BELGIUM GENERALLY WILLING TO SUPPORT UN RESOLUTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRUSSELS 001487 SIPDIS STATE FOR EUR/WE AND IO/HR:PKRUCHOWSKI, IO/UNP:AMORRISON AND NEA/IPA:JGIAUQUE USUN FOR EGERMAIN E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/02/2019 TAGS: PREL PHUM PTER KPAL IS BE SUBJECT: BELGIUM GENERALLY WILLING TO SUPPORT UN RESOLUTION ON GOLDSTONE REPORT REF: STATE 112828 Classified By: Political Economic Counselor Richard Eason, reason 1.4(b ) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: Belgium believes the UNGA resolution sponsored by the Arab Group is acceptable with few changes. However, the text it is working from contains few of the ideas presented reftel that the USG finds objectionable. The GOB supports the resolution's call for domestic investigations and believes that some sort of "quality check" on Israeli and Palestinian domestic investigations is required. At this time, the GOB does not support sending the matter to the UNSC, or to any international tribunal. End Summary. ¶2. (C) Poloff delivered reftel demarche regarding United States views on a possible UN General Assembly resolution relating to the Goldstone report to Arnout Pauwels, desk officer for Israel and Palestine, in the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Pauwels told poloff that he was actively engaged on the issue of the Goldstone report resolution, along with colleagues from the MFA's human rights section and its UN department. On the morning of November 3, when poloff delivered reftel demarche, Pauwels was in possession of a draft of a resolution sponsored by the Arab Group and others. Pauwels provided a copy of the text of the resolution to poloff, which did not contain many of the ideas which the USG finds problematic. Pauwels said that with a limited number of changes, Belgium and its EU partners are prepared to support the resolution in that form. ¶3. (C) In general, Pauwels said, Belgium does not believe the Goldstone report should be ignored, and actually believes it needs to be considered carefully in order to move the broader Israel-Palestinian dispute toward resolution. Belgium supports the resolution's call for investigations and further believes that it is reasonable to call for outside review of whether the investigations actually do take place and whether they have results. ¶4. (C) Regarding the specific text of the resolution the Belgian MFA has before it, Pauwels said that Belgium does not support a resolution that "endorses" the report of the UN Human Rights Council in its Twelfth Special Session on October 15-16. Belgium abstained from the action of the UNHRC on the Goldstone Report. Also, the UNHRC report is not available to Belgium, at least in its entirety, and the GOB does not feel it can endorse a report it has not seen. ¶5. (C) Belgium is not ready "at this time" to support a call for sending of the report to the Security Council. It would prefer to have it returned to the UNHRC. However, if a consensus develops to send the report to the UNSC, Belgium will not block it. ¶6. (C) The GOB believes that the language in the preamble, whereby the UNGA is "gravely concerned" by human rights violations committed during the Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip, needs to be more balanced. ¶7. (C) The GOB is not in favor of calling for ICC or ICJ review, an International Tribunal, or exercise of jurisdiction of other national courts over GOI actions alleged in the Goldstone report. Moreover, Belgium does not support"straight line to the Hn the Goldstone report however, that Israeli (`nian) internal investiga should be subject to "a quaity check." It is, however, up to the IsraelQs to prove that their investigations are aQequate, he said. He added that there are concerns about a conflict between military and civilan procedures that may introduce problems intQ Israeli internal investigations. ¶8. (C) TheGOB supports the request to the Secretary General to report to the General Assembly on implmentation of the resolution. It also supportQ the mention of a time limit for the SecretarQ General's report. Pauwels did not comment on the idea of imposing a time limit on Israeli or Palestinian domestic investigations themselves. ¶9. (C) Comment: The position on the resolution Pauwels presented seems to be carefully considered and reasonably firm. However it is based on a resolution that is considerably different from that expected reftel. Post is prepared to take further action at a higher level if requested by Department, based on the information provided above. GUTMAN .