Friday, October 30, 2009

Ah, that explains it: OIC initiated the Goldstone Report

Jihad Watch

The egregiously pro-jihad and anti-Israel Goldstone Report turns out to have been initiated by the Organization of the Islamic Conference -- which explains why it was egregiously pro-jihad and anti-Israel.The OIC, don't forget, is the chief foe of the freedom of speech around the world today, and is making a concerted effort to criminalize any honest discussion of the Islamic motives and goals of the Islamic jihadists. The winners, if they succeed, would only be those same jihadists. As with the Goldstone Report. "'OIC initiated Goldstone inquiry,'" from Al-Jazeera, October 28 (thanks to David Littman):

Established in 1969 to safeguard global Muslim interests, the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) is the second largest inter-governmental body after the UN. In its 40-year history, the OIC has worked with the UN and others to settle conflicts and disputes, particularly among its member states.

While the preamble to the OIC's charter holds that Islam "is a strong factor for rapprochement and solidarity between peoples", conflicts continue to rage in many parts of the Muslim world.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary-general of the OIC, says the organisation has gained prominence in recent years as a trusted mediator in conflicts involving the Muslim world and was the "initiator" of a UN war crimes inquiry in Gaza. Al Jazeera's Firas al-Atraqchi spoke with Ihsanoglu on the sidelines of the seventh annual Doha Conference on Interfaith Dialogue.

Al Jazeera: The UN's Goldstone report has been in the headlines in the past few weeks - not without controversy - and has brought to light the conduct of the Israelis and Hamas during the war on Gaza earlier in the year. Does the OIC see this as a step forward in recognising what transpired during that war and in bringing the plight of the Palestinians to the fore on an international scale?

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu: Let me first start by completing the story of the history of the Goldstone report. What I would like to put on record is that the OIC was the initiator of this process.

On January 3, during the attacks on Gaza, we convened the executive committee of the OIC on a ministerial level. It was decided that the OIC group in Geneva should ask the Human Rights Council to convene and consider the possibility of sending a fact-finding mission to Gaza.

The OIC was instrumental in getting through this resolution and thanks to the good offices of Ms Pilay, the UN high commissioner, that she formed this fact-finding mission headed by Judge Goldstone.

On October 8, I visited Geneva and had a meeting with OIC ambassadors and the high commissioner. We revived the process again and the Goldstone report has been approved by the rights council.

Now as for the prospects of the Goldstone report, I think the first thing to mention here is that the acceptance and approval of the report by the UN's human rights council is itself testimony of the world's public opinion about what happened in Gaza.

This report has certain operative paragraphs which aim to determine who is responsible for the massacres and destruction - illegally and in flagrant violation of humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war.

I think now the OIC and the international community should work hand-in-hand to implement the proposals made in the Goldstone report.

You said the OIC initiated the process that led to the Goldstone report. Were you surprised then that the Palestinian Authority asked for the council's vote on the report to be delayed?

This was a big surprise for us - an unhappy and sad surprise. I was in Washington DC at the time meeting with the media, think tanks and I was meeting with Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, when news of this broke. We did not expect that, but I am glad that we eventually managed to revive it and get it adopted by the human rights council.

Will the council's adoption of the Goldstone report impact the way Israelis conduct war after hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed during the war on Gaza?

The Israelis already understood the importance of the impact of this report and that is why you find them leading a very strong campaign to impede the Goldstone report....

Uh, the fact that it is full of lies helps.

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