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Israel frees Hamas leader; Gazans welcome UN war crimes report
Friday, September 18, 2009
CAIRO/OCCUPIED-AL-QUDS/GAZA STRIP: US Middle East envoy George Mitchell urged the region to “take responsibility” for relaunching the stalled Arab-Israeli peace talks, during a brief visit to the Egyptian capital on Thursday.
“The United States is asking all the parties, Israel, the Palestinians and Arab states to take responsibility for peace through actions that will help create a positive context for the relaunch of negotiations,” Mitchell said after talks with President Hosni Mubarak.
For his part, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit told reporters: “Cairo sees there is an effort being made and an attempt to place the foundations for negotiations.”
He said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was expected in Cairo on Friday or Saturday for talks with Mubarak.
Mitchell arrived in Cairo on Wednesday after failing to wrest a compromise on settlements from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, agreeing only to meet again on Friday.
He is trying to get Israel to agree to some kind of a moratorium on settlement construction that would be palatable to the Palestinians and enable a restart of negotiations that were suspended in late December.
The envoy hopes a compromise would pave the way for a three-way meeting between Netanyahu, Abbas and US President Barack Obama at the UN General Assembly in New York later this month.
The US envoy has met with Netanyahu, Abbas and Lebanon’s President Michel Sleiman during a regional tour that will include talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah later on Thursday before he returns to Israel.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Prisons Service says it has freed a Hamas political leader arrested in a West Bank roundup six months ago.
Spokesman Yaron Zamir says Nasser al-Shaer was freed from a prison in southern Israel on Thursday after completing the term imposed on him by a military detention order. Israel has arrested Hamas officials like al-Shaer at least partly to pressure the group to free an Israeli soldier it has held in Gaza for more than three years.
A top Hamas figure in the West Bank, al-Shaer served as deputy prime minister in a Palestinian unity government that fell apart in the wake of fierce fighting between Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement in 2007.
In a related development, Gazans who lost loved ones during Israel’s genocidal offensive against Hamas militants said on Thursday they’re taking some solace from a U.N. report that accuses both sides of committing war crimes, but they’re sceptical anyone will be brought to justice.
In Israel, the findings of the U.N. team sparked outrage and deepened a sense that the Jewish state is being treated unfairly by the international community.
While the UN investigation labelled Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli towns as war crimes, the bulk of the findings focused on Israeli actions during the three-week war.
The report echoed findings in a string of human rights reports released in recent months, but it could carry more weight, both because it was authored by a widely respected former war crimes prosecutor, Richard Goldstone, and because _ at least in theory _ it opens the way to charges against Israel before the International Criminal Court.
For technical and political reasons, however, putting Israelis or Palestinians on trial would be difficult under the present system of international justice.
Both Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers rejected the U.N. team’s allegations. Israel’s government rebuffed the report’s call for an independent inquiry and immediately began a diplomatic offensive to block any attempt to bring its soldiers before the Netherlands-based court.
Israel is not a member of the tribunal, so to prosecute Israeli officials, the court would need an order from the U.N. Security Council. The U.S., Israel’s staunchest ally, would likely block such a request.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Wednesday that Goldstone’s mandate from the U.N. Human Rights Council was “one-sided,” adding that “at an initial reading we have concerns about some of the report’s recommendations.”
The self-rule government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas’ main political rival, has sought ICC membership, but the court has not ruled on its request.
Normally, membership is only open to states, and Israel argues the Palestinian request is invalid. If the court were to accept the Palestinian membership, it could prosecute Israelis and Hamas members over the Gaza fighting without a Security Council order.
The ICC prosecutors office said Wednesday it was “examining all issues related to its jurisdiction” in the Gaza case, including the validity of the Palestinian membership.
Some 1,400 Palestinians civilians were killed in the December-January offensive, which sought to stop almost harmless rocket fire by Palestinians on southern Israeli towns. Thirteen Israelis also died, including four civilians.
Goldstone’s 575-page report said Israel used disproportionate firepower and failed to avoid civilian deaths.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
