PA pushes UNHRC to hold special meet on Gaza report 
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By mailto:barakravid80@gmail.com Barak Ravid and mailto:jkhouri@haaretz.co.il Jack Khoury 
October 11, 2009
Haaretz
Original Source: 
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1120105.html http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1120105.html

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva may hold an emergency meeting this week to discuss the Goldstone report on Israel's military operation in Gaza last winter and alleged human rights violations, according to sources at the Foreign Ministry. Israeli officials say they hope the United States will block the Palestinian initiative to bring the report back into focus. 

According to information Israel has received, the Palestinian representative at the council, Ibrahim Khraishi, asked a number of Arab countries on the panel, as well as members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to ask for a special session of the council on the Goldstone report. 
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A senior political source said the Palestinians need the support of 17 country members to organize a meeting, and there are signs they might succeed. 

An emergency meeting of the council is no different than a regular meeting in terms of the impact of its decisions. This means the council may adopt the Goldstone report's conclusions. A political source said the council has never held an emergency meeting on a report, only on military confrontations. 

The source said the Palestinian decision to bring back the idea of discussing the report stemmed from criticism that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had suffered last week on the news that he declined to request the Council to adopt the report. 

A source at the Foreign Ministry said yesterday that Israel had contacted the U.S. government with a request to intervene and prevent the discussion. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to raise the issue today during his meeting with the special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell. 

In another development, the Balad party called yesterday for the removal of Abbas and the Palestinian leadership negotiating with Israel because they are behaving shamefully vis-a-vis Israel and in the Goldstone-report affair. 

This is the first time an active Arab Israeli party in the Knesset has publicly called for the removal of the Palestinian Authority's leader. 

MK Jamal Zahalka called on Abbas' Fatah faction to dismiss him and not wait for him to decide whether to resign. 

Fatah is the backbone of the Palestinian national movement and cannot accept the policy of concessions that Abu Mazen [Abbas] is advancing, Zahalka said. The latest decision on the Goldstone report is a blow to the Palestinian people and a blow to international law.