2 oct 2009
Obama should back Goldstone report
George Bisharat
US President Barack Obama placed restoration of the stature of the United States among his primary foreign policy goals. He already achieved substantial progress in Europe, where polls indicate that he is widely admired. The president's June Cairo University speech also won praise in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Yet many across the globe still await the substantive policy changes implied by his inspiring words.
President Obama can solidify broader global respect by supporting the recommendations of the just-released Goldstone report in the United Nations Human Rights Council. Richard Goldstone, an eminent South African jurist, led a mission to investigate allegations of war crimes in Gaza last winter.
Indeed, the Goldstone mission concluded that Israel and Hamas committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. The report recommends that both parties be given six months to mount independent, internal investigations - and if they fail, that the United Nations Security Council refer the matter to the International Criminal Court for investigation and possible prosecutions.
Much of the 575-page report documents Israeli violations of the laws of war and human rights surrounding the intense fighting of last winter. That is fair, as the scale of harm Israel caused to lives and property in Gaza vastly exceeded that inflicted by Hamas. Israel killed approximately 100 Palestinians for every Israeli who died, and destroyed vast swaths of private housing, industrial buildings, agricultural facilities, and public infrastructure.
The Israeli government boycotted the Goldstone mission; Palestinian authorities, in contrast, cooperated with it. Doubtless, the group's conclusions would have been more definitive had Israel shared information with its authors. Israel now seeks to discredit the report, attacking everything from Justice Goldstone himself to the United Nations Human Rights Council, and claiming that the report's findings would hamstring other nations - including ours - facing "asymmetric warfare."
This is nonsense. Justice Goldstone is a man of impeccable credentials and great personal integrity, and his colleagues are similarly distinguished.
The report is judicious and even-handed, and cannot be casually dismissed.
Nor is there anything novel about "asymmetric warfare," at least not of the kind waged by Israel, requiring departures from standard international law.
Colonial powers that displace indigenous peoples, as Israel does regularly in Jerusalem and the West Bank, have always faced armed, and sometimes crude, popular resistance. Israel's war against the Palestinians shares more with the French in Algeria than it does with our fight against al-Qaeda. Israel might prefer that international law to revert to pre-World War II levels, but that would undermine protections for us all.
The Obama administration should echo the Goldstone report and urge Israel to mount serious investigations of its military's documented misdeeds. In fact, our ambassador, Susan Rice, already did so in her January inaugural address to the United Nations. We should also not quail at the Goldstone mission's recommendation that the Security Council refer the matter to the International Criminal Court, if Israel fails to credibly investigate, as it has to date. Enforcement of international law cannot only be for the losers of international conflicts; indeed, the legitimacy of international law depends on its universal application. The world will take notice when President Obama's warming rhetoric is matched by equally principled deeds - and will likewise take notice when it is not.
George Bisharat is a professor at Hastings College of the Law and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East. His article first appeared in the San Fransisco Chronicle and is reprinted with permission here.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229135
An open letter from Palestine's human rights community
To: The Member States of the United Nations General Assembly:
Upon the culmination of the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Palestinian human rights community would like to take the opportunity to raise its collective voice in reasserting the significance of the role of the UN in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) and to call upon the General Assembly in particular to take a more proactive role in ensuring a just resolution to the conflict.
Despite few conflicts having received as much international attention as that between Israel and the Palestinians, hopes for peace have been repeatedly dashed in the light of Israel’s refusal to end 42 years of military occupation. Israel’s ongoing denial of Palestinian rights and political freedoms, including the basic right of Palestinians to self-determination continues unabated.
The parameters of what constitutes a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis are clearly defined under international law and as set forth in resolutions of the UN General Assembly and Security Council. In combination these serve as the ultimate arbiter of what a just and lasting peace will be. So long as Israel is permitted to violate international law with impunity, peace will remain elusive, if not impossible.
The UN has repeatedly acknowledged the need for Israel to comply with international law if peace is to replace conflict. Numerous resolutions to this end have been adopted by the General Assembly, including Resolution 194 asserting the right of return of Palestinian refugees, as well as by the Security Council, such as Resolution 242, obliging Israel to withdraw its forces from the territories occupied in the 1967 war.
Despite such action at the UN level, Israel remains actively in violation of international law. The occupation continues, with the construction of the wall proceeding without regard or consequence to the 2004 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice which had deemed it to be unlawful, while the construction and expansion of settlements explicitly prohibited under the Geneva Conventions and affirmed by the ICJ, also continues without regard to any diplomatic or legal pressures. A settlement freeze is an obligation under previous agreements, endorsed by the United Nations, not a pre-condition for the resumption of peace negotiations.
Given such a situation, it falls upon the General Assembly of the United Nations to take meaningful collective action to restore the primacy of international law as the basis of peace negotiations. The Security Council remains impotent in the face of Israeli transgressions of international law, having never resolved to act under Chapter VII of the Charter to pass collective measures such as sanctions against Israel to ensure its binding measures are adhered to. The veto mechanism of the Permanent Five Security Council measures has reinforced this passive approach, with the US alone having vetoed over 20 draft Security Council resolutions that were critical of Israel’s policies and practices in the OPT between 1983 and 2006.
In light of the findings and recommendations of the Report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict published in September, it is now incumbent upon the General Assembly to use its powers as set forth in UNGA Resolution 377 A (V) ‘Uniting for Peace’ to ensure that collective measures be taken to safeguard the rights of Palestinians by ending Israel’s continuing breaches of international law.
The Goldstone Report places into sharp focus the extent to which Israel is in breach of international law in the OPT, its conclusions being that the gravest of international crimes were committed by Israel in Gaza, including possibly crimes against humanity, and that Israel has committed serous violations of international law in its ongoing blockade of Gaza, as well as in the West Bank.
The Goldstone Report identifies concrete actions to be taken by the UN, emphasizing the need for accountability, whether it be through the Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, referring the situation to the International Criminal Court or that by states fulfilling their obligations to bring perpetrators to account under universal jurisdiction. It thus represents a significant turning point in terms of the need of the UN to take serious and immediate action to ensure accountability and to end Israel’s breaches of international law.
Were the UN General Assembly to remain inactive in light of the Goldstone findings and recommendations it will be a clear message to Israel, as well as to other states, that even the most manifest and egregious violations of international law will be tolerated by the UN, suggesting therefore that international law has no meaningful role to play in the resolution of conflict. Such a scenario cannot be countenanced.
The General Assembly has a historic, moral, and legal obligation in ensuring that Israel abides by international law and a corresponding duty to safeguard Palestinian rights: it was General Assembly resolutions that recommended the partition of Mandate Palestine and admitted Israel to the UN. In order to prevent a situation in which international law is rendered academic in regulating the behaviour of states, and noting the General Assembly’s historic involvement in Israel-Palestine, it is incumbent upon the General Assembly to take concrete and urgent action to end Israel’s violations of international law in the OPT.
In particular we call for the following:
· That the General Assembly recommends to member states of the UN, and to the Security Council, that the basis of any negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be grounded in international law.
· That UN member states adopt a principled and determined stance, using the powers granted to the General Assembly under Resolution 377 A (V): ‘Uniting for Peace’ to: (1) recommend that Israel be subjected to the full weight of collective measures until its occupation of the OPT is ended and the rights of the Palestinian people are achieved; and (2) ensure that the recommendations of the Goldstone Report are followed in full in order to ensure that there is full accountability for the crimes committed in Gaza.
Sincerely,
Al-Haq
Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights
Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre
ADDAMEER Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
AL-DAMEER Association for Human Rights - Gaza
Defence for Children International – Palestine Section
Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling
ENSAN Association for Democracy and Human Rights
Ramallah Centre for Human Rights Studies
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229223
PA denies postponing UN report debate
President Mahmoud Abbas' spokesman denied reports on Friday that the Palestinian Authority had dropped its support for the UN-backed Goldstone report earlier the same day in Geneva.
In a carefully worded statement, Nabil Abu Rudeinah said the postponement came after a request from Russia, the United States, and Europe, in a move that was welcomed by other parties at the UN Human Rights Council.
The spokesman did not explain why the PLO's ambassador to the UN, Ibrahim Khraishi, was quoted on Thursday night as saying that "we decided to defer the matter" when asked by reporters investigating reports that he intended to delay the matter.
Abu Rudeinah said the PA never requested that the issue be removed, withdrawn or delayed, and that South African justice Richard Goldstone's report still had the full support of the Fatah-led PA government in Ramallah.
The PLO's top negotiator, Saeb Erekat, issued a similar denial hours before the vote was set to take place. "The decision stands, and this report [that the Palestinians would defer the matter] is untrue. There has been no change in our position."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229263
PA's UN envoy delays debate on Gaza report
Palestine's envoy to Geneva, Ibrahim Khraisha, asked the Human Rights Council to delay debate over endorsing the UN-backed Goldstone report on Israel's Gaza assault, Ma'an can confirm.
The PA ambassador justified his decision on Friday by saying the request was intended to "gather consensus - and not under pressure from the United States."
Less than 24 hours after the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz broke the story late Thursday night, the Palestinian leadership contradicted itself repeatedly, with chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat denying reports as recently as Friday - the day of the vote - that his government's envoy would drop support for the UN draft.
Mustafa Al-Bargouthi, who heads the Palestinian National Initiative, told Ma'an that "there was a guaranteed majority in the Human Rights Council to condemn Israel... We denounce this postponement to issuing a resolution on Goldstone's report."
Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the Palestine People's party, Bassam As-Salhi, called for an urgent meeting of the PLO's Executive Committee "to discuss Khraisha's act," which As-Salhi called "dangerous."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened on Thursday to end the peace process if the United Nations Human Rights Council votes in support of a report accusing it and Palestinian groups of war crimes in Gaza.
"Forwarding the decision of what is known as the Goldstone report, would strike a fatal blow to the peace process," Netanyahu said. "Israel will no longer be able to take additional steps and take risks for peace if its right to self-defense is denied."
Richard Goldstone, who was a prosecutor in war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, urged the 42-member state council to endorse his report. A supportive vote would have referred the report to the UN in New York, and possibly to the Security Council, which could have potentially sent it to the International Criminal Court.
Formal peace negotiations have been suspended since Israel began its three-week assault on Gaza last December. The war ultimately left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, including hundreds of women and children.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229205
Israel declares victory as PA backs down at UNHRC
While Palestinians representing virtually every segment of society condemned the Palestinian Authority for reversing its support for justice Richard Goldstone's UN report on the Gaza assault, the Israelis were celebrating.
Just before Sukkot began on Thursday night, Israel's ambassador to Geneva announced that the PA's inability to take a stand "is proof of the right strategy taken by the Israeli government and Foreign Ministry, by warning that adopting the repot could harm the peace process."
The ambassador, Leshno Yaar, told the the Hebrew-language daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks the same day contributed to the PA's decision, and that even Israel's ultranationalist foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, helped to "undermine" the report.
The Jerusalem Post's Friday morning front page read, "Goldstone crisis averted till March," reporting that the PA dropped support for the report backed by the Human Rights Council, despite having a clear majority at the UN body, and quoting the Israeli ambassador as saying that the decision legitimized Israel's stance.
"What happened today is proof that [the Israeli government's] strategy of not cooperating [with the probe]," Yaar said, "was correct."
"Israel insisted from the beginning that this was about politics against the State of Israel and not human rights," the paper quoted him as adding. "It emphasized the primacy of the peace process. It is a precedent for all states fighting terror."
In a separate op-ed Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arabic-speaking staff writer, editorialized that the PA's "actions and rhetoric, especially in the past few weeks and months, show that hypocrisy has become a major component of its official policy."
"During the day, Israel is the enemy that continues to deny the Palestinians their rights, seize their lands, arrest and kill their innocents, and expand existing settlements," Abu Toameh continued. "During the night, the Israeli enemy becomes a friend and peace partner with whom it's legitimate to conduct security coordination and eat in fancy restaurants."
The apparent victory on Friday was seen as the result of 48 hours of pressure from Israel's Foreign Ministry, and perhaps even the United States, on the PA to drop support for the draft, which it had previously called unbiased and accurate. It came just over a week since President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to meet in New York with Netanyahu without a settlement freeze.
The Associated Press quoted a senior US official as saying the latest PA backtracking came after "intense diplomacy" from American officials. "The Palestinians recognized that this was not the best time to go forward with this."
Deputy Prime Minister Danny Ayalon, of Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party, took things further a day prior to the vote, urging the Fatah-backed PA to not only help Israel at the UN, but alleging that the mainstay Palestinian faction supported Israel during the Gaza assault, itself.
The Fatah movement is "now trying to take us into the international court," Ayalon said before the scheduled summit, even though it had "pushed us to do away with Hamas" during the assault, itself, which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead by mid-January.
"[W]e are trying to negotiate with the Palestinians to achieve something good, we can not be under constant attacks by the same Palestinians," he said, hours before the PA dropped its support for the report. "Attacks today in the complex battles can be done through grenades or bullets, or through words. Sometimes words can be more dangerous."
For his part, Yedioth Ahronoth also quoted chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat as saying the PA had no intention of dropping their support.
"We are not members of the Human Rights Council. We are there as observers," he said. "The Council of Islamic States is working in order to have the body adopt the report. The decision stands, and this report is untrue. There has been no change in our position."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229220
Hamas: Geneva move latest in PA-Israel 'conspiracy'
Hamas denounced the Palestinian Authority for postponing debate on the Goldstone report at the UN Human Rights Council on Friday, an official said in a statement.
"This move is reflective of the conspiracy between the PA in Ramallah and the Israeli occupation," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, alleging that the PA was involved in Israel's assault on Gaza last winter.
The official said Hamas was astonished when it learned the PA's envoy had withdrawn the report "at New York's request," and urged international organizations to nevertheless "reveal the details of the Israeli massacre" and demand condemnation for "crimes that were committed in Gaza by Israeli soldiers."
Other Palestinian movements and officials were similarly incensed.
The Popular Resistance Committees, another Gaza-based Palestinian faction, similarly denounced the decision.
"Withdrawing the report amounts to a new cover for the [Israeli] occupation's crimes and an international blessing toward ever crime committed by the occupation," the PRC said in a statement.
Mustafa Al-Bargouthi, who heads the Palestinian National Initiative, told Ma'an that "there was a guaranteed majority in the Human Rights Council to condemn Israel... We denounce this postponement to issuing a resolution on Goldstone's report."
Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the Palestine People's party, Bassam As-Salhi, called for an urgent meeting of the PLO's Executive Committee "to discuss Khraisha's act," which As-Salhi called "dangerous."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229217
Obama should back Goldstone report
George Bisharat
US President Barack Obama placed restoration of the stature of the United States among his primary foreign policy goals. He already achieved substantial progress in Europe, where polls indicate that he is widely admired. The president's June Cairo University speech also won praise in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Yet many across the globe still await the substantive policy changes implied by his inspiring words.
President Obama can solidify broader global respect by supporting the recommendations of the just-released Goldstone report in the United Nations Human Rights Council. Richard Goldstone, an eminent South African jurist, led a mission to investigate allegations of war crimes in Gaza last winter.
Indeed, the Goldstone mission concluded that Israel and Hamas committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. The report recommends that both parties be given six months to mount independent, internal investigations - and if they fail, that the United Nations Security Council refer the matter to the International Criminal Court for investigation and possible prosecutions.
Much of the 575-page report documents Israeli violations of the laws of war and human rights surrounding the intense fighting of last winter. That is fair, as the scale of harm Israel caused to lives and property in Gaza vastly exceeded that inflicted by Hamas. Israel killed approximately 100 Palestinians for every Israeli who died, and destroyed vast swaths of private housing, industrial buildings, agricultural facilities, and public infrastructure.
The Israeli government boycotted the Goldstone mission; Palestinian authorities, in contrast, cooperated with it. Doubtless, the group's conclusions would have been more definitive had Israel shared information with its authors. Israel now seeks to discredit the report, attacking everything from Justice Goldstone himself to the United Nations Human Rights Council, and claiming that the report's findings would hamstring other nations - including ours - facing "asymmetric warfare."
This is nonsense. Justice Goldstone is a man of impeccable credentials and great personal integrity, and his colleagues are similarly distinguished.
The report is judicious and even-handed, and cannot be casually dismissed.
Nor is there anything novel about "asymmetric warfare," at least not of the kind waged by Israel, requiring departures from standard international law.
Colonial powers that displace indigenous peoples, as Israel does regularly in Jerusalem and the West Bank, have always faced armed, and sometimes crude, popular resistance. Israel's war against the Palestinians shares more with the French in Algeria than it does with our fight against al-Qaeda. Israel might prefer that international law to revert to pre-World War II levels, but that would undermine protections for us all.
The Obama administration should echo the Goldstone report and urge Israel to mount serious investigations of its military's documented misdeeds. In fact, our ambassador, Susan Rice, already did so in her January inaugural address to the United Nations. We should also not quail at the Goldstone mission's recommendation that the Security Council refer the matter to the International Criminal Court, if Israel fails to credibly investigate, as it has to date. Enforcement of international law cannot only be for the losers of international conflicts; indeed, the legitimacy of international law depends on its universal application. The world will take notice when President Obama's warming rhetoric is matched by equally principled deeds - and will likewise take notice when it is not.
George Bisharat is a professor at Hastings College of the Law and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East. His article first appeared in the San Fransisco Chronicle and is reprinted with permission here.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229135
An open letter from Palestine's human rights community
To: The Member States of the United Nations General Assembly:
Upon the culmination of the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Palestinian human rights community would like to take the opportunity to raise its collective voice in reasserting the significance of the role of the UN in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) and to call upon the General Assembly in particular to take a more proactive role in ensuring a just resolution to the conflict.
Despite few conflicts having received as much international attention as that between Israel and the Palestinians, hopes for peace have been repeatedly dashed in the light of Israel’s refusal to end 42 years of military occupation. Israel’s ongoing denial of Palestinian rights and political freedoms, including the basic right of Palestinians to self-determination continues unabated.
The parameters of what constitutes a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis are clearly defined under international law and as set forth in resolutions of the UN General Assembly and Security Council. In combination these serve as the ultimate arbiter of what a just and lasting peace will be. So long as Israel is permitted to violate international law with impunity, peace will remain elusive, if not impossible.
The UN has repeatedly acknowledged the need for Israel to comply with international law if peace is to replace conflict. Numerous resolutions to this end have been adopted by the General Assembly, including Resolution 194 asserting the right of return of Palestinian refugees, as well as by the Security Council, such as Resolution 242, obliging Israel to withdraw its forces from the territories occupied in the 1967 war.
Despite such action at the UN level, Israel remains actively in violation of international law. The occupation continues, with the construction of the wall proceeding without regard or consequence to the 2004 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice which had deemed it to be unlawful, while the construction and expansion of settlements explicitly prohibited under the Geneva Conventions and affirmed by the ICJ, also continues without regard to any diplomatic or legal pressures. A settlement freeze is an obligation under previous agreements, endorsed by the United Nations, not a pre-condition for the resumption of peace negotiations.
Given such a situation, it falls upon the General Assembly of the United Nations to take meaningful collective action to restore the primacy of international law as the basis of peace negotiations. The Security Council remains impotent in the face of Israeli transgressions of international law, having never resolved to act under Chapter VII of the Charter to pass collective measures such as sanctions against Israel to ensure its binding measures are adhered to. The veto mechanism of the Permanent Five Security Council measures has reinforced this passive approach, with the US alone having vetoed over 20 draft Security Council resolutions that were critical of Israel’s policies and practices in the OPT between 1983 and 2006.
In light of the findings and recommendations of the Report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict published in September, it is now incumbent upon the General Assembly to use its powers as set forth in UNGA Resolution 377 A (V) ‘Uniting for Peace’ to ensure that collective measures be taken to safeguard the rights of Palestinians by ending Israel’s continuing breaches of international law.
The Goldstone Report places into sharp focus the extent to which Israel is in breach of international law in the OPT, its conclusions being that the gravest of international crimes were committed by Israel in Gaza, including possibly crimes against humanity, and that Israel has committed serous violations of international law in its ongoing blockade of Gaza, as well as in the West Bank.
The Goldstone Report identifies concrete actions to be taken by the UN, emphasizing the need for accountability, whether it be through the Security Council, acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, referring the situation to the International Criminal Court or that by states fulfilling their obligations to bring perpetrators to account under universal jurisdiction. It thus represents a significant turning point in terms of the need of the UN to take serious and immediate action to ensure accountability and to end Israel’s breaches of international law.
Were the UN General Assembly to remain inactive in light of the Goldstone findings and recommendations it will be a clear message to Israel, as well as to other states, that even the most manifest and egregious violations of international law will be tolerated by the UN, suggesting therefore that international law has no meaningful role to play in the resolution of conflict. Such a scenario cannot be countenanced.
The General Assembly has a historic, moral, and legal obligation in ensuring that Israel abides by international law and a corresponding duty to safeguard Palestinian rights: it was General Assembly resolutions that recommended the partition of Mandate Palestine and admitted Israel to the UN. In order to prevent a situation in which international law is rendered academic in regulating the behaviour of states, and noting the General Assembly’s historic involvement in Israel-Palestine, it is incumbent upon the General Assembly to take concrete and urgent action to end Israel’s violations of international law in the OPT.
In particular we call for the following:
· That the General Assembly recommends to member states of the UN, and to the Security Council, that the basis of any negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be grounded in international law.
· That UN member states adopt a principled and determined stance, using the powers granted to the General Assembly under Resolution 377 A (V): ‘Uniting for Peace’ to: (1) recommend that Israel be subjected to the full weight of collective measures until its occupation of the OPT is ended and the rights of the Palestinian people are achieved; and (2) ensure that the recommendations of the Goldstone Report are followed in full in order to ensure that there is full accountability for the crimes committed in Gaza.
Sincerely,
Al-Haq
Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights
Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre
ADDAMEER Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
AL-DAMEER Association for Human Rights - Gaza
Defence for Children International – Palestine Section
Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling
ENSAN Association for Democracy and Human Rights
Ramallah Centre for Human Rights Studies
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229223
PA denies postponing UN report debate
President Mahmoud Abbas' spokesman denied reports on Friday that the Palestinian Authority had dropped its support for the UN-backed Goldstone report earlier the same day in Geneva.
In a carefully worded statement, Nabil Abu Rudeinah said the postponement came after a request from Russia, the United States, and Europe, in a move that was welcomed by other parties at the UN Human Rights Council.
The spokesman did not explain why the PLO's ambassador to the UN, Ibrahim Khraishi, was quoted on Thursday night as saying that "we decided to defer the matter" when asked by reporters investigating reports that he intended to delay the matter.
Abu Rudeinah said the PA never requested that the issue be removed, withdrawn or delayed, and that South African justice Richard Goldstone's report still had the full support of the Fatah-led PA government in Ramallah.
The PLO's top negotiator, Saeb Erekat, issued a similar denial hours before the vote was set to take place. "The decision stands, and this report [that the Palestinians would defer the matter] is untrue. There has been no change in our position."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229263
PA's UN envoy delays debate on Gaza report
Palestine's envoy to Geneva, Ibrahim Khraisha, asked the Human Rights Council to delay debate over endorsing the UN-backed Goldstone report on Israel's Gaza assault, Ma'an can confirm.
The PA ambassador justified his decision on Friday by saying the request was intended to "gather consensus - and not under pressure from the United States."
Less than 24 hours after the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz broke the story late Thursday night, the Palestinian leadership contradicted itself repeatedly, with chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat denying reports as recently as Friday - the day of the vote - that his government's envoy would drop support for the UN draft.
Mustafa Al-Bargouthi, who heads the Palestinian National Initiative, told Ma'an that "there was a guaranteed majority in the Human Rights Council to condemn Israel... We denounce this postponement to issuing a resolution on Goldstone's report."
Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the Palestine People's party, Bassam As-Salhi, called for an urgent meeting of the PLO's Executive Committee "to discuss Khraisha's act," which As-Salhi called "dangerous."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened on Thursday to end the peace process if the United Nations Human Rights Council votes in support of a report accusing it and Palestinian groups of war crimes in Gaza.
"Forwarding the decision of what is known as the Goldstone report, would strike a fatal blow to the peace process," Netanyahu said. "Israel will no longer be able to take additional steps and take risks for peace if its right to self-defense is denied."
Richard Goldstone, who was a prosecutor in war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, urged the 42-member state council to endorse his report. A supportive vote would have referred the report to the UN in New York, and possibly to the Security Council, which could have potentially sent it to the International Criminal Court.
Formal peace negotiations have been suspended since Israel began its three-week assault on Gaza last December. The war ultimately left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, including hundreds of women and children.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229205
Israel declares victory as PA backs down at UNHRC
While Palestinians representing virtually every segment of society condemned the Palestinian Authority for reversing its support for justice Richard Goldstone's UN report on the Gaza assault, the Israelis were celebrating.
Just before Sukkot began on Thursday night, Israel's ambassador to Geneva announced that the PA's inability to take a stand "is proof of the right strategy taken by the Israeli government and Foreign Ministry, by warning that adopting the repot could harm the peace process."
The ambassador, Leshno Yaar, told the the Hebrew-language daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks the same day contributed to the PA's decision, and that even Israel's ultranationalist foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, helped to "undermine" the report.
The Jerusalem Post's Friday morning front page read, "Goldstone crisis averted till March," reporting that the PA dropped support for the report backed by the Human Rights Council, despite having a clear majority at the UN body, and quoting the Israeli ambassador as saying that the decision legitimized Israel's stance.
"What happened today is proof that [the Israeli government's] strategy of not cooperating [with the probe]," Yaar said, "was correct."
"Israel insisted from the beginning that this was about politics against the State of Israel and not human rights," the paper quoted him as adding. "It emphasized the primacy of the peace process. It is a precedent for all states fighting terror."
In a separate op-ed Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arabic-speaking staff writer, editorialized that the PA's "actions and rhetoric, especially in the past few weeks and months, show that hypocrisy has become a major component of its official policy."
"During the day, Israel is the enemy that continues to deny the Palestinians their rights, seize their lands, arrest and kill their innocents, and expand existing settlements," Abu Toameh continued. "During the night, the Israeli enemy becomes a friend and peace partner with whom it's legitimate to conduct security coordination and eat in fancy restaurants."
The apparent victory on Friday was seen as the result of 48 hours of pressure from Israel's Foreign Ministry, and perhaps even the United States, on the PA to drop support for the draft, which it had previously called unbiased and accurate. It came just over a week since President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to meet in New York with Netanyahu without a settlement freeze.
The Associated Press quoted a senior US official as saying the latest PA backtracking came after "intense diplomacy" from American officials. "The Palestinians recognized that this was not the best time to go forward with this."
Deputy Prime Minister Danny Ayalon, of Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party, took things further a day prior to the vote, urging the Fatah-backed PA to not only help Israel at the UN, but alleging that the mainstay Palestinian faction supported Israel during the Gaza assault, itself.
The Fatah movement is "now trying to take us into the international court," Ayalon said before the scheduled summit, even though it had "pushed us to do away with Hamas" during the assault, itself, which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead by mid-January.
"[W]e are trying to negotiate with the Palestinians to achieve something good, we can not be under constant attacks by the same Palestinians," he said, hours before the PA dropped its support for the report. "Attacks today in the complex battles can be done through grenades or bullets, or through words. Sometimes words can be more dangerous."
For his part, Yedioth Ahronoth also quoted chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat as saying the PA had no intention of dropping their support.
"We are not members of the Human Rights Council. We are there as observers," he said. "The Council of Islamic States is working in order to have the body adopt the report. The decision stands, and this report is untrue. There has been no change in our position."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229220
Hamas: Geneva move latest in PA-Israel 'conspiracy'
Hamas denounced the Palestinian Authority for postponing debate on the Goldstone report at the UN Human Rights Council on Friday, an official said in a statement.
"This move is reflective of the conspiracy between the PA in Ramallah and the Israeli occupation," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, alleging that the PA was involved in Israel's assault on Gaza last winter.
The official said Hamas was astonished when it learned the PA's envoy had withdrawn the report "at New York's request," and urged international organizations to nevertheless "reveal the details of the Israeli massacre" and demand condemnation for "crimes that were committed in Gaza by Israeli soldiers."
Other Palestinian movements and officials were similarly incensed.
The Popular Resistance Committees, another Gaza-based Palestinian faction, similarly denounced the decision.
"Withdrawing the report amounts to a new cover for the [Israeli] occupation's crimes and an international blessing toward ever crime committed by the occupation," the PRC said in a statement.
Mustafa Al-Bargouthi, who heads the Palestinian National Initiative, told Ma'an that "there was a guaranteed majority in the Human Rights Council to condemn Israel... We denounce this postponement to issuing a resolution on Goldstone's report."
Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the Palestine People's party, Bassam As-Salhi, called for an urgent meeting of the PLO's Executive Committee "to discuss Khraisha's act," which As-Salhi called "dangerous."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229217
1 oct 2009
Netanyahu: UN must reject Goldstone report or peace process is over
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened on Thursday to end the peace process if the United Nations Human Rights Council votes in support of a report accusing it and Palestinian groups of war crimes in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s remarks to his cabinet came on the eve of the Human Rights Council’s vote on former war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone’s investigation into alleged violations during Israel’s offensive on Gaza last winter.
“Forwarding the decision of what is known as the Goldstone report, would strike a fatal blow to the peace process,” Netanyahu said. “Israel will no longer be able to take additional steps and take risks for peace if its right to self-defense is denied.”
Goldstone, who was a prosecutor in war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, urged the 42-member state Council to endorse his report. A supportive vote would refer the report to the UN in New York, and possibly to the Security Council, which could potentially send it to the International Criminal Court.
Formal peace negotiations have been suspended since Israel began its three-week assault on Gaza last December. The war ultimately left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, including hundreds of women and children.
The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations in Geneva, Ibrahim Khreisha, told the Israeli Jerusalem Post newspaper earlier on Thursday that the a resolution endorsing Goldstone’s report had the votes to pass.
However, another newspaper Haaretz, published a report late on Thursday that the Palestinian mission to Geneva had dropped its endorsement of the resolution, apparently under pressure from the US. This report could not be immediately verified by Ma’an.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229102
Goldstone: Israel intentionally targeted Gaza civilians
Richard Goldstone, the former war crimes prosecutor who led the United Nations fact-finding mission into Israel’s war on Gaza, told CNN on Wednesday that he believes Israel intentionally targeted some civilian sites during the conflict.
He stressed, however, that in his view targeting civilians was not an overall Israeli policy. Goldstone’s report, which accuses both Israel and Palestinian armed groups of war crimes, was presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
Asked if he believed that Israel had targeted civilians, Goldstone said, "Not as a policy. A fully fledged formal investigation will find that out. We didn’t get near being judicial."
However, a Haaretz report on the televised interview quotes him as saying that "some of the killing...was certainly intentional. There was no mistake in bombing factories. The Israeli intelligence has very precise information."
The Jewish South African judge explained that "Israel has said that given the density of the population in Gaza - they did the best they could to avoid civilians," but added that "we certainly looked into the fact that Hamas put their weapons near civilians. We looked for proof but didn't find it."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=228886
Hamas: Gaza authorities will investigate Goldstone's findings
By Jared Malsin
Exclusive – Hamas is critical of the Goldstone commission’s report on alleged war crimes in Gaza, but will nonetheless accept its recommendations and investigate charges that militant groups violated the rules of war, senior Hamas official Ahmad Yousef told Ma’an.
In an extended interview at his home in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah, Yousef said that while he disagreed with Justice Richard Goldstone’s equivalence between occupying forces and Palestinian resistance, the Hamas-backed government in Gaza would nonetheless “do our best” to pursue investigations into the deaths of three Israeli civilians.
Yousef’s reaction differed from that of Israel, which refused to cooperate with Goldstone’s UN Fact-Finding Mission and pilloried his 574-page report as biased. On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vetoed a suggestion that the government establish a commission of inquiry into Goldstone's findings.
The Goldstone report was one of dozens of topics addressed in Ma’an’s extensive conversation with Yousef, who serves as an advisor to Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on foreign affairs.
Ma’an: We’ve been shocked to see how much devastation still remains from the Israeli onslaught on Gaza last winter. What is Hamas and the current government doing to further reconstruction?
Ahmad Yousef: In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful. From the beginning, after the war we announced that we welcome any efforts to rebuild Gaza. We are more than welcoming. We are not putting any restrictions on any efforts in that direction.
But, without construction materials it’s going to be hard to start reconstruction. We tried bringing some tents and caravans to make sure that people who lost their houses are going to be housed. You know Israel closed all the gates. If you have the intention to do something, without opening the crossings, it’s going to be in vain. If the world community, if UNRWA can’t do anything, what can we do?
Unfortunately the world community is failing to put pressure on Israel to open the gates. Everybody sounds like they can’t do anything.
In your opinion, what does the international community need to do? Where does the pressure need to be applied?
They have to put pressure on Israel to end the siege, to allow reconstruction to begin.
You said you wouldn’t place restrictions on reconstruction efforts. Does that include those that are facilitated by the government in Ramallah?
Of course, if Ramallah has the intention to invest some of the money from the donors. They also have to cooperate with the institutions we have in Gaza. Nobody will come just to hand over money and construction materials without consulting with the local authorities. And I don’t think it’s going to be any problem to coordinate something with Ramallah in that respect.
What was your reaction to the conclusions of the Goldstone commission report that came out recently?
It depends on how you look at the report. If you look at the report from a moral and political perspective you shouldn’t blame Hamas or the groups that were defending Gaza against aggression. The Israelis started the war, and they used the most advanced military technology known to man to cause that kind of large-scale destruction. So the groups are going to use whatever is necessarily and whatever is in their hands to defend the people.
The report tried to equate in one way or another between the aggressors and the victims. That is actually where we are not satisfied totally with the report.
But in general the report highlighted Israeli crimes against humanity, and they recommended that the United Nations, also, pressure the Israeli authorities to conduct more investigations to bring the criminals to justice. Blaming the Palestinians, one way or another, this is where we have some reservations. From a realpolitik standpoint, you can say the report, it’s quiet fair, because it highlighted the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.
The report did also call for investigations into what are alleged violations by the Palestinian side. Do you accept that recommendation?
We will try to do our best, also. They mentioned that three Israelis have also been killed. That’s fine. Hamas has said all the time that they were targeting military bases. Maybe because these are primitive weapons - the rockets, because they’re homemade - maybe some of these rockets missed their targets, some of them fell short.
Again, because these are primitive weapons - to compare it with 6,000 injured and 1,400 killed - I think it’s unfair to make that comparison. And to compare the Israeli high-tech weapons, smart bombs and F16s and Apaches to the homemade Qassams and the mortars we have, it’s like comparing the sword to the stick.
In July, you gave an interview to The Economist magazine in which you said Hamas is “close on recognizing Israel.” You later retracted that statement and we reported that on Ma’an. What did you mean by that statement?
Actually I didn’t make that statement. I was misquoted in an interview that was not recorded. The interviewer was a senior editor and I expected more professionalism from him. I called him to task on the misquote and he was ready to correct the statement. I issued another statement actually clarifying the things that I said.
The issue of recognition – it’s not required by international law. There is nothing in international law requiring an occupied people to recognize their occupier. This is a unique Israeli demand where they keep demanding that Hamas recognize them. Still, we, the people whose land is occupied, reserve the right to defend ourselves, and the occupation must leave.
Hamas’ political vision is crystal clear. We have said that we will accept a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders. We have said that we won’t hinder any peace efforts that will lead to the establishment of a free independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.
You mean the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem?
Yes. The occupied territories and Jerusalem is its capital. We can give a truce 10 to 20 years. That means also the right of return, because it’s also guaranteed by United Nations Resolution 194. Israel also must accept that UN resolution, which guarantees the right of return and compensation to Palestinian refugees in the Diaspora.
Hamas is clearly working hard to gain access to the international sphere and the political process. We once asked Tony Blair why the Quartet doesn't deal with Hamas, even though Khalid Mesh’al said, in an interview with the New York Times the same day, that Hamas accepts the 1967 borders. He said the Quartet understands this, that it’s not a communication issue. How will this impasse be broken? Who is going to change their position?
I think the world community must change its position to make Israel adhere to international law and United Nations resolutions. It is not the Palestinians, who have been squeezed all the time to the corner, who will keep giving concessions to the Israelis because they have the upper hand. They have the military might. So the Palestinians, the victims, have to keep giving concessions? This is unacceptable.
Say more about the Hamas position toward Israel. Surely when you say recognition, you mean recognition of Israel’s legitimacy, and the legitimacy of the occupation.
This issue is a very complicated issue, because the Palestinian question has religious, political, moral, and legal dimensions. All of these dimensions need to be addressed. It’s not logical to ask the Palestinians, who lost their homeland, to recognize their occupier. The PLO already recognized Israel, and what did they get? Nothing.
I don’t think the Israelis also have any political intention to resolve the problem. The Israelis are buying time to build more settlements in the West Bank and to usurp most of the strategic land, so that we Palestinians will have no chance to have a state. The Israelis grab more land every year putting more settlements in the West Bank. Already more than 200 settlements exist in the West Bank with different capacities of population and about a half-million settlers.
If we keep silent 10 more years there is no West Bank at all, except for these condensed populated areas, and I don’t know what they’re going to do with that.
In the Mecca platform of the 2007 government, you worked out a formula where the president, Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] had control over the negotiation file, and he could negotiate with Israel or not. Are you interested in returning to such a platform?
If we succeed in the national reconciliation talks and we have a unity government or a coalition and Hamas is a part of it – for sure they will address this issue of who is going to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians. When we had the unity government, Abu Mazen had that mandate.
Now that we have been divided, from the Hamas perspective I don’t think he has that kind of mandate. We have to accept first what kind of political platform we have together, as a unity or coalition government. […]
So, your position is that because of the split, because there is no unity government, all the current discussions between renewing negotiations – you’re saying Abbas doesn’t have the legitimacy even to be talking about negotiations?
Of course yes, from the Hamas perspective he does not have the legitimacy. If he is talking … Abu Mazen has initiated many things without consulting even the PLO. He thinks he has the jurisdiction to do whatever he wants. From Hamas' perspective he doesn’t have anything legitimate.
The moment we split and divided the West Bank and Gaza, Abu Mazen is doing his own initiative and proposal. He doesn’t consult with us, so why should we give him that kind of mandate. We don’t know exactly what he is doing.
From the things we heard from Abu Ala [PA negotiator Ahmad Quriea], after all these rounds of talks and after all this hugging and kissing with [former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert, they said that we achieved a big zero, so why do we have to count on someone who achieved a big zero, and discredited us as Palestinians among the world community, among the Arabs and Muslims by deceiving us that he’s achieving something, and that’s why he’s kissing Olmert.
He [Abbas] is giving wrong signals to us as Palestinians to the world community … that there is something moving, but if you look and see at the end of the road we didn’t reach our destiny and all the things that Abu Mazen is talking [about]. … There is nothing that has actually been achieved.
Is Abu Mazen still the legitimate president of Palestine?
From Hamas’ perspective, I don’t think they consider him as a legitimate president because his term has ended, and in light of the [Palestinian] Basic Law he lost that legitimacy. But that is a controversial issue; I don’t think it’s useful to go and talk about it.
What is your view of the suggestion that there will be new elections in January?
If you’re going to have elections, you need first national reconciliation. And when you have national reconciliation, at least you need six months to prepare for elections, to do the procedures that are required for elections. I don’t think it’s going to be feasible. We are now in the end of September, and we need at least two or three months to reconcile the rift between Fatah and Hamas. To set the stage for elections you need at least six months.
So, the need, really, is for administrative unity, a single bureaucratic framework between the West Bank and Gaza.
That’s right. And you see in the Egyptian vision to end the rift, they mentioned that they might need until the middle of 2010. They understand the complexity: the next round of talks, how long will that take? The things in the Egyptian proposal, how long will they take to implement? Reforming the security services and such.
Do you feel there has been progress in the Egyptian proposals, that they are becoming more realistic?
I think this time there is a glimmer of hope and room for optimism, more than all the previous rounds of talks. During the talks there were lot of difficulties and everyone tried to put up obstacles, but I think this time the Egyptian vision addressed both Fatah and Hamas’ demands. I think the Egyptians are trying to make some kind of compromise to accommodate both of them. I think we are more optimistic than at any time before.
The second half of Ma'an's conversation with Ahmad Yousef will go online Friday morning, local time.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=228039
Netanyahu: UN must reject Goldstone report or peace process is over
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened on Thursday to end the peace process if the United Nations Human Rights Council votes in support of a report accusing it and Palestinian groups of war crimes in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s remarks to his cabinet came on the eve of the Human Rights Council’s vote on former war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone’s investigation into alleged violations during Israel’s offensive on Gaza last winter.
“Forwarding the decision of what is known as the Goldstone report, would strike a fatal blow to the peace process,” Netanyahu said. “Israel will no longer be able to take additional steps and take risks for peace if its right to self-defense is denied.”
Goldstone, who was a prosecutor in war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, urged the 42-member state Council to endorse his report. A supportive vote would refer the report to the UN in New York, and possibly to the Security Council, which could potentially send it to the International Criminal Court.
Formal peace negotiations have been suspended since Israel began its three-week assault on Gaza last December. The war ultimately left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, including hundreds of women and children.
The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations in Geneva, Ibrahim Khreisha, told the Israeli Jerusalem Post newspaper earlier on Thursday that the a resolution endorsing Goldstone’s report had the votes to pass.
However, another newspaper Haaretz, published a report late on Thursday that the Palestinian mission to Geneva had dropped its endorsement of the resolution, apparently under pressure from the US. This report could not be immediately verified by Ma’an.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=229102
Goldstone: Israel intentionally targeted Gaza civilians
Richard Goldstone, the former war crimes prosecutor who led the United Nations fact-finding mission into Israel’s war on Gaza, told CNN on Wednesday that he believes Israel intentionally targeted some civilian sites during the conflict.
He stressed, however, that in his view targeting civilians was not an overall Israeli policy. Goldstone’s report, which accuses both Israel and Palestinian armed groups of war crimes, was presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
Asked if he believed that Israel had targeted civilians, Goldstone said, "Not as a policy. A fully fledged formal investigation will find that out. We didn’t get near being judicial."
However, a Haaretz report on the televised interview quotes him as saying that "some of the killing...was certainly intentional. There was no mistake in bombing factories. The Israeli intelligence has very precise information."
The Jewish South African judge explained that "Israel has said that given the density of the population in Gaza - they did the best they could to avoid civilians," but added that "we certainly looked into the fact that Hamas put their weapons near civilians. We looked for proof but didn't find it."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=228886
Hamas: Gaza authorities will investigate Goldstone's findings
By Jared Malsin
Exclusive – Hamas is critical of the Goldstone commission’s report on alleged war crimes in Gaza, but will nonetheless accept its recommendations and investigate charges that militant groups violated the rules of war, senior Hamas official Ahmad Yousef told Ma’an.
In an extended interview at his home in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah, Yousef said that while he disagreed with Justice Richard Goldstone’s equivalence between occupying forces and Palestinian resistance, the Hamas-backed government in Gaza would nonetheless “do our best” to pursue investigations into the deaths of three Israeli civilians.
Yousef’s reaction differed from that of Israel, which refused to cooperate with Goldstone’s UN Fact-Finding Mission and pilloried his 574-page report as biased. On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vetoed a suggestion that the government establish a commission of inquiry into Goldstone's findings.
The Goldstone report was one of dozens of topics addressed in Ma’an’s extensive conversation with Yousef, who serves as an advisor to Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on foreign affairs.
Ma’an: We’ve been shocked to see how much devastation still remains from the Israeli onslaught on Gaza last winter. What is Hamas and the current government doing to further reconstruction?
Ahmad Yousef: In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful. From the beginning, after the war we announced that we welcome any efforts to rebuild Gaza. We are more than welcoming. We are not putting any restrictions on any efforts in that direction.
But, without construction materials it’s going to be hard to start reconstruction. We tried bringing some tents and caravans to make sure that people who lost their houses are going to be housed. You know Israel closed all the gates. If you have the intention to do something, without opening the crossings, it’s going to be in vain. If the world community, if UNRWA can’t do anything, what can we do?
Unfortunately the world community is failing to put pressure on Israel to open the gates. Everybody sounds like they can’t do anything.
In your opinion, what does the international community need to do? Where does the pressure need to be applied?
They have to put pressure on Israel to end the siege, to allow reconstruction to begin.
You said you wouldn’t place restrictions on reconstruction efforts. Does that include those that are facilitated by the government in Ramallah?
Of course, if Ramallah has the intention to invest some of the money from the donors. They also have to cooperate with the institutions we have in Gaza. Nobody will come just to hand over money and construction materials without consulting with the local authorities. And I don’t think it’s going to be any problem to coordinate something with Ramallah in that respect.
What was your reaction to the conclusions of the Goldstone commission report that came out recently?
It depends on how you look at the report. If you look at the report from a moral and political perspective you shouldn’t blame Hamas or the groups that were defending Gaza against aggression. The Israelis started the war, and they used the most advanced military technology known to man to cause that kind of large-scale destruction. So the groups are going to use whatever is necessarily and whatever is in their hands to defend the people.
The report tried to equate in one way or another between the aggressors and the victims. That is actually where we are not satisfied totally with the report.
But in general the report highlighted Israeli crimes against humanity, and they recommended that the United Nations, also, pressure the Israeli authorities to conduct more investigations to bring the criminals to justice. Blaming the Palestinians, one way or another, this is where we have some reservations. From a realpolitik standpoint, you can say the report, it’s quiet fair, because it highlighted the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.
The report did also call for investigations into what are alleged violations by the Palestinian side. Do you accept that recommendation?
We will try to do our best, also. They mentioned that three Israelis have also been killed. That’s fine. Hamas has said all the time that they were targeting military bases. Maybe because these are primitive weapons - the rockets, because they’re homemade - maybe some of these rockets missed their targets, some of them fell short.
Again, because these are primitive weapons - to compare it with 6,000 injured and 1,400 killed - I think it’s unfair to make that comparison. And to compare the Israeli high-tech weapons, smart bombs and F16s and Apaches to the homemade Qassams and the mortars we have, it’s like comparing the sword to the stick.
In July, you gave an interview to The Economist magazine in which you said Hamas is “close on recognizing Israel.” You later retracted that statement and we reported that on Ma’an. What did you mean by that statement?
Actually I didn’t make that statement. I was misquoted in an interview that was not recorded. The interviewer was a senior editor and I expected more professionalism from him. I called him to task on the misquote and he was ready to correct the statement. I issued another statement actually clarifying the things that I said.
The issue of recognition – it’s not required by international law. There is nothing in international law requiring an occupied people to recognize their occupier. This is a unique Israeli demand where they keep demanding that Hamas recognize them. Still, we, the people whose land is occupied, reserve the right to defend ourselves, and the occupation must leave.
Hamas’ political vision is crystal clear. We have said that we will accept a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders. We have said that we won’t hinder any peace efforts that will lead to the establishment of a free independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.
You mean the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem?
Yes. The occupied territories and Jerusalem is its capital. We can give a truce 10 to 20 years. That means also the right of return, because it’s also guaranteed by United Nations Resolution 194. Israel also must accept that UN resolution, which guarantees the right of return and compensation to Palestinian refugees in the Diaspora.
Hamas is clearly working hard to gain access to the international sphere and the political process. We once asked Tony Blair why the Quartet doesn't deal with Hamas, even though Khalid Mesh’al said, in an interview with the New York Times the same day, that Hamas accepts the 1967 borders. He said the Quartet understands this, that it’s not a communication issue. How will this impasse be broken? Who is going to change their position?
I think the world community must change its position to make Israel adhere to international law and United Nations resolutions. It is not the Palestinians, who have been squeezed all the time to the corner, who will keep giving concessions to the Israelis because they have the upper hand. They have the military might. So the Palestinians, the victims, have to keep giving concessions? This is unacceptable.
Say more about the Hamas position toward Israel. Surely when you say recognition, you mean recognition of Israel’s legitimacy, and the legitimacy of the occupation.
This issue is a very complicated issue, because the Palestinian question has religious, political, moral, and legal dimensions. All of these dimensions need to be addressed. It’s not logical to ask the Palestinians, who lost their homeland, to recognize their occupier. The PLO already recognized Israel, and what did they get? Nothing.
I don’t think the Israelis also have any political intention to resolve the problem. The Israelis are buying time to build more settlements in the West Bank and to usurp most of the strategic land, so that we Palestinians will have no chance to have a state. The Israelis grab more land every year putting more settlements in the West Bank. Already more than 200 settlements exist in the West Bank with different capacities of population and about a half-million settlers.
If we keep silent 10 more years there is no West Bank at all, except for these condensed populated areas, and I don’t know what they’re going to do with that.
In the Mecca platform of the 2007 government, you worked out a formula where the president, Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] had control over the negotiation file, and he could negotiate with Israel or not. Are you interested in returning to such a platform?
If we succeed in the national reconciliation talks and we have a unity government or a coalition and Hamas is a part of it – for sure they will address this issue of who is going to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians. When we had the unity government, Abu Mazen had that mandate.
Now that we have been divided, from the Hamas perspective I don’t think he has that kind of mandate. We have to accept first what kind of political platform we have together, as a unity or coalition government. […]
So, your position is that because of the split, because there is no unity government, all the current discussions between renewing negotiations – you’re saying Abbas doesn’t have the legitimacy even to be talking about negotiations?
Of course yes, from the Hamas perspective he does not have the legitimacy. If he is talking … Abu Mazen has initiated many things without consulting even the PLO. He thinks he has the jurisdiction to do whatever he wants. From Hamas' perspective he doesn’t have anything legitimate.
The moment we split and divided the West Bank and Gaza, Abu Mazen is doing his own initiative and proposal. He doesn’t consult with us, so why should we give him that kind of mandate. We don’t know exactly what he is doing.
From the things we heard from Abu Ala [PA negotiator Ahmad Quriea], after all these rounds of talks and after all this hugging and kissing with [former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert, they said that we achieved a big zero, so why do we have to count on someone who achieved a big zero, and discredited us as Palestinians among the world community, among the Arabs and Muslims by deceiving us that he’s achieving something, and that’s why he’s kissing Olmert.
He [Abbas] is giving wrong signals to us as Palestinians to the world community … that there is something moving, but if you look and see at the end of the road we didn’t reach our destiny and all the things that Abu Mazen is talking [about]. … There is nothing that has actually been achieved.
Is Abu Mazen still the legitimate president of Palestine?
From Hamas’ perspective, I don’t think they consider him as a legitimate president because his term has ended, and in light of the [Palestinian] Basic Law he lost that legitimacy. But that is a controversial issue; I don’t think it’s useful to go and talk about it.
What is your view of the suggestion that there will be new elections in January?
If you’re going to have elections, you need first national reconciliation. And when you have national reconciliation, at least you need six months to prepare for elections, to do the procedures that are required for elections. I don’t think it’s going to be feasible. We are now in the end of September, and we need at least two or three months to reconcile the rift between Fatah and Hamas. To set the stage for elections you need at least six months.
So, the need, really, is for administrative unity, a single bureaucratic framework between the West Bank and Gaza.
That’s right. And you see in the Egyptian vision to end the rift, they mentioned that they might need until the middle of 2010. They understand the complexity: the next round of talks, how long will that take? The things in the Egyptian proposal, how long will they take to implement? Reforming the security services and such.
Do you feel there has been progress in the Egyptian proposals, that they are becoming more realistic?
I think this time there is a glimmer of hope and room for optimism, more than all the previous rounds of talks. During the talks there were lot of difficulties and everyone tried to put up obstacles, but I think this time the Egyptian vision addressed both Fatah and Hamas’ demands. I think the Egyptians are trying to make some kind of compromise to accommodate both of them. I think we are more optimistic than at any time before.
The second half of Ma'an's conversation with Ahmad Yousef will go online Friday morning, local time.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=228039