Palestinians, in Reversal, Press U.N. Gaza Report - NYTimes.com

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By SHARON OTTERMAN and NEIL MacFARQUHAR

The Palestinian leadership tried to regain lost credibility by pressing forward Wednesday on a United Nations report on the Gaza war at a specially scheduled debate at the United Nations Security Council, saying it would call for a formal endorsement of the report this week in Geneva.

The Security Council debate represented the first major step in the Palestinian effort to reverse its surprise decision two weeks ago to delay action on the report, which found evidence of Israeli war crimes, at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The decision, made under American pressure after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel threatened that advancing the report would end any chance of peace talks, prompted a strong reaction against the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Mr. Abbas is a relatively moderate leader whom the United States and Israel have tried to bolster in the face of popular gains by Hamas, and there was a sense that the pressure on him had backfired.

Riyad al-Maliki, the foreign affairs minister for the Palestinian Authority, told delegates gathered at the Security Council that the Palestinians would seek to “rectify the malfunction that occurred” in Geneva when the Human Rights Council met on Thursday and Friday. He added that Palestinian leaders were hopeful that the 47-member council would “endorse and formally convey the report to the appropriate United Nations agencies, in accordance with the report’s recommendations.”

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, responded by reiterating Israel’s stance that the report was one-sided and biased against Israel. The report, she said, “favors and legitimizes terrorism” and was “destructive to the peace process.” She added: “If Israel is asked to take further risks for peace, the international community must recognize our right to self-defense.” But there was no Israeli comment as harsh as Mr. Netanyahu’s earlier warnings.

The 575-page report, created by a four-member panel led by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone, details evidence of war crimes committed by both the Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups in connection with last winter’s fighting, though it reserves its harshest language for Israeli actions. Foremost among its recommendations is that allegations of war crimes by both sides should be referred to the Security Council for possible prosecution at the International Criminal Court in The Hague if credible investigations are not undertaken within six months.

Israeli officials have engaged in extensive diplomatic efforts to discredit the Goldstone report since its release in mid-September. Their efforts intensified this week as it became clear that the Human Rights Council was no longer going to delay until March a decision on whether to formally endorse the report. Facing a furor at home, particularly from Hamas — the militant Islamic group that is the Palestinian Authority’s main rival — Mr. Abbas backtracked on his support for the delay, instructing his ambassador in Geneva to gather enough signatures to have the council reconvene. The council announced the special session on Tuesday.

To shore up support for Israel before the Geneva meeting, Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke Tuesday night with the foreign minister of France, Bernard Kouchner; the British foreign secretary, David Miliband; and the foreign ministers of Spain and Norway, among other foreign officials. According to a statement released by Mr. Barak’s office on Wednesday, the Israeli minister told the foreign officials that the Goldstone report was “false, distorted, tendentious and encouraged terrorism.”

In Geneva, although the Palestinians mustered the 16 votes needed to call a special session, it was unclear just how strong a majority they could get on a new resolution. An endorsement of the report with a less than significant majority of the Human Rights Council would be considered weak.

Given the record of the Human Rights Council, the chance of a no vote on a resolution appeared slim. But an official in Jerusalem said privately, because of the delicate nature of the diplomacy, that Israel hoped to see “at least a moral victory — to get all the reasonable countries on the right side of the vote.”

Other countries expressed reservations about a resolution for a number of reasons, namely that the Palestinians were reversing course in such a short time span, and that a draft in circulation complicated the issue by adding demands, including that Israel cease excavations around Al Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem and ensure access to the holy site for Palestinian worshipers.

In compromise negotiations that were expected to continue into Thursday at least, the Brazilians offered alternative wording for a potential resolution that would basically keep the Goldstone report within the Human Rights Council for the time being. Under the Brazilian language, the resolution would endorse the findings of the report and the call for both Israel and the Palestinians to conduct investigations into any possible war crimes. But it would stop short of endorsing the recommendation that the matter be referred to the Security Council or even the International Criminal Court if such investigations did not take place.

“We feel that if we escalate this issue it might not be productive for the peace talks,” said Maria N. Farani Azevedo, the Brazilian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

So far, the Palestinians have been reluctant to make changes, which diplomats and human rights organizations attributed in part to their intensive effort to quell the domestic fallout after the previous postponement. As part of that effort, the Security Council agreed last week to move up its monthly debate on the Middle East to Wednesday, from next week, to discuss the report’s findings.

Human Rights Watch said that internal investigations into the accusations were crucial and that the prospect of some international action was most likely needed to spur them.

“We are convinced that without addressing the issues contained in this report there is no solid basis for a peace process,” said Julie de Rivero, the Geneva advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. “For us, it would be important that there is a strong endorsement of the findings.”

Official Says Peace Effort Stalled

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, said Wednesday that the Obama administration’s efforts to restart an Israeli-Palestinian peace process seemed to be at an impasse and that he feared the Israelis intended to offer the Palestinians “a Mickey Mouse state, if that.”

By that, he meant a state that is “not serious,” according to an aide — one that fell short territorially and in other ways.

Mr. Fayyad said the Palestinians aspired to an “independent, sovereign, viable Palestinian state” in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Mr. Fayyad, a respected economist, was speaking to foreign reporters at a news conference in Ramallah.

Sharon Otterman reported from New York, and Neil MacFarquhar from Rome. Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.