Media Praise Human Rights Council Over Gaza Report

Syrian media hailed the decision of the United Nations Human Rights Council to endorse the Goldstone report on January’s fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.



On October 16, the Geneva-based body approved the report, which accuses both sides in the conflict of committing war crimes, with 25 countries voting for and six nations, including the United States, rejecting it.



Asaad Aboud, editor-in-chief of the official newspaper al-Thawra, said in an October 18 editorial that the council’s validation of the report added to the body’s legitimacy as a guarantor of human rights.



Aboud added that the endorsement encouraged all people who were subjected to war crimes in the past to seek help from the UN body to take measures against the criminals.



An op-ed item in the state-run Tishreen daily published on the same day said that the Goldstone report “shook the foundations of Israel” and “scared” its leaders.



The article’s author, Ezeldin Darwish, added that the report was a lesson to all Arab nations that were afraid of confronting Israel and wanted to normalise relations with it.



He accused these nations of being defeatists and of being resigned to the belief that the Jewish state was all-powerful while in reality, he argued, Israel had been overpowered by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian group, Hamas.



A day earlier, in an op-ed piece in the same newspaper, Omar Jaftali welcomed the Human Rights Council’s decision but condemned western policies towards Arab causes.



He accused the United States of having double standards when it comes to Arab rights criticising the American delegation for what he described as its unbalanced speech at the council’s session discussing the Goldstone report.



In the same edition, Samira al-Masalma, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, called for the establishment of a “serious” plan of action to “punish all the criminals and killers” for their responsibility during the war in Gaza.