“In war, truth is the first casualty.” ~Aeschylus
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Remember my post regarding the Goldstone report? Well the story goes on, on November 5th the UN general assembly endorsed the report and urged both Israel and Palestinians to proceed with credible investigations in order to punish those responsible for the war crimes committed during the Israeli invasion at Gaza strip almost a year ago. As the UN news center reports:
The General Assembly today endorsed the report of the United Nations investigation which found that both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants were guilty of serious human rights violations during the conflict in the Gaza Strip at the start of the year.
After two days of debate in the Assembly, at UN Headquarters in New York, 114 Member States voted in favour of a resolution endorsing the report’s findings and its recommendations for further action. Eighteen States voted against the resolution and another 44 countries abstained.
The probe, led by Justice Richard Goldstone, a former war crimes prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, found that both sides committed serious war crimes and breaches of humanitarian law, possibly amounting to crimes against humanity, during the conflict in December 2008 and January 2009.
The four-member fact-finding team called for a number of measures, including the referral of the report to the Security Council, since neither the Israeli Government nor the responsible Palestinian authorities have so far carried out any credible investigations into alleged violations.
General Assembly President Ali Treki, speaking to journalists after the resolution was adopted, said that “this vote is an important declaration against impunity. It is a call for justice and accountability.”
Mr. Treki called on all concerned to devote themselves to implementing the contents of the resolution, which asks both the Israelis and Palestinians to carry out independent inquiries.
“Without justice, there can be no progress towards peace. A human being should be treated as a human being, regardless of his or her religion, race or nationality.”
The fact-finding mission was set up earlier this year at the request of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council.
What was the reaction of Israel? The expected one. According to Reuters:
Israel on Friday rejected a U.N. General Assembly resolution urging an investigation into a report saying 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 U.N. Human Rights Council, was nonbinding and seen as unlikely to force either Israel or Islamist Hamas rulers in Gaza to investigate the findings.
But Israel has responded with outrage to the findings issued in September by a panel led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, seeing the document as an Arab bid to undermine the reputations of its military and political leaders.
"Israel rejects the resolution of the U.N. General Assembly, which is completely detached from realities on the ground that Israel must face," the Foreign Ministry statement issued by spokesman Yigal Palmor said.
Palmor also maintained that Israel had "demonstrated higher military and moral standards than each and every one of this resolution’s instigators," during the war in December in which more than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.
He also said Israel took some encouragement from what he called "the large number of member states who voted against or abstained" as showing the resolution "does not have the support of the moral majority."
The resolution, approved by 114 countries with 18 opposed and 44 abstaining, followed Goldstone in calling on Israel and "the Palestinian side" to undertake within three months credible investigations into the report’s charges.
Goldstone’s report blasted both sides in the conflict but was harsher toward Israel which refused to cooperate with the judge’s investigation.
So lets recap. Hamas starts bombarding south Israel, Israeli military forces invade the Gaza strip and basically butcher civilians. The UN comes crashing in, does an investigation, accuses both Hamas and Israel for war crimes, rejecting their claims (read the report, i posted it in that earlier post). Israel complains that the report is biased, i wonder how can that be, maybe those 1300 dead Palestinians, mostly civilians, are non existent. Hamas on the other hand throws a party, rejecting the part of the report that discusses Hama’s war crimes and focuses on the part that discusses Israeli war crimes. The international community? Divided. Anybody wondering, still, if the bloodbath is going to continue? Cause i dont.
