Palestinians change course on UN report

UNITED NATIONS — The Palestinian leadership has quickly backtracked in its approach to a U.N. report accusing Israel of possible war crimes in Gaza, in what its top diplomat acknowledged Thursday is erupting into a “clear crisis” for its people.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki didn’t say who was responsible for the crisis, but told reporters at U.N. headquarters that the militant Islamist group Hamas is trying to take cynical advantage of the report, to court favor with the Palestinians.

“This clear crisis about the report proves that the Hamas position is really trying to exploit it, to its own favor, trying to take advantage of it, and really score points, rather than having a genuine principled position regarding the report,” Malki said.

The report also accuses Palestinian armed groups of possible war crimes in the Israeli-Hamas conflict last winter. Hamas, the Palestinian Authority’s main rival, controls Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority initially pushed for the U.N. Human Rights Council to forward its commissioned Sept. 15 report to the Security Council.

Then it agreed last week under U.S. pressure not to push the issue at the United Nations. That brought harsh criticism, including angry protests at home and condemnation around the Arab world.

Finally, on Wednesday, the Palestinian leadership again switched gears. It reversed itself by strongly backing Security Council member Libya’s push to hold the 15-nation council’s monthly debate on the Middle East a week earlier than planned and provide a high-profile forum for the explosive report to be discussed.

Malki said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement — which lost power in Gaza when it was overrun by Hamas militants in 2007 — remains “far apart” in any potential deal with Hamas to reconcile and hold Palestinian elections. The Egyptians hope to broker a deal in Cairo this month.

“Frankly saying, and this is the first time I say it: When it comes to the principal issues, we feel that we are close to reaching an agreement between the Palestinian Authority, between Fatah and Hamas, and that’s why everybody talks about the possibility of signing that agreement in the next couple days,” Malki said.

“But when we start looking deeper into the details, and the positions of each party regarding the different issues, we discover we are very far apart,” he added.

Malki said the Palestinian leadership supports “all the recommendations” contained in the U.N. report on Gaza and had dispatched him to New York to press the case on Thursday for having the Security Council or other arms of the United Nations take up the findings. He left the U.N. on Thursday but plans to return for the May 14 debate, originally scheduled for May 20.

Malki held a strategy session with U.N. General Assembly President Ali Treki, a former Libyan foreign minister, and said he also met to “coordinate efforts” with Libyan Ambassador Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgham. At a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Malki said he pressed for the U.N.’s “immediate intervention.”

Malki said he also was assured by this month’s Security Council president, Vietnamese Ambassador Le Luong Minh, that the “emphasis” of next week’s debate will be on the U.N. report written by a panel of experts led by respected South African jurist Richard Goldstone.

The 575-page Goldstone report accused Israel of using disproportionate force and failing to protect civilians while calling Hamas’ firing of rockets at civilian areas in southern Israel a war crime.