Word: israelity
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...from the start, Israel refused to cooperate with the inquiry, accusing the panel, and Goldstone in particular, of bias. In the right-wing Israeli press, he was portrayed as a prejudiced South African liberal, misguidedly equating the Palestinians with his own country's black population during the fight against apartheid...
Rarely does a human-rights investigation cause the kind of geopolitical ruckus that has been generated by the U.N. probe into last winter's fighting in Gaza that left more than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead. Israel is mounting an 11th hour diplomatic blitz to scupper U.N. discussion of the Human Rights Council investigation led by South African judge Richard Goldstone, which accuses the Israeli army and Palestinian Hamas militants of committing war crimes. Israel insists the probe is biased and, in the words of Defense Minister Ehud Barak, "twisted, fraudulent and tendentious." At a Security Council meeting...
...Palestinian side, furor over the report battered the already weak government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, after he initially heeded pressure from the U.S. to squelch U.N. discussion of the report. The Obama Administration was mindful of Israel's concerns and reluctant to allow the Goldstone probe to distract from its efforts to restart the peace process. Under a firestorm of criticism, not least from within his own Fatah party, Abbas reversed himself and pressed for U.N. discussion of Goldstone. (See pictures of the 2009 conflict in Gaza...
...That discussion will begin in earnest on Thursday, when the Human Rights Council meets in Geneva to consider whether to bury the report in the international body's labyrinthine archives, as Israel would prefer, or forward it for action by the Security Council. The latter course would trigger a process in which Israel and Hamas are both given six months to carry out their own independent investigations into the charges raised by the Goldstone report. If they fail to do so, the issue could be referred for prosecution by the International Criminal Court in the Hague, which could result...
...tapped Goldstone to head the probe in the hope that his impeccable credentials at the head of tribunals investigating war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda - as well as the fact that he is Jewish, is said by those close to him to be a friend of Israel, and is a trustee of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem - would make him acceptable to the Israeli side. Goldstone only agreed to head the inquiry after the U.N. heeded his insistence on expanding the probe to include not only allegations of Israeli war crimes, but also the actions of Palestinian militants...