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In a startling shift, the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council dropped its efforts to forward a report accusing Israel of possible war crimes to the Security Council, under pressure from the United States, diplomats said Thursday.
The Americans argued that pushing the report now would derail the Middle East peace process that they are trying to revive, diplomats said.
Palestinian diplomats in Geneva say a U.N. report on war crimes in Gaza "remains alive" despite dropping their support for a resolution endorsing the 575-page document.
Deputy ambassador Imad Zuhairi says the resolution in the U.N. Human Rights Council was deferred to March to get more of the body's 47-members on board.
He denies that the surprise decision to delay the resolution came after heavy pressure from the United States.
Washington and its close ally Israel have rejected the report compiled by a U.N. team led by former South African judge Richard Goldstone.
This season’s episodes of “Shara’a Simsim,” the Palestinian version of the global “Sesame Street” franchise, were filmed in a satellite campus of Al-Quds University, a ramshackle four-story concrete structure that houses the school’s media department and a small local television station. The building sits in an upscale neighborhood on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Ramallah, not far from the edge of the Israeli settlement Psagot. Like many structures on the West Bank, the Al-Quds building seems to be simultaneously under construction and decaying into a ruin.
Hamas prefers peace to war but will nonetheless resume armed resistance if Israel opts to continue regular attacks on Gaza, senior Hamas leader Ahmad Yousef explained.
The official, who serves as an advisor to Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on foreign affairs, said that the current ceasefire between the Islamic movement and Israel was for the benefit of Palestinians in the Strip, but that Hamas reserved the right to defend them.
Israeli police imposed strict restrictions over Muslim worshippers coming to pray Friday at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Israeli sources said that men holding Jerusalemite or Israeli identity cards (blue cards) who are over fifty and women with the same ID cards who are over 45 will be permitted to enter the old city and holy sanctuary. Young men and women will be turned away, West Bank Palestinians are strictly prohibited from the area.
The number of Gazans living in "abject" poverty has tripled this year to 300,000, or one in five residents, the Gaza head of the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees said Thursday.
Gaza's economy has foundered under an Israeli-Egyptian border blockade imposed after the Islamic militant group Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007 from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
John Ging, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency's top official in Gaza, called the rise in poverty a "predictable consequence" of the border blockade.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had a narrow escape when he visited Britain earlier this week. Immediately prior to his meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a group of Palestinians attempted to use the court system to have him arrested for alleged war crimes. Their bid failed.
The case is just the latest in a string of attempts by Palestinians in Britain to protest Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories.
Israel should consider ousting Norwegian monitors from Hebron due to Oslo's "hostility" toward Israel, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the cabinet Thursday.
Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat denied on Friday reports that the Palestinian Authority has decided to withdraw its bid to adopt the Goldstone report on alleged war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.
Thursday night Israeli Ambassador o the UN in Geneva Aharon Leshno Yaar said his Palestinian counterparty told the UN body in Geneva that the Palestinian Authority plans to announced it's withdrawal at the Human Rights Council's vote on Friday.
The Palestinian envoy in Geneva, Ibrahim Khraisha, told his Israeli counterpart Aharon Leshno Yaar that the Palestinian Authority (PA) plans to announce that it will be withdrawing its support for the adoption of the Goldstone Report during the UN Human Rights Council's vote on Friday.
The report accuses Israel and Hamas of war crimes during their conflict in Gaza in January, an allegation Israel condemns and claims is the result of bias against the Jewish state.
A prisoner swap with Hamas for the release of St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit will likely take place after January but before the Palestinian elections, which are to be held by June, The Jerusalem Post learned on Thursday.
The scheduled release on Friday of 20 Palestinian female security prisoners in exchange for a video recording of Schalit was an indication that talks on an exchange are on a "positive track," a foreign official involved in the mediation said, but he stressed that this did not mean a swap was imminent.
Israel is threatening to kill off a crucial West Bank economic project unless the Palestinian Authority withdraws a request to the International Criminal Court to investigate alleged Israeli crimes during last winter’s Gaza war.
Shalom Kital, an aide to defence minister Ehud Barak, said today that Israel will not release a share of the radio spectrum that has long been sought by the Palestinian Authority to enable the launch of a second mobile telecommunications company unless the PA drops its efforts to put Israeli soldiers and officers in the dock over the Israeli operation.
Richard Goldstone defended the report by his U.N. panel on Israel's Gaza operation last winter.
At a conference Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington, Goldstone said that every possible measure was taken to ensure that the report was compiled in an even-handed and fair manner.
The former South African judge maintained that the report did not look at the justifications for either side's actions but rather at the manner in which military force was applied.
"For the life of me, I don't understand the reason for that [Netanyahu's assertion]," Richard Goldstone, a former South African supreme court judge who also served as chief prosecutor for war-crime tribunals on Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, told reporters at the National Press Club here.
"Without some form of truth-telling, there cannot be an enduring peace," he said, citing his experiences in South Africa, as well as in the trials on Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
"Truth-telling and acknowledgement to victims can be a very important assistance to peace," he added.
Finally, a bit of good news from the Occupied Territories. The Hamas and Fatah movements, which have, absurdly, been fighting for control of Gaza and the West Bank, seem to have agreed in principle on a reconciliation deal that could lead to a Palestinian unity government.
The United Nations has often been tested in the course of its history, and once again it is facing a major challenge directed at its capacity to serve the cause of peace, security and justice through respect for the rule of law.
In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vigorously took up the country's latest strategy for responding to allegations of human rights abuses: kill the messenger. He denounced a recent report by the UN's Human Rights Council that had accused Israel of possible crimes against humanity during its assault on Gaza last winter, calling it a "travesty," a "farce" and a "perversion." The Hamas terrorists Israel was up against had committed acts akin in history only to the Nazi blitz of British civilians during World War II, Netanyahu asserted.
President Obama has reaffirmed a 4-decade-old secret understanding that has allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections, three officials familiar with the understanding said.
The officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were discussing private conversations, said Mr. Obama pledged to maintain the agreement when he first hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in May.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/9104
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/9104
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/9104
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] http://www.americantaskforce.org/gala_2009
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/world/middleeast/02mideast.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast
[7] http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gmWe_WoQ8DB6K0dpgNV7UVCRIefQD9B2RCGG6
[8] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/magazine/04sesame-t.html?ref=middleeast
[9] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229089
[10] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229136
[11] http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ipksOusdF8dN8qZ_RMTtNgRQT3LwD9B2CUQO1
[12] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/02/content_12171548.htm
[13] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1118388.html
[14] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3784465,00.html
[15] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3784401,00.html
[16] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1254393079433
[17] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/palestinians-cry-blackmail-over-israel-phone-service-threat-1796145.html
[18] http://jta.org/news/article/2009/10/01/1008268/goldstone-defends-un-report-accusing-israel-hamas-of-war-crimes
[19] http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48683
[20] http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/editorial_opinion/region/10353909.html
[21] http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=20390
[22] http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091019/horowitz_weiss
[23] http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/02/president-obama-has-reaffirmed-a-4-decade-old-secr/?feat=home_cube_position1
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