Saturday, 10 October 2009
After a week of criticism from fellow Palestinian Authority officials for his decision to pull a motion which would have urged the UN Human Rights Council to debate a report which condemned Israel for war crimes, PA President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday that he intends to revisit the motion and urge a discussion on the matter.
According to the Palestinian daily, Al-Ayyam, Abbas told US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell that he had already started the process of pushing a vote on the report concluding the findings of the Goldstone Commission that investigated Israel and Hamas during Operation Cast Lead.
The paper quoted top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat as saying that actions regarding the matter have been taken in Geneva.
On Thursday, PA Foreign Minister Riad Malki told reporters at UN headquarters that Hamas was trying to take cynical advantage of the report to curry favor back home.
The PA initially pushed for the Security Council to look into accusations Israel used disproportionate force and failed to protect civilians during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last winter.
The 575-page report accused Israel of using disproportionate force and failing to protect civilians while calling Hamas' firing of rockets at civilian areas in southern Israel a war crime.
Last week, the Palestinian leadership backed off bringing the report before the Security Council under pressure from US, sparking harsh criticism, including angry protests at home and condemnation around the Arab world, causing it to reconsider its position.
"This clear crisis about the report proves that the Hamas position is really trying to exploit it, to its own favor, trying to take advantage of it, and really score points, rather than having a genuine principled position regarding the report," Malki said.
On Wednesday, the Palestinian leadership again switched gears. It reversed itself by strongly backing Security Council member Libya's push to hold the 15-nation council's monthly debate on the Middle East a week earlier than planned and provide a high-profile forum for the explosive report to be discussed.
Malki said the PA leadership supports "all the recommendations" contained in the UN report on Gaza and had dispatched him to New York to press the case on Thursday for having the Security Council or other arms of the United Nations take up the findings.
