<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[UN: Judge hasn&#8217;t asked Gaza report to be&nbsp;nixed]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p class="i1"><span class="dateline">GENEVA — </span>The U.N.&#8217;s top human rights body  says it is standing by a report about Israel&#8217;s 2009 incursion into Gaza  even though the lead author has backtracked from some of the report&#8217;s  most damning allegations against Israel.</p>
<p>Israel has called for the report to be withdrawn after Richard  Goldstone, a former South African judge and U.N. war crimes prosecutor,  said in an op-ed he was reconsidering the conclusion that Israel  deliberately targeted civilians during the three-week offensive against  Palestinian militant group Hamas.</p>
<p><strong>A spokesman for the U.N. Human Rights Council, which commissioned the  report, said for the report to be canceled Goldstone would have to  submit a formal request to the Geneva-based body, which he has not done.</strong></p>
<p>&#8220;U.N. reports are not cancelled on the basis of an op-ed in a newspaper,&#8221; spokesman Cedric Sapey told The Associated Press.</p>
<p>Various resolutions passed by the Geneva-based council and the U.N.  General Assembly in New York would also have to be repealed by those  bodies, he said.</p>
<p>Last month, a majority of the Human Rights Council&#8217;s 47 members voted  to pass the report up to the General Assembly, recommending that it ask  the powerful U.N. Security Council to submit it to prosecutors at the  International Criminal Court.</p>
<p>Such a move is unlikely to pass the Security Council, where Israel&#8217;s  strongest ally, the United States, has a veto. But the mere suggestion  of bringing war crimes charges against Israel has angered the government  there.</p>
<p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet that  Goldstone&#8217;s article, published in the Washington Post over the weekend,  was a rare instance &#8220;in which those who disseminate libels retract their  libel.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;This leads us to call for the immediate cancellation of the Goldstone report,&#8221; Netanyahu said.</p>
<p>Goldstone&#8217;s decision to reconsider the conclusions of the report came  as a surprise to at least one other member of the four-person panel  that authored the document.</p>
<p>&#8220;I probably didn&#8217;t expect to see the comments he made, to be honest,&#8221;  Desmond Travers told the AP in a telephone interview, adding he had not  been consulted beforehand.</p>
<p>Travers, a former officer in the Irish Armed Forces and an expert on  international criminal investigations, said he hadn&#8217;t seen the Israeli  investigative reports that prompted Goldstone to backtrack on parts of  his conclusion, though he acknowledged it might be valid to do so.</p>
<p>&#8220;But the tenor of the report in its entirety, in my opinion, stands,&#8221; Travers said.</p>
<p>Reached by email, Goldstone declined to be interviewed.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42414093/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa">Source</a></p>
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<h2>Related</h2>
<p>Special Topic |  <strong><a href="http://wp.me/p16sn9-5hT">WHITE WASH WATCH | Goldstone&#8217;s Reconciderations on the Gaza Cast Lead Report</a></strong></p>
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