US House blasts UN over Goldstone report

The US House of Representatives was expected to easily approve a sharply worded resolution Tuesday denouncing the UN Goldstone report which accused "Israel" of committing war crimes in its 22-day war against the Palestinians in Gaza.

With the UN General Assembly due to take up the report on Wednesday, US lawmakers were set to vote on a non-binding resolution - by a vote of 344 to 36- calling the report "irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy."

In addition, the harshly phrased resolution calls on President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "to rebut and block unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration" of the critical report.

According to sources, Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was quoted saying: "I'm going to vote insistently for it," said "I think the UN report is unbalanced, and unfair, and inaccurate." It's unfortunate that the United Nations deals with "Israel", in my opinion, in a totally biased and unbalanced way. And it is the only country in the world, "Israel", that has a special focus by the United Nations," he added.

The resolution, crafted by Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, expressed support for the Obama administration's condemnation of the report and urges opposition to its findings in any international forum.

Hoyer claimed that rocket fire from Palestinian fighters in Gaza had placed "Israel" in "an unfortunate position" and stressed that "Israel" "is as careful a government as there is in terms of prosecuting its own defense" officials.

On his part, South African judge Richard Goldstone recently challenged the United States to justify its objections over his report about the December 27-January 18 "Israeli" war on the Gaza Strip that killed over 1,400 Palestinians, with many of the victims women and children.

Goldstone recommended that the conclusions of the report be forwarded to the Hague-based International Criminal Court if the sides involved in the Gaza war failed to conduct credible investigations within six months.