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Libya Tries to Force ‘Israeli War Crimes’ Report Onto Security Council Agenda
Less than a week after the U.N. Human Rights Council agreed to defer for six months a report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, Libya sought Wednesday to bypass that decision by bringing the matter before the U.N. Security Council instead.
(CNSNews.com) – Less than a week after the U.N. Human Rights Council agreed to defer for six months a report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, Libya sought Wednesday to bypass that decision by bringing the matter before the U.N. Security Council instead.
Libya, one of the Security Council’s 10 non-permanent members, pressed for an emergency council session to discuss the Goldstone report.
The council instead agreed to discuss it at a monthly meeting on the situation in the Middle East, and to bring that meeting a week forward, to next Wednesday.
The 575-page report, compiled for the Human Rights Council (HRC) by a fact-finding mission headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone, says that actions taken by Israel during its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip last winter amounted to war crimes and, possibly, crimes against humanity. It said the Palestinian terrorist group also committed was crimes.
Goldstone recommended that unless the Israelis and Palestinians launch independent investigations within six months that are deemed to be effective and genuine, the Security Council should refer the allegations to International Criminal Court prosecutors.
The report was brought before the HRC in Geneva last week and Israel rejected it, saying it had its own reviews and investigations into the conduct of the offensive underway.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in Jerusalem that adoption of the report would harm the war against terror by legitimizing “terrorists who fire upon civilians and who hide behind civilians.” He also warned that the move would “strike a fatal blow to the peace process.”
The United States was also critical of the report, and argued that the matter should be handled by the HRC, not be referred to other agencies.
Following intense U.S. lobbying focused on the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), Arab and Islamic states at the HRC reluctantly agreed not to push ahead with a resolution endorsing the report in full.
In order to give more time for “broad based and comprehensive consideration” of the Goldstone report, they said they would defer the move until the council’s next session in March.
Since that decision was taken last Friday, West Bank-based P.A. Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has faced a barrage of condemnation at home. Palestinians academics and activists, including members of Abbas’ Fatah faction, voiced outrage at what they view as capitulation to the U.S. and Israel.
Fatah’s rival, Hamas, also criticized the move, calling it “shameful” and labeling Abbas a traitor. Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since violently expelling Fatah in mid-2007, also warned that it would derail Egyptian-brokered reconciliation talks between the two factions, aimed at forming a unity government. A deal was due to have been signed on Oct. 26.
Although Hamas is also accused in the report of war crimes – for indiscriminately targeting Israeli civilians with rockets – it wants to see it taken further so that, in the words of Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum, Israeli leaders can be “brought before international courts as war criminals.” Most of the report focuses on Israel.
Beyond the Palestinian self-rule areas, criticism has also come from around the region, with officials in Egypt, Syria, Qatar and Iran among those expressing disapproval of the deferral decision.
Amid the furor and calls for Abbas’ resignation, a senior P.A. official said Wednesday that agreeing to defer action on the report had been a mistake. In a new shift, the P.A. threw its support behind the Libyan initiative at the Security Council.
While the council has agreed to bring forward its monthly meeting on the Middle East, it remains unclear how big a part of that meeting’s agenda will be taken up by the Goldstone report.
Speaking after Wednesday’s closed-door discussions, U.S. ambassador Alejandro Wolff told reporters that the report “is not before the Security Council.”
He acknowledged, however, that at next Wednesday’s meeting on the Middle East situation, “all delegations are free, as they always are each month, to raise whatever issue they think are pertinent to that issue.”
“On the question of the Goldstone report, that is a report mandated by the Human Rights Council, a new body that needs to be allowed to do its work.”
However, Libyan ambassador Abdurrahman Shalgham said the report would be debated openly, and vowed the “keep the momentum” going. P.A. Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki, who is in New York, said Thursday the P.A. was inviting “all countries” to attend the Oct. 14 Security Council meeting and to call for the report’s recommendations to be endorsed.
Eying the ICC
Security Council referral of Israel to the ICC would be a major victory for Palestinian and other advocacy groups which have been trying to get the tribunal to investigate complaints against Israel via alternative routes.
ICC prosecutors at first said they had no jurisdiction over Israel, which is not a party to the 1998 Rome Statute which created the court. Then early this year they said they would examine whether the P.A. was legally competent to accept the jurisdiction of the court, which could open another route to ICC action.
The ICC was established in 2002 to deal with cases of genocide, crimes against humanity and other violations. Washington opposed the initiative, concerned that it would be used to bring politically-motivated cases against Americans – especially U.S. troops abroad.
Although Israel for almost half a century promoted the notion of an international court to punish war crimes and genocide, in 1998 it voted against the Rome Statute because of the inclusion – at the instigation of Arab states led by Egypt – of a category of offence involving the movement of a country’s citizens to occupied territory.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi visits the U.N. headquarters in New York on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009. (AP Photo)
Libya, one of the Security Council’s 10 non-permanent members, pressed for an emergency council session to discuss the Goldstone report.
The council instead agreed to discuss it at a monthly meeting on the situation in the Middle East, and to bring that meeting a week forward, to next Wednesday.
The 575-page report, compiled for the Human Rights Council (HRC) by a fact-finding mission headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone, says that actions taken by Israel during its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip last winter amounted to war crimes and, possibly, crimes against humanity. It said the Palestinian terrorist group also committed was crimes.
Goldstone recommended that unless the Israelis and Palestinians launch independent investigations within six months that are deemed to be effective and genuine, the Security Council should refer the allegations to International Criminal Court prosecutors.
The report was brought before the HRC in Geneva last week and Israel rejected it, saying it had its own reviews and investigations into the conduct of the offensive underway.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in Jerusalem that adoption of the report would harm the war against terror by legitimizing “terrorists who fire upon civilians and who hide behind civilians.” He also warned that the move would “strike a fatal blow to the peace process.”
The United States was also critical of the report, and argued that the matter should be handled by the HRC, not be referred to other agencies.
Following intense U.S. lobbying focused on the Palestinian Authority (P.A.), Arab and Islamic states at the HRC reluctantly agreed not to push ahead with a resolution endorsing the report in full.
In order to give more time for “broad based and comprehensive consideration” of the Goldstone report, they said they would defer the move until the council’s next session in March.
Since that decision was taken last Friday, West Bank-based P.A. Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has faced a barrage of condemnation at home. Palestinians academics and activists, including members of Abbas’ Fatah faction, voiced outrage at what they view as capitulation to the U.S. and Israel.
Fatah’s rival, Hamas, also criticized the move, calling it “shameful” and labeling Abbas a traitor. Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since violently expelling Fatah in mid-2007, also warned that it would derail Egyptian-brokered reconciliation talks between the two factions, aimed at forming a unity government. A deal was due to have been signed on Oct. 26.
Although Hamas is also accused in the report of war crimes – for indiscriminately targeting Israeli civilians with rockets – it wants to see it taken further so that, in the words of Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum, Israeli leaders can be “brought before international courts as war criminals.” Most of the report focuses on Israel.
Beyond the Palestinian self-rule areas, criticism has also come from around the region, with officials in Egypt, Syria, Qatar and Iran among those expressing disapproval of the deferral decision.
Amid the furor and calls for Abbas’ resignation, a senior P.A. official said Wednesday that agreeing to defer action on the report had been a mistake. In a new shift, the P.A. threw its support behind the Libyan initiative at the Security Council.
While the council has agreed to bring forward its monthly meeting on the Middle East, it remains unclear how big a part of that meeting’s agenda will be taken up by the Goldstone report.
Speaking after Wednesday’s closed-door discussions, U.S. ambassador Alejandro Wolff told reporters that the report “is not before the Security Council.”
He acknowledged, however, that at next Wednesday’s meeting on the Middle East situation, “all delegations are free, as they always are each month, to raise whatever issue they think are pertinent to that issue.”
“On the question of the Goldstone report, that is a report mandated by the Human Rights Council, a new body that needs to be allowed to do its work.”
However, Libyan ambassador Abdurrahman Shalgham said the report would be debated openly, and vowed the “keep the momentum” going. P.A. Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki, who is in New York, said Thursday the P.A. was inviting “all countries” to attend the Oct. 14 Security Council meeting and to call for the report’s recommendations to be endorsed.
Richard Goldstone, head of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, addresses the press after the presentation of its report to the Human Rights Council on September 29, 2008 (UN Photo by Jean-Marc Ferre)
Security Council referral of Israel to the ICC would be a major victory for Palestinian and other advocacy groups which have been trying to get the tribunal to investigate complaints against Israel via alternative routes.
ICC prosecutors at first said they had no jurisdiction over Israel, which is not a party to the 1998 Rome Statute which created the court. Then early this year they said they would examine whether the P.A. was legally competent to accept the jurisdiction of the court, which could open another route to ICC action.
The ICC was established in 2002 to deal with cases of genocide, crimes against humanity and other violations. Washington opposed the initiative, concerned that it would be used to bring politically-motivated cases against Americans – especially U.S. troops abroad.
Although Israel for almost half a century promoted the notion of an international court to punish war crimes and genocide, in 1998 it voted against the Rome Statute because of the inclusion – at the instigation of Arab states led by Egypt – of a category of offence involving the movement of a country’s citizens to occupied territory.
