Hamas: Do not mix up between Goldstone's personal positions and UN findings

[ 04/04/2011 - 10:26 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Hamas Movement said it rejects the confusion between the facts reached by the UN probe team about Israel's war crimes in Gaza and Richard Goldstone's personal and political positions and orientations.

In a press release on Sunday, Hamas slammed Goldstone for bending to pressures that were exerted on him to question the result of the investigation that he led.

The Movement urged the countries and organizations concerned with the UN report and supportive of international justice to uphold the findings that came in the report and to work on activating it through the UN institutions in order to hold Israeli war criminal accountable.

"The report emerged after a field investigation and an observation of the facts on the ground by the international committee that was led by Goldstone himself," Hamas stressed.

Those facts and incidents were witnessed by many international human rights organizations," it added.

Hamas underlined that questioning the results of the investigation is against ethical and legal principals, especially since it resulted from political pressures put on Goldstone by South-African Zionist organizations which had declared their intents to force him by all means to back down from his position.

For its part, the Palestinian government in Gaza expressed its dismay at Goldstone for backtracking on his position on Gaza war in a newspaper article he wrote a few days ago.

In a statement issued by its ministry of justice, the government said that Goldstone and his family were exposed to many pressures and threats by Israel.

It pointed out that Goldstone wrote his article in response to considerable threats made against him by Israel which is notorious for pressuring international envoys and officials and killing UN mediator Folke Bernadotte in September 1948.

The government also noted that Goldstone report was not the only one which proved the incidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza, but there were dozens of reports issued by international and local human rights figures and organizations such as the reports of Richard Falk, Navi Pillay and the Arab League.

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