report, she said, should be within a strict time frame, to the Security Council and other U.N. bodies, on domestic legal and other measures taken by Israel and the authorities in Gaza to address accountability for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law during the Gaza conflict.

Last week, the Human Rights Council, prompted by the Palestinians, decided to defer a draft resolution that would have endorsed the recommendations in the Goldstone report.

That proposed draft resolution was expected to be taken up during the Council's next session in March 2010.

But the deferment created such a political uproar that it forced the Palestinians to do a dramatic turnaround: to support a meeting of the Security Council Wednesday and also a special session of the Human Rights Council on Thursday to discuss the Goldstone report.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said the failure of the U.S. and European states to endorse the Goldstone report at the Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva "sent a terrible message that serious laws-of-war violations by allied states would be tolerated".

Addressing the Security Council Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff made a predictable statement that the United States continues to "have serious concerns about the [Goldstone] report, its unbalanced focus on Israel, the overly broad scope of its recommendations, and its sweeping conclusions of law."

Nevertheless, he said, "We take the allegations in the report seriously."

"Israel has the institutions and the ability to carry out serious investigations of these allegations and we encourage it to do so," Wolff said.

He also said that Hamas "is a terrorist organisation and has neither the ability nor the willingness to examine its violations of human rights".

http://buchanan.org/blog/u-s-slammed-for-shielding-israel-on-gaza-killings-2564