OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israel on Friday rejected a UN General Assembly resolution urging an investigation into a report saying that war crimes were committed in Gaza, and condemned the world body vote as “completely detached from realities.” In a statement, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in response to Thursday’s vote that Israel “maintains the right to self-defense,” and would “continue to act to protect the lives of its citizens from the threat of international terrorism.”
The resolution, endorsing a report on the Gaza war commissioned by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, was nonbinding and seen as unlikely to force either Israel or Islamist Hamas rulers in Gaza to investigate the findings.
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 UN 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 UN 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 UN 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 UN 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 UN bodies.
Diplomats said all five veto-wielding permanent Security Council members opposed council involvement, so it was unlikely the 15-nation body – the only UN 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.”
US Deputy UN Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said the assembly resolution was unbalanced in several respects, including its failure to name Hamas. In a clear warning to the Obama administration Tuesday, the House of Representatives by an overwhelming majority urged President Barack Obama to oppose UN endorsement of the Goldstone findings. – Reuters
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