Al-Nono: The PA's Request to Defer the Goldstone Report is a Crime Against Our People and a Betrayal of Our Martyrs' Blood

Contrary to assertions by some human rights organizations that the Hamas government would not cooperate with the Goldstone report, a senior official in the government gave a press conference confirming commitment to full cooperation. The following is a translation of his statement.

Taher Al-Nono, a spokesman for the Palestinian government in Gaza, has affirmed that the Ramallah authority’s call to delay the vote on the Goldstone Report is “a serious crime against our people, collusion with the Zionist Occupation and a betrayal of our martyrs.” 

In a press conference convened on Friday, October 10 in Gaza, Al-Nono insisted that the position taken by the Ramallah authority confirmed claims by the extremist Zionist Foreign Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman that the Palestinian Authority leaders had strongly supported Israel’s assault on Gaza.

He said: “Since the UN Human Rights Council set up its fact-finding commission to look into the Zionist criminal war on the Gaza Strip, the legitimate Palestinian government announced its support of this step and its willingness to cooperate with it.”

He added: “We did actually collaborate to the fullest extent with the commission, helped in the investigation process, facilitated contacting and listening to victims and visits to places that were destroyed during the assault while the Occupation Government refused to cooperate with the commission.”

He continued: “Despite our reservations about some points included in the Report, we welcome its outcome and consider it to be a great achievement that exposes the occupation’s crimes and savagery which have led to the loss of more than one 1,400 lives and the injury of more than 5,000.”

Al-Nono pointed out that the government had great interest in the discussions held by the UN Human Rights Council with regards to the Goldstone Report over the last few days, highlighting that the Palestinian government in Gaza had decided to deal positively with the report.

He added: “We were shocked by the collusion between the Ramallah government and the Occupation to postpone discussions on the Goldstone Report scheduled for today (3 October 2009). The Ramallah government officially requested Pakistan, the representative of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in the international council to defer the Goldstone Report debate until the next session of the UN Human Rights Council to be held in March 2010 in Geneva.”

He said: “We, the legitimate Palestinian government, call upon Pakistan, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and all Arab countries to urgently adopt the report and refer it to the Security Council. We hereby clearly announce our willingness to totally cooperate with the requirements of this matter such as the constitution of specialized investigative committees.”  He warned that the failure to adopt the Goldstone Report would mean allowing the Occupation to declare another aggressive war on the Strip in as much as it always escaped justice and judicial accountability through collusion with the Ramallah authority.

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