PA in a U-Turn Policy on Gaza Report

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09/10/2009 The Palestinian Authority appears to be attempting an about turn on endorsing the Goldstone report that criticizes Israel's conduct in its war on Gaza. The Palestinian representative to the United Nations in Geneva said on Friday he was in talks to convene an emergency session of the world body's human rights council to discuss the report.

Ibrahim Khreisheh's announcement on Thursday comes a day after the UN Security Council rejected Libya's request for an emergency session on the report.

The Palestinian Authority had earlier agreed to the council delaying a vote on the report until March 2010, apparently under heavy pressure from the United States and Israel. The move sparked widespread condemnation from Palestinian people and across the Arab world.

Khraishi said his mission has begun consultations to schedule an extraordinary meeting of the council "as soon as possible" to adopt the report and implement its recommendations.

An investigation ordered by the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council and led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone found that both the Israeli armed forces and Hamas resistance fighters committed “war crimes” in the December-January war. But the report, issued last month, was more critical of Israel.

The Human Rights Council had been due to vote Friday on a resolution that would have condemned Israel's failure to cooperate with the inquiry and forwarded the report to the Security Council. But action was postponed until March after U.S. pressure aimed at getting the “peace process” back on track. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has come under sharp criticism at home for agreeing to the delay. Such a vote would have been one of many steps to bring Israel before a war crimes tribunal.

The United States, which agrees with Israel that Goldstone's mandate was slanted against the Zionist entity, has been anxious to prevent the report becoming a Security Council agenda item in its own right.

Speaking after two hours of closed-door council procedural discussions, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff made clear Washington would not favor any council action resulting from the Oct. 14 debate.

The report itself recommends that both Israel and the Gaza authorities investigate the war crimes allegations and that if they do not do so in six months the Security Council should refer the matter to the International Criminal Court.