Rights council debates Gaza report

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva has begun debating the Goldstone report on the conduct of the Gaza war late last year.

Thursday's session comes at the request of the Palestinian Authority, which had initially agreed to defer a vote on the UN-sanctioned report, but later backtracked after coming under heavy criticism.

The debate comes a day after the UN Security Council also discussed the report, during which the Palestinian Authority demanded that Israel be punished for war crimes.

Riad al-Maliki, the Palestinian Authority's foreign minister, said at the Security Council meeting in New York on Wednesday that the UN should take action against Israel for its "savage attack" on the territory.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/10/2009101514315700273.html

Israel has come under pressure from its allies to investigate UN allegations of possible war crimes by its army during its Gaza offensive last winter.

Britain's UN envoy urged Israel to hold "full, credible and impartial" investigations, echoing similar calls from his US and French counterparts.

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French Ambassador Gerard Araud urged both sides to initiate "independent inquiries in line with international standards."

The deputy US Ambassador, Alejandro Wolff, expressed serious concerns about the report - citing an "unbalanced focus on Israel" - but he repeated the US view that Israel should look into it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8308367.stm

And they took a few days to do it, which was really impressive seeing they could have taken half a day and be done with it! Sheez, I don't know what more people want. A full week wasted on clearing themselves of any wrongdoing? Would that make it a "full, credible and impartial" investigation? ;)

The point is that doing their own "credible" investigation of the Goldstone allegations is the best way to prevent them from being taken to The Hague, and "nobody wants that". I expect there will be a good deal of noise about what is and is not "credible", but all the incentives would seem to lie on the side of not letting things get out of your own control, so I expect that an effort will be mounted, as I said a couple weeks back.

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

The Middle East peace process was on the brink of collapse last night as Britain and other European countries failed to back Israel in a key vote at the United Nations.

A furious Israel threatened to pull out of peace talks if the UN Human Rights Council endorses today a controversial report condemning the Jewish state for war crimes during the Gaza offensive in January.

Britain is planning to abstain, prompting a heated telephone call between Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Gordon Brown on Wednesday night. Mr Netanyahu urged the Prime Minister to oppose the resolution, saying that it could derail the peace process.

During what officials described as a “robust exchange”, Mr Brown said Israel could avoid censure if it held its own inquiry into the Gaza offensive.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6877164.ece

<snip>

"The United Nations Human Rights Council is expected to endorse on Friday the Goldstone Report on Operation Lead Cast and its recommendations, despite the diplomatic efforts undertaken by Israel and the United States in recent days.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spent much of the past few days on the matter, failed to convince his colleagues, mostly in Europe, to oppose the adoption of the report.

Netanyahu held a series of meetings to assess the Goldstone Report and also had intensive telephone conversations with senior figures in Europe in an effort to block the report.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu spoke with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for 15 minutes, seeking to convince him to support Israel's position in the matter. The prime minister noted that the report was an obstacle to the peace process and described it as "ridiculous" and as "having contributed to the Palestinians' hardening of their stance and refusing negotiations."

At one point, Netanyahu asked the secretary-general to declare publicly Israel's right to defend itself, and requested that he take a stance against the report. The UN official, who mostly listened to the prime minister, did not express support for Israel's view and noted that he cannot take action that runs contrary to the position of the UNHRC as well as the views of the country members of the UN Security Council.

"I have recorded your position, but I cannot intervene," Ban said.

Another conversation the prime minister had, this time with his British counterpart Gordon Brown, was said by a diplomat to have lasted 30 minutes. According to sources, the exchange was uneasy and full of disagreements. Netanyahu tried to convince Brown that the U.K. change its position from abstaining to opposing its adoption by the Human Rights Council.

Netanyahu also protested the fact that the U.K. supported taking the Goldstone Report seriously, and that Britain intends to abstain at the vote.

Minister of Defense Ehud Barak also spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton several times, asking her to act quickly in order to convince more countries to vote against the report's adoption. Clinton also focused her efforts on Britain, whose stance will affect that of other European Union countries.

Clinton asked British Foreign Minister David Miliband to alter his stance and vote against the adoption of the report. However, like Netanyahu, Clinton also failed to convince the British foreign minister."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121539.html

Regardless of how the vote turns out Friday in the UN Human Rights Council - whether the Goldstone Commission Report is sent to the UN Security Council, the General Assembly, or both, and what the council's final resolution says - one thing is certain: Goldstone is going to be with us for a long time, and the report will have significant ramifications on a wide range of issues.

This issue is a marathon, not a sprint, and Israeli policy-makers will have to adjust and recalibrate depending upon developments over which they have little control.

For instance, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu hoped - and actively lobbied - to ensure the report stayed in Geneva. Those efforts appear to have failed, and now he and the country will have to restrategize to deal with a report that will be discussed in New York, and which will pick up more credibility by simply making it to New York.

If the Human Rights Council sends the report to the Security Council, the Security Council could theoretically then refer it to the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC), the worst scenario from Israel's perspective, and one that could conceivably lead to indictments against Israeli leaders or officers. The likelihood of that happening is slim, however, since it is widely expected that the US would veto such a resolution.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1255547731926&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

<snip>

"I put off reading the Goldstone report the same way I put off scheduling a colonoscopy. I now realize it was for many of the same reasons. You know it's going to be tremendously uncomfortable, you don't want to know what they're going to find, and the consequences could be life-threatening. I know that I am not alone. Despite the many people who have made strident declarations about the report, few have actually read it, end to end.

It's a tough slog, the hundreds of pages of the UN-sponsored report on allegations of war crimes in Gaza. The material is infuriating at times, the content inconsistent, the methodology slapdash. But for anyone who cares about the future of this place, and for anyone who has paid close attention to the hyperbole and factual errors of Israeli leaders in condemning it, the read is more than worthwhile - if only for the key element of its surprise ending: A marked degree of fairness.

It does not question the right of Israel - or, for that matter, the Palestinians - to self-defense, but it accuses both sides of having resorted to war crimes in the course of, or in the name of, defending themselves. The inquiry breaks new ground for the UN, and breaks sharply from its original mandate, in addressing Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians.

From the start, Israel's responses have been that of the brilliant blockhead - the lawyer so in love with his own case that he persuades no one. And everything that Israel has done in its own defense, has made its situation worse."

<snip>

"The bottom line, for Israelis, is simply this: Israel desperately needs a respected commission of inquiry of its own, to probe precisely the charges leveled by the Goldstone Mission. Israel owes its own citizens no less. It needs this, first and foremost, for the sake of its own future, and for the moral standards that it has explicitly set for itself. In fact, this is what Justice Goldstone is recommending that Israel do, specifically to avoid a summons to the Hague.

Then again, this government is led by Benjamin Netanyahu of MIT and Ehud Barak of Stanford, two men who may still be too blinded by their own brilliance to be able to see how blind they have become. Their temptation now will be to choose the risk of sacrificing their country's best long-term interests over the risk of being proven wrong. And, if current indications hold, both options may well come to pass.

Now I'll have to schedule that colonoscopy."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121054.html#