Abbas, Goldstone and the UN

Cannibal Ox

Yesterday the UN Security Council rejected Libya’s request to hold a special session on the Goldstone Report, which found that the

conduct of the Israeli armed forces constituted grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention in respect of wilful killings and willfully causing great suffering to protected persons and as such give rise to individual criminal responsibility.

i.e, the Israeli armed forces committed war crimes. The report recommended that it should launch an investigation into those crimes. The report also found that the Palestinian side could also have committed war crimes in launching rockets into civilian areas.

So far, not really that shocking. Last Friday the UN Human Rights Council was to take a vote on condemning Israel’s failure to co-operate with the UN investigation, an action that would have started the long process of bringing Israel before a war crimes tribunal. The vote was scuppered. And not by Israel. And not by the US. It was scuppered by Mahmoud Abbas, head of Fatah and President of Palestine.

This led to Libya’s failed appeal to the Security Council, Hamas threat that it wouldn’t sign a reconciliation deal with Fatah in Egypt this month, and Abbas’s spokesman coming out and saying it may have been a “mistake” to postpone the vote in the HRC.

I’m not really sure what to make of it all. If the US, or Israel, had scuppered the HRC’s vote, I could probably understand it. But, the fact that it was Abbas makes it very difficult for me to understand why a Palestinian would willfully choose not to start the process towards a war crimes tribunal for Israel.

I do think it’s going to have a determental affect on attempts for a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, and it could almost make it needless. How many Palestinians will vote for Fatah in the next elections following this? Not many I’d guess. Abbas actions could be the end for Fatah, or at least him, and the resurgence of Hamas as the united Palestinian voice, which in turn would have a considerible effect on peace talks.

I also think it's a blow to the UN. Here, in the "post-Bush" era, there was a chance for the UN to flex it's muscles, and instead, it looks as helpless as it ever did during the Bush era. I think that's a shame, it was an opportunity for the UN to really do something considerable and practical, and instead it's left flapping around in the wind with Libya of all countries trying to rescue the situation.

So...what’s everybody’s elses opinions on it?

wes

Well, Abbas was already a illegitimate leader, as his presidential mandate ended a while ago, and the rumoured reasons for him scuppering it, were due to a mobile spectrum deal, that Israel threatened to derail, and the spectrum deal was something his son was involved with. He also apparently made this decision on his lonesome and didn't even talk to the rest of Fatah.

Abbas was already a illegitimate leader (basically a Western backed dictator of a few disconnected Bantustans in the West Bank), he will have to resign and take the blame for, if there is to be any chance of Fatah surviving this. Basically, Abbas (and his Western backers) has handed a stunning victory to Hamas, due to his own greed and stupidity.

Enduro

Cannibal Ox wrote: »

I also think it's a blow to the UN. Here, in the "post-Bush" era, there was a chance for the UN to flex it's muscles, and instead, it looks as helpless as it ever did during the Bush era. I think that's a shame, it was an opportunity for the UN to really do something considerable and practical, and instead it's left flapping around in the wind with Libya of all countries trying to rescue the situation.

The U.N. wasn't exactly a shining beacon of action and muscle flexing pre-Bush. The whole institution is fundamentaly useless. The Bosnian war and the Rawanda genocide are two of the more obvious pre-Bush, but relatively recent, examples of UN prevarication leading directly to the death of large numbers of civilians.