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Peres asks Ban to retract Goldstone report

President tells UN chief his organization is employing double standards towards Israel, Hamas

WASHINGTON – President Shimon Peres met with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Friday and asked him to publically retract the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza, after Judge Richard Goldstone himself expressed regret over it in an editorial with the Washington Post.

 

Peres and Ban also discussed Mideast issues such as the growing violence from Hamas in the Gaza Strip and methods in which to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

 

At the beginning of the meeting, held at UN Headquarters in New York, Peres mentioned the ongoing rocket fire from terror groups in Gaza, which began Thursday with an anti-tank missile attack on a school bus. A 16-year old boy was critically wounded, Peres told Ban, and Israel would not hesitate to defend itself before such attacks.

 

"The UN cannot be neutral in the face of projectile fire from Gaza to Israel," Peres said, mentioning also the terror attack in the settlement of Itamar in which five family members were stabbed to death.

 

Ban replied that he had condemned the fire from Gaza, but that he was also opposed to retaliatory IDF strikes, "which also lead to deaths on the other side". He urged both sides to resume calm and work out differences peacefully.

 

Ban also told Peres that Goldstone had not retracted his report, and that the judge regretted that Israel had not cooperated with his probe of Operation Cast Lead, as the report's conclusions would have been different in this case. He added that he himself had promoted the report in order to try to get both sides to investigate their actions.

 

But Peres argued that Hamas had not launched a single inquiry. "Why doesn't the UN pressure Hamas to investigate Cast Lead?" the president asked, while Israel investigated all of the report's conclusions and even tried a number of cases in court. He said the UN was employing double standards.

 

Peres also asked Ban to publically condemn the Goldstone report, calling it "an outrage". Goldstone himself said he had not realized Hamas had started firing first, the president said.

 

"Is this a joke? The situation was crystal clear," he said. Israel restrained itself despite eight years of rocket fire while Hamas fired at will, and only when Israel reacted did the world have anything to say, the president charged. "Doesn't he read the papers?"

 

Peres added that the "fairy tales" Goldstone had woven in his report "have a life of their own", and that they were harming Israel unjustifiably. The UN must retract the report, he said, adding that Goldstone could not "regret regretting" the report.

 

The president also remarked on a possible unilateral declaration of statehood by Palestinians, saying that it would not solve the conflict at hand. "The UN and international community should not deceive the Palestinians to believe that they can achieve statehood with a unilateral declaration at the UN," he said.

 

Ronen Medzini contributed to this report

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 04.08.11, 22:13
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