Resolution at UN on Goldstone report deferred to March (3rd Roundup)

Oct 2, 2009, 18:00 GMT

Jerusalem/Geneva/Gaza - The Palestinian Authority, along with Islamic and African states, announced Friday they would defer until March next year voting at the UN Human Rights Council on adopting the war crimes report of Justice Richard Goldstone.

The Geneva-based body had been expected to vote on a draft resolution that would have condemned Israel for not cooperating with the fact finding mission.

The resolution would have also endorsed Goldstone's call for the UN General Assembly or Security Council to follow up on the investigations into alleged violations.

The report accused both Hamas and Israel of committing war crimes in the three-week conflict in the Gaza Strip that began in late December. If the sides did not investigate themselves objectively within six months, Goldstone said the International Criminal Court should take up the case.

Officially announcing the deferral was Pakistan, which heads the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the grouping of Muslim states.

'In order to give more time for a broad-based and comprehensive consideration of the International Fact Finding Mission's report' the OIC asked that the resolution be deferred to the next session of the council in March.

A Palestinian diplomat stated that his government wanted to gather more support at the 47-member body for the resolution and allow the membership to study the report further.

However, Palestinian human rights groups addressed the council and slammed their government's position, calling it 'an insult to the victims of Operation Cast Lead,' the official name of the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Thursday that passage of the resolution would have been a 'critical blow' to the peace process.

Officials said the Palestinians came under pressure from the US government, which has said the Goldstone proposals should wait until after Mideast peace talks have resumed. The US has also alleged the report was 'deeply flawed.'

'The United States won Israel a reprieve on the Goldstone report, so now it must ensure that Israel genuinely investigates allegations of abuse,' said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch in New York.

If this does not happen by March, the next session of the council, HRW said the US should endorse the Goldstone report. US Assistant Secretary of State Esther Brimmer told reporters in Washington that both Israel and the Palestinians must look into the accusations of abuses.

'These are serious allegations that need follow-up and will urge the parties to look at their responsibilities in this regard,' she said. 'And we know and we would expect both to continue to do so.'

Officials in Geneva noted a letter sent to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton by 32 senators, calling for the government to oppose the report and ensure 'that Israel is treated fairly at the UN,' while calling the report 'biased.'

The session of the council which closed Friday was the first with the US as a member of the 47-state-body, established in 2006.

Diplomats in Geneva said the report and the resolution would likely still resurface in March, the main session of the council, and added the Palestinians came under pressure from both the US and Israel.

'The report is still alive. We will have to see what happens in March,' said one UN official, adding that the upcoming months also offered the sides a chance to carry out investigations into their own actions during the war.

The Palestinian Authority denied it acted under pressure.

In Gaza, Taher Nono, a Hamas government spokesman, accused the PA of committing 'a serious crime against our people, a betrayal to the blood of our martyrs and collaboration with the Zionist enemy and cooperation with it in the war and aggression on Gaza.'

Hamas had initially expressed dismay over the report, as it found the Islamist movement's military actions incompatible with international law, particularly the rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.

Human rights groups say about 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians, were killed in the three week war, along with Israeli fatalities of three civilians and 10 soldiers.