New York - Israel's Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom warned the United Nations on Friday that the Middle East peace process would suffer if the Goldstone report on the conflict in the Gaza Strip earlier this year were to be discussed by the UN General Assembly or the Security Council. Shalom held talks with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at UN headquarters in New York, trying to prevent him from referring the report to the 15-nation council.
The assembly president, Ali Treki of Libya, has already planned to refer the report to the body's human rights committee as a first step before the 192-nation body would hold a general debate.
"The report should remain in Geneva," Shalom told reporters. "We believe there is no need for it to come to the UN Security Council. This issue is so unfair and biased."
"A debate (of the report) by the Security Council will damage options to move the political process with the Palestinians," he said, adding that Israel cannot negotiate peace while it is being threatened by the Palestinians.
The report by a four-member panel headed by South African Judge Richard Goldstone was commissioned by the 47-member UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to probe the fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas in December through January. The report accuses both Israel and the Palestinian militants of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. It said 1,400 Palestinians and 10 Israelis were killed.
The Israeli and US governments have rejected the report as biased and deeply flawed. But the report was adopted by the Human Rights Council in Geneva last week.
