Following a Libyan initiative to keep the Goldstone report on Israeli war crimes on the Security Council table, the Council has decided to hold an open debate on the report next week.
“We have to keep the momentum going,” Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgam, Libya’s ambassador to UN, told reporters, following a special closed—door session of the Security Council.
The Libyan initiative is supported by the Arab League, Organization of the Islamic Conference, and the Non-Aligned Movement, according to Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, the Sudanese Ambassador to the UN who spoke on behalf of the Arab Group.
“The group decided that the report should be operationalised and not sidelined,” he said.
The Sudanese diplomat pointed out that that the Security Council track record is based on “double standards and selectivity,” and added that if the Council failed to act on the recommendations made on the report the matter would be taken to the General Assembly.
“It is our collective desire to see that the recommendations in the report being implemented,” he said.
The report released on September 15, by the UN Fact Finding Mission, headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone, finds strong evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli forces during the military assault that lasted from December 2008 to January 2009, and claimed more than 1400 lives.
