The office of U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, just sent out its additions and emendments to a resolution condemning the Goldstone report and urging its quashing by the Obama administration.
The report into last winter’s Gaza war accuses Israel and Hamas of war crimes; the U.N. Human Rights Council, which mandated the fact-finding mission led by Richard Goldstone, last month endorsed the report and launched it through the U.N. system.
The congressional resolution, introduced last week by U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the ranking member of Berman’s committee, wants the United States to do what it can to keep Goldstone’s report from advancing further.
Goldstone wrote Berman a letter last week objecting to elements of the resolution; His major objection was to how the resolution condemned his report, which accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, but focused on the UNHRC’s original mandate which accuses only Israel.
The new language addresses Goldstone’s complaints, albeit in a way that notes that his efforts to expand the UNHRC’s mandate ultimately were fruitless, however he framed his own report.
The new language also makes more specific how it wants the Obama administration to keep the report from advancing.
The new language is below the jump.
[[READMORE]]
A modified version of H.Res. 867 will be considered. These three provisions have been added:
Whereas Justice Richard Goldstone, who chaired the `United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict,’ told the then-President of the UNHRC, Nigerian Ambassador Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi, that he intended to broaden the mandate of the Mission to include “all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after,” a phrase that, according to Justice Goldstone, was intended to allow him to investigate Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians;
Whereas Ambassador Uhomoibhi issued a statement on April 3, 2009, that endorsed part of Justice Goldstone’s proposed broadened mandate but deleted the phrase “before, during, and after,” and added inflammatory anti-Israeli language;
Whereas a so-called broadened mandate was never officially endorsed by a plenary meeting of the UNHRC, neither in the form proposed by Justice Goldstone nor in the form proposed by Ambassador Uhomoibhi;
And the third part of the “Resolved” clause has been expanded, so it now reads:
(3) calls on the President and the Secretary of State to continue to strongly and unequivocally oppose any endorsement of the `Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in multilateral fora, including through leading opposition to any United Nations General Assembly resolution and through vetoing, if necessary, any United Nations Security Council resolution that endorses the contents of this report, seeks to act upon the recommendations contained in this report, or calls on any other international body to take further action regarding this report.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
