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UN Assembly Draft Urges Action on Gaza 'War Crimes'
UNITED NATIONS - Arab U.N. delegates circulated a draft resolution on Monday that would require Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to bring a U.N. report alleging war crimes in the Gaza Strip before the Security Council.
A special meeting of the 192-nation assembly on Wednesday will debate the U.N. report on the December-January war in the Gaza Strip and vote on the draft resolution.
That report accused Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants of war crimes and was prepared by a U.N. fact-finding commission led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone.
The Arab draft resolution, obtained by Reuters, says the assembly "requests the Secretary-General to transmit the report ... to the Security Council." It also urges Israel and the Palestinians to comply with the report's recommendations for launching investigations into allegations of war crimes.
The draft also tells Ban to report back to the assembly within three months on implementation of the resolution.
Arab and Western diplomats told Reuters there was little doubt a majority of the General Assembly would vote in favour of the Arab draft. But negotiations were underway as Arab delegates sought to persuade Western powers to back the text.
Western diplomats said the United States would most likely vote against the resolution. Unless it is revised, they said, most European delegations would join Washington and reject it.
Resolutions of the General Assembly, unlike those of the Security Council, are nonbinding. But U.N. diplomats say such a resolution would intensify pressure on Israel to launch a full investigation into the actions of its army during the war.
The Goldstone report lambasted both sides in the war, which killed up to 1,387 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, but was harsher towards Israel. It gave Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants six months to mount credible investigations or face possible prosecution in The Hague.
WESTERN DIPLOMATS REJECT ARAB DRAFT
Both Israel and Hamas denied committing any war crimes. Israel has criticized the report as unbalanced and says the 47-nation Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, which commissioned the report, is biased against the Jewish state.
An Israeli official in New York condemned both the report and the assembly's discussion of it. "At a time when we are debating restarting peace talks, this is not helpful to anyone," said the official, who asked not to be identified.
Diplomats said the five veto-wielding permanent council members -- United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- all agreed that there was no point in bringing the issue to the Security Council, which meant it was unlikely the 15-nation panel would do anything with the Goldstone report.
The Arab draft resolution does not explicitly endorse a Human Rights Council resolution from last month that censured Israel for its actions in the Gaza war without referring to any wrongdoing by Hamas. The United States voted against that resolution while France and Britain abstained from the vote.
But it does endorse an HRC report that included the resolution. Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem said it amounted to a full endorsement of the HRC resolution.
"It endorses the Human Rights Council resolution, that is the point," he told Reuters. " And it exposes the double standards that some permanent Security Council members have towards the occupying power in Palestine."
Several Western diplomats told Reuters the Arab draft was "unacceptable" because of its endorsement of the HRC actions and for requesting Security Council intervention.
Abdalhaleem said the Arabs had rejected an earlier European draft that said the General Assembly would merely "take note" of the Goldstone report and pass the issue back to the HRC.
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31 Comments so far
Show AllWhy doesn't the phony U.N. urge war crimes charges against the U.S.?
Exactly. The whole UN is a farce. They should create a new organization without any countries having veto power. The fact that the US can protect Israel with their veto is ridiculous. Why has Israel not been ejected from the UN, or for that matter, why hasn't it been attacked by a coalition of UN countries? Iraq was attacked ostensibly for not complying with UN resolutions, why not Israel?
You have correctly described the UN. But I hope you noted that both sides were rightly condemned for war crimes. Its past time for giving Hamas a pass simply because it sounds good.
When was Hamas given a pass....All this while, it was the IDF that has been given the pass, over and over again. In the 40s the role was somewhat reversed and the Israeli resistance were considered 'heroes'. Israeli is a country built on terrorism. And is run by terrorists. And now it has a son of a terrorist sitting along with the WH resident.
If such a new interntional organization were created do you think the great powers currently having veto power on the Sec Council would join it? No, they would undermine it and boycott it because it would threaten their perogatives. Also, if most of the countries withdrew from the UN to join the new organization, then the Western powers would form their own internatinal organization to rival the other new one, along the lines of a "League of Democracies" already being proposed by the Neocons in the U.S.
On the other hand, the emergence of regional blocks, like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation), Latin American efforts at a common market (Mercosur) and a common currency (ALBA issues the Sucre), the Gaucho, to some extent the EU, etc. is a promising rival in the longer term to monopolar sole superpower dominance.
Josh
"Power coceded nothing without demand. It never has and never will." Frederick Douglass
Among other reasons is the fact that Israel could very easily kick the butt of any UN or other global military force, including any backed by the US. Without even raising a sweat. And the world knows it.
You are an arrogant fool. The first sign of an empire's decline is its sheer arrogance and you reflect the arrogance of the terrorist state.
Ahem! I think he reflects the arrogance of someone who is "Chosen" thou, even if the choosing has been self-inflicted.
Horrified, welcome! you may even get a clue some day.
Sadly, they would be doing so with US taxpayer dollars. Not that there's anything wrong with that!
Pull the plug on the fuckers already and drive them into the ocean...with cement shoes on! Those I'll gladly pay for myself with my own savings!
"Among other reasons" troll mikep. Are you too,a UN/Bilderberger pimpster/ Israeli/Zionist brown tonguer.OF COURSE ISRAEL HAS THE CAPABILITY TO RENDER THE HUMAN RACE EXTINCT!SOMETHING TO BE PROUD OF? A LEGACY FOR THE GRAND CHILDREN.WHOOPDEEDO.WHAT IS YOUR POINT? SADISM AND ANNIHILATION ARE IN!SOMETHING TO ASPIRE TO?
From France;
Shame doesn't even to begin to describe what i feel...
War is still the biggest booming business of the western powers.
Vonnegut said "Vietnam made BILLIONAIRES OUT OF MILLIONAIRES" and THESE WARS ARE MAKING TRILLIONAIRES OUT OF THE BILLIONAIRES.WAR IS BEYOND A BOOMING BUSINESS.Same mentality, different location.Outer space is where it's at these days!
Judge Goldstone is a zionist and a Jew. He reported objectively. Will we cover up by ignoring his findings on behalf of AIPAC? SHAME!
Better yet, Shill, why wouldn't you?
What hypocritical toadies in the UN Security Council. They speak about "peace" and "human rights" and then cover their eyes like monkeys when their b*stard child Israel commits the worst war crimes of the 21st century. Nor have they applied any pressure on this apartheid state to stop its reign of terror and genocide against the Palestinians. There is, therefore, no holding Israel accountable for war crimes and no measures in place to prevent other Gazas and Lebanons and Sabra/Shatilas from happening in the future. Some day Israelis will wake up and realize how their government's war crimes have made them more vulnerable, not safer. One can't be safe living in a world that despises your actions.
The West for crimes against humanity, against justice for the Palestinians. How shameful.
The UN is meaningless because of the so-called security council. No worries for the racist imperialists though, as the article mentions, the US will veto anything that criticizes Israel. It happens every time for decade after decade. The US cannot be held accountable because nothing can pass the UNSC. The UN is simply an imperialist tool for the neo-imperial powers. That seems pretty clear to me.
Israel is merely making a cultural exchange from being the oppressed in a number of areas to being the sole oppressor in their own country - which they were given rather than developed through cultural affinity. AIPAC and the Knesset have shown to be considerably more effective then the Nazis in pursuing their own propagandized agendas of legitimate targets for state-sponsored violence e.g. terrorism as there realm of effect has spanned across continents and has infected the once noble intention of finally bringing together the nations of the world under the banner of our common and shared inheritance.
Any state, group, or individual that commits wanton acts of violence towards another state, group, or individual, for any purported reason, is guilty of crimes against humanity.
Thus, there are many actors across this planet that are just as guilty of the Israeli state of committing war crimes. The difference is that in many cases, the infraction is made rather obvious by the maimed and dismembered bodies lying across the streets and in piles of rubble. In Israel and its supporting bodies, this is portrayed as legitimate - whatever legitimacy an act of murder can afford.
A crime against humanity is the deliberate taking of life through the illegitimate use of rhetoric.
There is no reason for the title of this Reuters article to place parentheses around the words "war crimes" as Israel is being accused of actual war crimes as defined under international law -- not of acts merely resembling war crimes, as the parentheses seem to suggest.
And yes, as noted in comments already posed, Israel's American godfather can be expected to veto any Security Council resolution designed to hold Israeli officials responsible for their crimes.
There is no reason for the title of this Reuters article to place parentheses around the words "war crimes" [...]
__________________________________________
No valid, justifiable reason. One can never be sure who actually composes headlines, but it never hurts to be extra-careful not to provoke mad dogs by even accidently poking them with the sharp stick of truth.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Reuters is an Israel shill. They're not tip toeing thru the tulips, they're actually aiding and abetting the 'war criminals'
Gaza And The Warsaw Ghetto
same place
different time
while the world stood by
genocide
live
As expected:
The House has approved a non-binding measure denouncing a UN inquiry for accusing Israel of committing war crimes in its assault on the Gaza Strip. The inquiry, headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, also accused Hamas of war crimes and urged both sides to investigate the charges or face international prosecution. But the House measure dismissed the Goldstone report as “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.” It also calls on the Obama administration to “strongly and unequivocally oppose” discussion of the report’s findings in any international setting. The resolution passed by a margin of 344-to-46. Before the vote, activists confronted the measure’s co-sponsor, Democratic Congress member Howard Berman. Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK said Berman is afraid to hear Goldstone’s findings.
Medea Benjamin: “We have been calling on Congress to let Judge Goldstone come and brief Congress. And Congressman Berman has been afraid to have him come to do that. And that’s one of the other things that we asked. We said, ’Don’t vote now. Let Congress have a chance to hear directly from Judge Goldstone.’ Judge Goldstone is a preeminent lawyer, internationally respected, has his daughter living in Israel, calls himself a Zionist. I mean, he’s the perfect person to do this report. And to just poo-poo the whole thing and try to push it under the rug is really criminal. And Congressman Berman is afraid to hear from Judge Goldstone.”
The UN General Assembly is expected to take up the Goldstone report later today.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/4/headlines#3
Another day, another injustice, another sell out. All in a day's work in Congress.
Ain't his convenient?
Israel says seized big Hezbollah-bound arms ship
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli naval commandos seized a ship carrying hundreds of tons of Iranian-supplied arms, including rockets that can hit Israeli cities, to Lebanon's Hezbollah group, Israeli officials said on Wednesday.
Commodore Ran Ben-Yehuda, speaking as the search of the Antigua-flagged Francop was under way in Israel's Mediterranean port of Ashdod, said the weapons were found behind civilian goods in at least 40 shipping containers.
The shipment, he said, was enough to keep Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which fired some 4,000 rockets into Israel during a 34-day war in 2006, supplied for a month of fighting.
"The weapons came from Iran and were meant for Hezbollah," Ben-Yehuda told reporters at Ashdod port, where wooden crates of bullets, rocket-propelled grenades and variety of rockets which he said were unloaded from the ship filled a dock.
He said the containers were picked up by the Francop in the Egyptian port of Damietta and were to have reached Hezbollah in Lebanon via Syria.
Syria and Iran denied the Israeli allegations.
"It's 10 times the size of the cargo on the Karine-A," Ben-Yehuda said, referring to a freighter with 50 tons of arms that Israel seized in 2002. Israel said that vessel's cargo was supplied by Iran and destined for Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel believed Egypt and the vessel's crew were unaware weapons were being shipped on the Francop, Ben-Yehuda said.
He said naval commandos boarded the ship overnight without incident after receiving the captain's permission to inspect his cargo. The interception, the military said, was carried out in international waters about 100 miles from Israel.
Ben-Yehuda said Israeli intelligence constantly kept taps on suspected smuggling lanes.
HIDDEN
At Ashdod port, some of the crates on display were still wedged in containers behind white sacks of polyethelene in what the Israeli military said had been a bid to hide the weaponry.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that weapons discovered on the vessel could have been used to attack Israeli cities.
But in public comments on the incident, Israeli leaders gave no hint they were contemplating military action against Hezbollah in response to the alleged weapons smuggling attempt. The Israeli-Lebanese frontier has been largely quiet since 2006.
A Cyprus-based shipping source told Reuters the ship had been due to call in Lebanon.
The 8,622 deadweight ton ship was due to have arrived on November 1 at Damietta and was last seen on October 31 in the Mediterranean sea between Lebanon and Cyprus, according to AISLive ship tracking data on Reuters.
The vessel is owned by German shipping company Reederei Gerd Bartels, based near the port of Hamburg. Asked to comment, Mirko Bartels of the private shipping firm told Reuters: "We have nothing to say."
An official with Cyprus-based United Feeder Services told Reuters it had acted as the time charterer and carrier for the Francop, charged with loading and discharging the vessel.
"The vessel sailed from Damietta, and was bound for Limassol, Cyprus and then Lebanon, Turkey and back to Damietta," the official, who declined to be named, said.
"We are not allowed to open up containers to see what is inside," he said. "We do not have much information. We just know that the vessel was seized and was forced to go to Ashdod to check the cargo."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091104/wl_nm/us_israel_ship
"Convenient" THE TIMING could it be better?-no kidding-more deflection to hype their ISRAEL the victim stance. Take the focus off of AIPACS latest treachery in complicit USSA'S,excuse for a government arena.The mother of all liars ISRAEL, concocts AGAIN! SURPRISE SURPRISE and finger pointing to IRAN ONCE AGAIN TOO! special.
The bottom line is the land was Palestine before the Jews, came, saw, and got France, Britain, and the US, to feel pity for the Jews, and steal the land from the Palestinians. The US has been funding them ever since with weapons, and our tax money to continue taking the land. Hamas would not be there if not for the actions of the Jews. Israel wants to do the same in Syria,and Lebanon, and the reason to nuke Iran, just in case they may interfere. They are as Obcessed with land as the OIL companies are with Oil, and kill anyone who stands in their way.
The Government Coup is a fait accompli.USSA,is in fact,The united states of Israel.The economic obliteration occurred, shortly before President Zionist Rahm Immanual took office.
Entourage,Geitner/Paulson/Bernanke and clique,inflicted their own corrupt bizarre version of the USSA'S monetary deline, via media sychophant narcissists.Effectively deflecting truth from the real issue,that USSA'S bankruptcy is a result of wars(cost=1 million dollars per minute) and 865 military bases(cost = 3.5 billion dollars each, per year)always lucrative,for the enriched.
Ponzi pillaging and disseminating USSA,to ensure it's DECLINE has been masterful.
Unsuspecting masses hit by their own economic mire,escape into a media onslaught of ritualistic celebrityland idolatry. "Anna Nicole" "Michael Jackson" "Oprah's love life or weight""Brad & Jen"blah blah blah, mesmerize the target audience.Skilled propaganda has superimposed reality.
Entropy in all forms of life is resistent to will.Only the spiritual core of the created,who does by instinct and mystery cling, to life,transform.The question is, whether it is a one life evolution or many lives evolution. USSA is a teenage country in the scheme of things.