WASHINGTON (JTA) — Human Rights Watch is urging the European Union to endorse the Goldstone report.
In a letter to EU foreign ministers, Human Rights Watch called on the union and its 27 member states to "promote an international order where no state is above the law" and asks them to support a resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council endorsing the Goldstone report "in its totality."
The Goldstone report — the findings of a U.N. fact-finding mission on last January’s Gaza war — called on both Israel and Hamas to investigate charges of war crimes during the war.
"An EU rejection of all or part of the report and its recommendations will give credence to those who argue that international justice is a political tool targeted at less powerful states" and would "undermine the EU’s credibility on justice issues," Human Rights Watch said in a statment.
Meanwhile, a number of groups have signed on to a US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation letter to U.S Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice urging the United States to vote in favor of the report’s recommendations. Among the signatories are Tikkun Magazine, Jewish Voice for Peace and the American Friends Service Committee.
Israel has sought to discredit the report as biased. The United States has said it has "serious concerns" about the recommendations in the report.
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