Peres asks UN to shelve Goldstone Report

President makes request in person to Ban Ki-moon in NY who says UN encourages writing of such reports to encourage investigations.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Peres with Ban in New York (R) 311 (photo credit: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)
Peres with Ban in New York (R) 311
(photo credit: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)
President Shimon Peres on Friday asked the United Nations to rescind the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip two years ago.
Peres made the request during a meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York.
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Ban responded by explaining to Peres that the UN encourages the writing of such reports in order to encourage the sides to probe themselves.
To this, Peres said in reaction that "Hamas has never investigated itself" and the UN adopts double standards.
Peres’s New York visit comes after the report’s author, Judge Richard Goldstone, published an opinion piece in last Friday’s Washington Post in which he said the document had erroneously accused Israel of intentionally targeting civilians in Gaza.
A spokesman for the UN’s Geneva-based Human Rights Council (HRC), which commissioned the report, has said the opinion piece would have no impact on the status of the report, which was submitted in 2009.
If Goldstone wanted to change the report, the spokesman said, he would need to submit a formal letter to the council in the name of all four members of the fact-finding mission that worked on it. Alternately, a UN member state could move to rescind the report, mostly likely by bringing a resolution to that effect before the Security Council or the General Assembly.