UN Security Council to Raise Goldstone Report on Oct. 14

The UN Security Council has agreed to hold a discussion next week on the report that accuses "Israel" of war crimes during its war against Gaza in December.

The council on Wednesday decided against an emergency session to discuss the report which was authored by a panel chaired by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, but voted to bring forward its monthly meeting on the Middle East by six days, to October 14.

The talks will focus on the Goldstone report, which accuses "Israel" of using disproportionate force and deliberately harming civilians and which also alleges that Hamas fired rockets indiscriminately at "civilians" in "southern Israel."

US deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff told reporters that the 15-member Security Council agreed only to bring forward the regular monthly debate on the Middle East from October 20 to next Wednesday.

Behind the scene, the Americans are trying to come up with a compromise which will see the vote on the Goldstone Report held as part of the open periodical discussion on the situation in the Middle East.

A State Department source said that the US had not changed its mind on the report, which the source said focused on "Israel" in an "unbalanced manner" in most of its recommendations.

But Arab ambassadors made it clear that they planned to use next Wednesday's debate to turn the spotlight on the findings of the report. "We are going to have an open debate. The foreign minister of Palestine will participate," Libyan Ambassador to the UN Abdurrhman Shalgham said, noting that the aim was "to keep the momentum regarding this report."

The Geneva-based Human Rights Council has postponed until March 2010 its vote on the Goldstone report. The Palestinian authority was harshly criticized for deferring the vote which could have brought Israel to the International Criminal Court and protests were held against the PA president Mahmoud Abbas across Palestine.