Israel Matzav: Dubai incident impacted Goldstone vote

Dubai incident impacted Goldstone vote

The Foreign Minister of Slovakia, Miroslav Lajcak, has told the Jerusalem Post that several European countries changed their votes on the Goldstone Report in the United Nations General Assembly on Friday because they believe that Israel is responsible for the liquidation of Hamas terrorist and arms dealer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

The Slovak Republic, considered in Jerusalem one of Israel’s best friends in the EU, originally voted – along with six other EU countries – alongside Israel against endorsing the Goldstone Commission report at the General Assembly in November.

In a second vote on the matter on Friday, however, all seven EU countries abstained, and another 10 countries that had abstained in the November vote – including Britain, France, Sweden, Belgium and Finland – voted in favor of an Arab resolution to keep the issue alive.

After saying that the change of votes was due in part to the EU’s desire to appear to speak in a less fragmented voice on the issue, and that the recent resolution was softer than the November one, Lajcak added, “Don’t take this as any official position, but I also think the European public opinion has been affected by the killing in Dubai, not in favor of Israel, [and this] probably played a certain role in the shifting of policy in certain countries.”

Lajcak – who was present in the debate in Brussels last Monday following which the EU issued a statement condemning the killing, but stopped short of blaming Israel – said, “I would be hypocritical if I said this [the passport issue] had no impact whatsoever” on the vote in the UN.

No country “is immune to its public opinion,” he said.

Asked how much this issue was hurting Israel in European public opinion, Lajcak said the issue was “quite big.” Stolen identities, he said, were “something that Europe is very sensitive to.”Also, he said, “Europe is based on respect of values and principles of rule of law, and extrajudicial killings is something we show no tolerance for, regardless of where they come from.”

Reminded that Mabhouh had been an arch-terrorist with Israeli blood on his hands and had been behind smuggling weapons into Gaza designed to kill even more Israelis, Lajcak said it was necessary to view the issue from a European perspective.

“You are [an] innocent, ordinary European citizen, and you travel as a tourist, and all of a sudden you are arrested because someone has stolen your identity and used it for something bad, something unlawful – this is how Europeans look at it,” he explained. “They [European citizens] want to make sure their identities and passports are protected, and they will not be in a position where they will have to bear responsibility for someone else’s actions.”

If it turns out that Jordan or Egypt was behind Mabhouh's liquidation, will the Europeans apologize? Will they shun the responsible country? Or is this just the old double standard at work?

Israel Matzav: Dubai incident impacted Goldstone vote