Act on Goldstone report

Omar Barghouti

The decision by the Palestinian Authority to agree to defer the discussion at the UN Human Rights Council on the report of the UN fact-finding mission to Gaza has evoked sharp criticisms from various quarters

Palestinian civil society has strongly and almost unanimously condemned the Palestinian Authority's (PA) latest decision to delay adoption by the UN Human Rights Council of the report prepared by the UN Fact-Finding Mission, headed by justice Richard Goldstone, into the recent Israeli war of aggression against the Palestinian people in the occupied Gaza Strip.

A common demand in almost all Palestinian statements issued in this respect was for the UN to adopt the report and act without undue delay on its recommendations in order to bring an end to Israel's criminal impunity and to hold it accountable before international law for its war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza and, indeed, all over the occupied Palestinian territory.

Succumbing to US pressures and unabashed Israeli blackmail, the president of the PA himself reportedly was himself responsible for the decision to defer discussion at the Council of the Goldstone report.

Dashing the hopes of Palestinians everywhere as well as of international human rights organizations and solidarity movements that Israel will finally face a long overdue process of legal accountability and that its victims will have a measure of justice.

This decision by the PA, which in effect delays adoption of the report at least until March 2010, giving Israel a golden opportunity to bury it with US, European, Arab and now Palestinian complicity, constitutes the most blatant case yet of PA betrayal of Palestinian rights and surrender to Israeli dictates.

This is not the first time, though, that the PA has acted under orders from Washington and threats from Tel Aviv against the express interests of the Palestinian people. The historic advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July 2004 that found Israel's Wall and colonies built on occupied Palestinian territory illegal had presented a rare diplomatic, political and legal opportunity that could have been used to isolate Israel as apartheid.

South Africa was after a similar ICJ decision in 1971 against its occupation of Namibia. Alas, the PA squandered it and systematically - quite suspiciously, actually - failed to even call on world governments to comply with their obligations stated in the advisory opinion.

The whole clause on Israel and Palestinian rights that was to be discussed at the recent UN Durban Review Conference in Geneva was dropped after the Palestinian representative gave his green light. Efforts by non-aligned nations and the former UN General Assembly president, Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, to push for a UN resolution condemning Israel's war crimes in Gaza and establishing an international tribunal were thwarted mainly by the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, causing several prominent diplomats and international law experts to wonder which side the official Palestinian representative was on.

The Mercosur-Israel Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was almost ratified by Brazil this last September after the Palestinian ambassador there expressed approval, only urging Brazil to exclude Israeli settlement products from the Agreement. With prompt action by Palestinian and Brazilian civil society organizations and eventually by the PLO's Executive Committee, this ratification was averted and the Brazilian parliamentary committee in charge of this file recommended that the government refrain from approving the FTA until Israel complies with international law.

In all these cases and many similar ones, the instructions to the Palestinian representatives came from Ramallah, where the PA government has illegally appropriated the PLO powers to lead Palestinian diplomacy and set foreign policy, conceding Palestinian rights and acting against the Palestinian national interests, without worrying about accountability to any elected representatives of the Palestinian people.

This latest forthright collusion of the PA in Israel's campaign to whitewash its crimes and undermine the application of international law to punish these crimes came a few days after the far-right Israeli government publicly blackmailed the PA, demanding that it withdraw its support for adopting the Goldstone report in return for "permitting" a second mobile communications provider to operate in the occupied Palestinian territory.

It therefore undermines the great efforts by human rights organizations and many activists to bring justice to the Palestinian victims of Israel's latest massacre in Gaza: the more than 1400 killed (predominantly civilians); the thousands injured; the 1.5 million who are still suffering from the wanton destruction of infrastructure, educational and health institutions, factories, farm lands, power plants, and other critical facilities, and from the long criminal Israeli siege against them.

It is nothing short of a betrayal of Palestinian civil society's effective Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, with all its recent, remarkable growth and achievements in mainstream western societies and among leading unions.

It is also betrayal of the global solidarity movement that has worked tirelessly and creatively, mainly within the framework of the fast spreading BDS campaign, to end Israel's impunity and to uphold universal human rights.

It is crucial to remember that the PA does not have any legal or democratic mandate to speak on behalf of the people of Palestine or to represent the Palestinians at the UN or any of its agencies and institutions.

The current PA government has never won the necessary constitutional approval of the democratically elected Palestinian Legislative Council. Even if it had such a mandate, at best it would only represent the Palestinians living under Israel's military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, excluding the great majority of the people of Palestine, particularly the refugees.

Only the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), can theoretically claim to represent the entirety of the Palestinian people: inside historic Palestine and in exile.