Israel Matzav: 'Human Rights Council' vote on Goldstone postponed to March

'Human Rights Council' vote on Goldstone postponed to March

With the consent of the 'Palestinian Authority,' the 'Human Rights Council' agreed on Thursday to postpone a vote on referring the Goldstone Commission Report to the United Nations Security Council to March.

The deferral came after unsuccessful negotiations to find a compromise text that would be acceptable to the six Western countries on the 47-member council: the United States, Belgium, France, Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom.

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There were reports of US pressure on the PA to defer the vote, with some sources claiming that US President Barack Obama had personally intervened behind the scenes, impressing upon the Palestinians that the diplomatic process would be adversely affected if the vote were not shelved.

The PLO ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ibrahim Khraishi, told The Jerusalem Post he was interested in a compromise text because it was important that the report, which condemned Israel's military actions in Gaza last January, received the widest range of support possible.

"It will help us to explain to the Israelis that the international community is with the Palestinians to achieve their hopes and their dreams," said Khraishi.

When the hour grew late and no compromise was in sight, he said, "we decided to defer the matter" to the council's next session in March.

Israel was pleased with the outcome.

"What happened today is proof that their strategy of not cooperating" with the four-person fact-finding mission led by South Africa jurist Richard Goldstone "was correct... Israel insisted from the beginning that this was about politics against the State of Israel and not human rights. It emphasized the primacy of the peace process. It is a precedent for all states fighting terror," said Leshno-Yaar.

He added that "it shows above all that the priority of the international community is to bring Israelis and Palestinians together to relaunch negotiations."

At a press conference with the international media on Thursday, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon slammed Fatah for its hypocrisy.

He noted that Fatah, which "pushed us to do away with Hamas" in Gaza, is "now trying to take us into the international courts" for Israel's military actions against Hamas.

"Not to mention the fact that the ones who are benefiting from this report are the extremists anywhere and everywhere, especially in Gaza," said Ayalon.

UN Watch's Hillel Neuer called Thursday's postponement a 'massive defeat' for Goldstone.

"This constitutes a massive defeat for Mr. Goldstone's biased report, a slipshod piece of work whose scattershot recommendations to the entire world threatened to ...harm, not help, the peace process," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva human rights monitoring group.

I suppose that a postponement is the best outcome. I don't see anything changing in six months unless the West decides to vote against us (I'm sure Norway will and probably wanted to already, but they are the least influential of the six nations listed). The 'Palestinians' are not going to let up on a referral to the UN General Assembly (where there is no veto), to the Security Council (where the United States will be pressured not to use its veto) and to the International Criminal Court.

But Goldstone is paving the path for 'peace.' What could go wrong?

Israel Matzav: 'Human Rights Council' vote on Goldstone postponed to March