RAMALLAH: Chief Palestinian negotiator Sa’eb Erekat on Friday denied a statement made by Israel’s ambassador to the UN saying the Palestinians have decided to withdraw their bid to adopt the Goldstone Report in the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Thursday night Israeli Ambassador to the UN Aharon Leshno Yaar said his Palestinian counterpart, Ibrahim Khraisheh, told the UN body in Geneva that the Palestinian Authority plans to announce its withdrawal at the Human Rights Council’s vote on Friday.
“We are not members of the Human Rights Council. We are there as observers. The council of Islamic states is working to have the body adopt the report. The decision stands, this report is incorrect. There has been no change in our position,” Erekat said in a press statement.
Palestinian sources told Arab News Palestinian Justice Minister of Justice Ali Khashan was dispatched to The Hague to follow up on the issue with the court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton telephoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to ask him not to support the content of the Goldstone Report, which investigated Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. She claimed that doing so would widen the gaps between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, according to a report on Al-Jazeera’s website.
According to the report, Abbas was under immense pressure from Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who spurred him to withdraw the PA’s consent that the UN adopt the report. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli ministers had previously said adopting the report would also hurt the democratic regime’s war on terror.
Meanwhile, Goldstone ejected Netanyahu’s claim that the report would compromise the Middle East peace process.
“I think he got it wrong what our report is all about. He talked about Israel’s right to self-defense. That is not what the report was about,” Goldstone said in Washington on Thursday.
