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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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November 5th,
2009 - UN Assembly Votes for Probes of Gaza War Charges |
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UN Assembly Votes
for Probes of Gaza War Charges By Patrick Worsnip Reuters November 5, 2009 United Nations - In a move
that angered Israel, the U.N. General Assembly voted on Thursday to urge the
Jewish state and Palestinians to investigate war crimes charges leveled in a
controversial U.N. report on the Gaza war. The Arab-drafted resolution
is nonbinding and unlikely to lead to inquiries by either Israel or the
militant Palestinian Hamas movement that rules Gaza into their conduct during
the December-January conflict. But the outcome was seen by
Arab states as a public relations coup and a public discomfiture for Israel,
which has reacted with outrage to the findings of the U.N. report, as have
American Jewish groups. Following a two-day debate,
114 countries voted for the resolution with 18 opposed - including Israel and
its ally the United States - and 44 abstaining. No country has veto power in
the assembly. The resolution responded to
a 575-page report on the Gaza war commissioned by the Geneva-based U.N. Human
Rights Council, written by a panel led by South African jurist Richard
Goldstone and published in September. The report blasted both
sides in the conflict, which killed over 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis,
but was harsher toward Israel, which refused to cooperate with Goldstone. The resolution follows
Goldstone in calling on Israel and "the Palestinian side" to
undertake within three months credible investigations into the report's
charges. At a forum at Brandeis
University in Waltham, Massachusetts, on Thursday, Goldstone criticized
Israel for refusing to cooperate, adding that Israel responded to Palestinian
attacks with disproportionate force. As an example, he said that
Israeli forces bombed a mosque during a worship ceremony, resulting in a
large number of casualties. "If a government becomes a lawbreaker, it
breeds contempt for the law," Goldstone said. At the same forum, former
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Dore Gold defended his country's decision to boycott
the investigation and sparred verbally with Goldstone. "This was a fixed
fact-finding mission. It wasn't looking for the truth," Gold said. The resolution asks U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to transmit the report to the Security Council
and to report back to the assembly in three months on implementation of the
resolution "with a view to considering further action" by U.N.
bodies. Security Council Action Unlikely Diplomats said all five
veto-wielding permanent Security Council members opposed council involvement,
so it was unlikely the 15-nation body - the only U.N. entity with powers of
enforcement - would take action. Despite European Union
aspirations to a common foreign policy, the 27-nation bloc was badly split
over the assembly resolution. Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland,
Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia voted against it. Ireland, Portugal, Malta,
Slovenia and Cyprus voted in favor while others, including Britain and
France, abstained. Most developing countries
voted in favor, reflecting sympathy for the Palestinian cause. Muslim states
backed the Goldstone report during the assembly debate and called for an end
to what they termed Israel's impunity in the Middle East. Israeli Deputy Ambassador
Daniel Carmon told the assembly the resolution "endorses and legitimizes
a deeply flawed, one-sided and prejudiced report of the discredited Human
Rights Council and its politicized work that bends both fact and law." Earlier, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu said in Israel that what the United Nations should be investigating
was an Iranian arms shipment to Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas that Israel
said Wednesday it had intercepted. Israel formally complained to the world
body Thursday over the shipment. U.S. Deputy U.N. Ambassador
Alejandro Wolff said the assembly resolution was unbalanced in several
respects, including its failure to name Hamas. He also said a demand for
international supervision of any Israeli and Palestinian investigations was
"unhelpful." In a clear warning to the
Obama administration Tuesday, the House of Representatives by an overwhelming
majority urged President Barack Obama to oppose U.N. endorsement of the
Goldstone findings. Additional reporting by Jim
Finkle in Waltham, Massachusetts. Editing by Eric Walsh. © Thomson Reuters 2009. All
rights reserved. External link: http://www.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUSN05146640._CH_.2400 |