Palestinians seek punishment of Israel over Gaza attack
Report on abuses to be addressed at UN council
NEW YORK -The Palestinian leadership tried to bolster its credibility by pressing forward yesterday on a UN report on the Gaza war at a specially scheduled debate at the UN Security Council, saying it would call for a formal endorsement of the report this week in Geneva.
The Security Council debate represented the first major step in the Palestinian effort to reverse its surprise decision two weeks ago to delay action on the report, which found evidence of Israeli war crimes. The decision, made under American pressure after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel threatened that advancing the report would end any chance of peace talks, prompted a strong reaction against the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.
Abbas is a relatively moderate leader whom the United States and Israel have tried to bolster in the face of popular gains by Hamas, and there was a sense that the pressure on him had backfired.
Riyad al-Maliki, the foreign affairs minister for the Palestinian Authority, told delegates gathered at the Security Council that the Palestinians would seek to “rectify the malfunction that occurred’’ in Geneva when the Human Rights Council met on Thursday and Friday. He added that Palestinian leaders were hopeful that the 47-member council would “endorse and formally convey the report to the appropriate UN agencies, in accordance with the report’s recommendations.’’
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, responded by reiterating Israel’s stance that the report was one-sided and biased against Israel. The report, she said, “favors and legitimizes terrorism’’ and was “destructive to the peace process.’’
She added: “If Israel is asked to take further risks for peace, the international community must recognize our right to self-defense.’’
But there was no Israeli comment as harsh as Netanyahu’s earlier warnings.
The 575-page report, created by a four-member panel led by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone, details evidence of war crimes committed by both the Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups in connection with last winter’s fighting, though it reserves its harshest language for Israeli actions. Foremost among its recommendations is that allegations of war crimes by both sides should be referred to the Security Council for possible prosecution at the International Criminal Court in The Hague if credible investigations are not undertaken within six months.
Israeli officials have engaged in extensive diplomatic efforts to discredit the Goldstone report since its release in mid-September.
Their efforts intensified this week as it became clear that the Human Rights Council was no longer going to delay until March a decision on whether to formally endorse the report.
Facing a furor at home, particularly from Hamas - the militant Islamic group that is the Palestinian Authority’s main rival - Abbas backtracked on his support for the delay, instructing his ambassador in Geneva to gather enough signatures to have the council reconvene. The council announced the special session on Tuesday.
