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Abbas may change his mind on Goldstone Report
Abbas may change his mind on Goldstone Report
AFP/Y-net/Ma’an
October 6, 2006
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3786375,00.html
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=230094
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=230026


Chief Palestinian negotiator Erekat says Palestinian president `seriously considering` asking Arab and Islamic bloc to officially take UN committee`s conclusions on Gaza war to international bodies, in light of controversy raised around report

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas was on Tuesday `seriously considering` asking that a United Nations Gaza war report be passed on to the Security Council, a senior official said.

`President Abbas is seriously studying the possibility of asking the Arab and Islamic bloc to officially take the Goldstone report to international bodies, including the UN General Assembly and the Security Council,` chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said in a phone call from Amman.


The move appeared to mark a change in position, as the Palestinian delegation on Friday backed a move at the UN Human Rights Council to defer a vote on whether the report should be passed on.


Erakat said Abbas` decision came `in light of the controversy that has arisen` around the report, which accused Israel of committing war crimes during its three-week Gaza war that erupted December 27.


`We want to discuss the report in international bodies so they will take decisions on what emerged in the report, in order to insure that the crimes committed by Israel against our people are never repeated,` he said.


On Friday, the Palestinian delegation to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva dropped its support for the report, paving the way for Arab and Islamic states who had supported it to vote to delay its discussion for six months.

The move was widely seen as a response to intense pressure from the United States and Israel, which warned that the 49-member council`s adoption of the report could torpedo efforts to relaunch Middle East peace talks.


The Palestinian democratically elected Hamas movement ruling Gaza has led a chorus of criticism of the move, accusing Abbas of betraying the 1,400 mainly-civilian Palestinians killed in Israel`s offensive.

Abbas was to visit Italy on Tuesday before returning to the West Bank town of Ramallah on Wednesday, where he was to convene a meeting of Palestinian leaders to discuss the report.

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Bethlehem – Ma’an – The United States denied reports on Monday that it pressured President Mahmoud Abbas to allow the United Nations to delay action to bring alleged Israeli war criminals to justice.

At the daily State Department press briefing on Monday, spokesperson Ian Kelly was asked about reports that US officials demanded that Abbas ask the UN Human Rights Council to delay a vote the report of investigator Richard Goldstone.

“I don’t know if I would accept your characterization of pressuring,” Kelly responded. “I think that we recognized that we had serious concerns with the recommendations and some of the allegations.”

Goldstone’s report called for Israeli and Palestinian officials to be investigated and prosecuted for alleged war crimes committed during Israel’s three-week assault on Gaza last winter. The delay of international action on the report has caused a wave of public outrage at Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.

Kelly said that he felt that Israel’s own investigations would be sufficient, presumably making international action unnecessary: “We felt very strongly that while these investigations should be investigated and addressed, that we thought on the one hand that Israel had the kind of institutions that could address these allegations. And of course, we urged Israel to address these very serious allegations.

“We didn’t want the report to distract us from our ultimate goal, which was to address the root causes of the tragic events of last January, and that’s the lack of a regional and lasting peace between the two parties – between the Israelis and the Palestinians,” Kelly also said.

The State Department spokesperson spoke in praise of the Palestinian Authority’s handling of the issue: “We appreciate the seriousness with which the Palestinians approach this very, very difficult issue, and we respect this decision to defer discussion of the report to a later date for the reasons that I just stated – that we want to make sure that we stay focused on the ultimate goal here.”

Asked specifically whether the US Consul General in Jerusalem held a meeting with Abbas in which he relayed a message from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding that he call for a delay in the UN vote, Kelly said, “In all honesty, I’m not aware of that meeting, and so I can’t comment on it. I’m not sure that we would comment on a meeting – on a confidential, diplomatic exchange between one of our diplomats and a representative of the Palestinian Authority.”

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Ramallah PLC members side with Abbas over Gaza report fiasco

The PLC chamber in Ramallah [MaanImages]Ramallah – Ma’an – Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) asked Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad Al-Maliki on Monday for an explanation as to why Palestinian diplomats dropped their endorsement of a key United Nations report on alleged war crimes in Gaza.

A statement that emerged from the Ramallah meeting was much less critical of Abbas and his government than a parallel but separate meeting of Hamas-affiliated lawmakers in the Gaza Strip that denounced President Mahmoud Abbas as a traitor for moving to delay international action on the report by Judge Richard Goldstone.

The Ramallah statement asked Al-Maliki to explain the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to follow up on the report, and welcomed Abbas’ decision to form a commission of inquiry into why the report was dropped.

The statement went on to praise the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its delegation at the UN in Geneva for supporting the report, apparently by giving delegates more time to consider its contents.

The lawmakers also urged Palestinian factions not to engage in debate that would “have a negative impact on the on the pursuit of the national reconciliation,” a possible allusion to Hamas’ strong denunciation of Abbas over the report.

Last week, Abbas, under reported pressure from the US, apparently ordered his envoy to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to move to defer action on the report until March.

Hamas leader and de facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh earlier on Monday said that the decision to delay action on the Goldstone report was “an unprecedented negligence of the blood of the martyrs and the rights of the Palestinian people in Gaza, West Bank, and Jerusalem.”

A.K.



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