Poor Richard Goldstone must be plotzing. He spent months of his life compiling one of the most painstakingly researched dossiers of Israeli (and Palestinian) human rights violations and potential war crimes ever; and now the Palestinian victims have suspended their call for justice:
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.
“We don’t want to create an obstacle for them,” Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said by telephone from Geneva, where the Human Rights Council is based. “We want to get a strong resolution to deal with the report in a good manner to get a benefit from it.”
What an utter waste. And imagine what the poor Gazans must be thinking who mistakenly believed they might finally get their day in court after enduring a merciless Israeli assault last December-January that killed 1,400 including at least 350 children. I simply don’t know what the Palestinians can be thinking or what they were told that persuaded them to suspend their complaint.
The whole episode is utterly baffling. On the face of it (and admittedly this is a dangerous position from which to make guesses about what happened), Israel has won yet another victory in its jousting both with the Palestinians and the Obama administration. First, Obama caved on the settlement freeze issue. Then Obama placed a nice little gift in his lap by ballyhooing the “discovery” of a nefarious Iranian nuclear facility in Qom. Now, Bibi’s extraordinary threat to completely end the peace process unless the Goldstone probe was halted has been rewarded with the ultimate vindication:
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, warned the Palestinians and international powers earlier Thursday that any action to advance the report would be a denial of Israel’s “right to self-defense” and would kill any chance of peace talks.
Mr. Netanyahu, speaking during a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, said that any international endorsement of the report would “strike a severe blow to the war against terrorism.”
But most immediately, he said, it would “strike a fatal blow to the peace process, because Israel will no longer be able to take additional steps and take risks for peace if its right to self-defense is denied.”
Given that the U.S. diplomats echoed Bibi’s claim in their statement above, one wonders whether Obama has taken yet another “nosedive for peace.” You’d have to be forgiven for starting to believe that the U.S. administration is the dancing bear being led through his paces by his master Bibi. Not to mention that the Fatah rump government and its representative to the UN Human Rights Council appears to have sold out Hamas and the residents of Gaza yet again–and for what?
One wonders what dickering went on behind the scenes. Who won and who lost? Who gave up something and who gained something? What assurances did the Palestinians get, if any, from the Americans before they withdrew? Did the Americans bargain for anything from the Israelis in return for supporting their goal of suppressing the report?
To be candid, the Goldstone Report has not exactly been suppressed. Technically, consideration of the report can be resumed at the UN Human Right Council’s next meeting in March. But frankly, as time recedes it’s very possible that Gaza will fade from people’s memories and it will become that much harder to drum up interest and support for a new round of debate and a new push for consideration of the Report by the Security Council.
This comment by the Palestinian representative seems little more than wishful thinking:
Mr. Khraishi, the Palestinian ambassador, said that if a resolution were passed now insisting that the General Assembly or the Security Council deal with the matter, as the report itself recommends, it would most likely face an American veto. A delay gives the Israelis and Palestinians time to take up another recommendation in the report: that both sides set up independent investigation panels to look into possible war crimes.
“I don’t think that the Americans or the Israelis or anybody can escape from the realities that Goldstone collected — not Hamas either,” Mr. Khraishi said
What is this man thinking? That the Israelis, with the heat now off, will turn around and appoint a serious, independent panel to investigate its potential war crimes? Bibi has already nixed the idea publicly. What would make him change his mind now? If he doesn’t think the Israelis can “escape from the realities of Goldstone” let him just watch. Harry Houdini had nothin’ on Israel when it wants to do a disappearing act in the face of unpleasant international charges. They’ll likely slip out of this one like a pair of broken handcuffs.
I think the Palestinians have taken a calculated gamble in withdrawing and I’m not sure what they’ve gained and what assurances they’ve received. Has the U.S., for example agreed to recognize a Palestinian state that might be declared if Israel balks at entering final status negotiations? I don’t know, I’m just speculating.
This news ruined my day, nothing will change after this decision. Israel won’t start any peace deals in appreciation for ignoring this report, and hell even if they did make any progress it would be made with the blood of Gaza being ignored. Fatah is making themselves look worse every day in the eyes of Palestinians, such a cowardly move. I wonder how much aid Hilary said she’d cut off if they went along with the report.
Here is a good explanation of the double game the Palestinian Authority is playing:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1254393079445&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
It is important to remember that the majority of the operating budget of the Palestinian Authority comes from handouts by the US and EU and the US can, from time to time flex its muscles and get the PA to do what it wants. So it should not come as any suprise that the PA will back down on a “matter of principle” like this.
It is precisely because most Israelis have, 16 years after Oslo, begun to understand this double game that they have lost faith in “the peace process”.
No matter how obsequious the PA and the American administration are to Israel, it is never, ever enough.
Jon Schwarz over at “A Tiny Revolution” is fond of talking about “the iron law of institutions”. The iron law is that people in a given institution will do anything to keep power within that institution, even if they have to harm the institution to do it.
Once stated, you can see this at work all the time. It’s maybe not quite an iron law, as not everyone acts like this all the time. But it’s what the PA is doing. Their one source of real power within their society is their relatively friendly relationship with the US and the Israeli government, and so they’re willing to sell the Gazans down the river to maintain it. They probably see Hamas as a bigger threat than Israel.
Interesting that the ambassador mentions Hamas’s crimes, because the report also talks about PA abuses towards fellow Palestinians.
“The Americans argued that pushing the report now would derail the Middle East peace process that they are trying to revive, diplomats said.”
If this is a joke, I am not laughing! Wonder, what the Palestinian people specially the Gazans think of this so called “trying to revive the peace process” when their misery is getting worse!
“UN: number of `abject poor’ in Gaza triples”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_gaza_poverty
I’m thinking of Dr. Mirela Siderer whose presence left Goldstone shaken. And all the Israeli victims of Hamas aggression who were denied justice. Goldstone got hoist on his own petard and his travesty of an inquiry got buried – for good.
Israel’s friends need to stand behind the Jewish State while it is under a sustained political assault by its enemies. The Palestinians can attack Israel at the UN or they can have its cooperation in peace. They should not expect to have both. And there’s the chutzpah of Fatah leading the charge on behalf of Hamas which only two years ago seized power by a coup d’etat in Gaza and which is only in power in Yesha today thanks to the IDF. That shows how little Israel’s erstwhile “peace partner” appreciates its efforts to preserve the life of what should be a moderate Palestinian regime but isn’t.
There are two things that are clear: Israel can expect no justice from the international community and there will be no peace with the Palestinian Arabs for the foreseeable future.
I can but refer you to my previous comment on this thread.
Has anyone else read Michael Lerner’s interview with Goldstone? It’s quite interesting, things I haven’t read before.
http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/20091002111513371
The last paragraph makes it quite clear where Goldstone is coming from as a human being.
NO ONE wanted the Goldstone report active — not the Israelis, not the Palestinians, and certainly not the US. Here’s why (from a post I made earlier on another thread more than a week ago):
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There is a strong recent trend in the world toward rule of law — hence the UN tribunals on Rwanda and Yugoslavia, and the ICC. Israel and the US signed the Rome Statute (agreeing to be bound by the ICC) but later refused to ratify. In general, if you sign, you agree to be bound even without ratification, UNLESS you make clear you don’t want to be bound. The US and Israel did that in 2002. That’s apparently the status of Israel now. Hamas and the PA, as non-states, can’t sign the Rome Statute, but the treaty allows for ad hoc recognition of non-state “actors” who bring complaints to the ICC. Hamas did that in February. Thus, there is agreement the much of the international law community that actions of both sides in the Gaza war can land in the ICC. I would go even further. I also would like US officials who gave Israel an “expanded blank check” on use of weapons with US technology to defend themselves at the ICC.
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Thus, NOTHING was as scary to the criminals of both sides, and their financial and weapons-enablers (including the US and Iran), as the Goldstone Report. It is a loose cannon, but one with a laser-guided aim at ALL the bad guys.
If active peace negotiations do not materialize over the next few months, I think a focus on getting the report acted upon would certainly be worthwhile.