JERUSALEM — Faced with a torrent of criticism at home and abroad, the Palestinian leadership abruptly reversed course on Wednesday by endorsing a Security Council debate on a United Nations report accusing Israel of possible war crimes in Gaza.
The report, produced by a panel of investigators led by an internationally respected jurist, Richard Goldstone, found extensive evidence that both Israel and Palestinian militant groups took actions amounting to war crimes during last winter’s Gaza war.
But after pushing for the United Nations Human Rights Council to endorse the report and forward it to the Security Council, the Palestinians relented to American pressure last week and agreed to drop the issue for six months. Both the United States and Israel had warned that pursuing the accusations would abort attempts to revive the peace process.
Now the Palestinians are grappling with a domestic and regional uproar, with angry street protests at home and condemnation pouring in from Doha to Damascus.
“The level of public protest is unprecedented,” said Ghassan Khatib, director of the Palestinian Authority’s media center. “I do not remember any situation before when the leadership was so unpopular,” he said, speaking by telephone from Ramallah in the West Bank.
Mr. Khatib said there was a feeling among Palestinian leaders that “they have to reconsider” their approach. With the Human Rights Council out of the picture for the time being, he said, they are seeking other avenues to advance the Goldstone report.
Yasir Abed Rabbo, a close adviser of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said Wednesday that the leadership had erred.
“We have the courage to admit there was a mistake,” Mr. Abed Rabbo, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told the official Voice of Palestine radio. In an attempt at damage control, he added that the mistake could be “repaired.”
Mr. Abed Rabbo was the first senior Palestinian official to speak out publicly against the deferral of the vote on the report. There was no immediate comment from Mr. Abbas, who was in Rome on Wednesday.
At the United Nations, the Palestinian Observer Mission immediately endorsed a move by the Libyan delegation to hold a Security Council discussion on the issue and the Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, was due in New York late Wednesday to press the matter.
“Accountability is the first order of business for all of us, including the Americans,” said Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador, when asked about the Palestinian leaders’ reversal. “That is what is impeding the peace process.”
The Security Council agreed Wednesday to move up its monthly debate on the Middle East to Oct. 14 from Oct. 20, and the report will be the focus of that discussion although not officially listed on the agenda. Several Arab ambassadors said they recognized the futility of trying to pass any kind of resolution because the United States would veto it immediately.
The American position is that the report should be handled by the Human Rights Council in Geneva, a consistent opinion among Security Council members.
The Libyan ambassador, Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgam, said that the judicial aspects of the report could start in Geneva, but that Libya, a current Security Council member, wanted an open debate to give the issue momentum. That could help spur peace, he said, because the decision to delay in Geneva had deepened the already acrid split between the main Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas.
“The atmosphere on the ground is not helpful,” Ambassador Shalgam said.
Palestinian officials defended their earlier support for a deferral of the vote, saying Israel’s allies would have vetoed moves to advance the report, while a delay gave the Palestinian leadership time to raise international support.
But the Abbas administration clearly had not anticipated such a furor.
In Gaza, posters appeared on walls on Wednesday calling Mr. Abbas a traitor and saying he should be consigned to “the trash heap of history.” Gaza is controlled by Hamas, the militant Islamic group that is the Palestinian Authority’s main rival.
A Hamas official, Salah Bardawil, said in a statement that his group would join Egyptian-mediated reconciliation talks with Mr. Abbas’s Fatah movement, to take place in Cairo this month, only if Mr. Abbas apologized to the Palestinian people for the so-called debacle around the United Nations report.
Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in Ramallah on Tuesday against the leadership’s conduct and called on Mr. Abbas and other officials to resign.
Even Mr. Abbas’s own government has been critical. In a statement released by the Palestinian cabinet on Monday, the ministers reaffirmed their position of late September, which called for the Human Rights Council to adopt the Goldstone report, and said it was “unacceptable” for such efforts to be undermined.
Apparently distancing himself from the events at the Human Rights Council, Mr. Abbas ordered the establishment of a committee over the weekend to investigate how the deferral of the vote came about, but that failed to quell the storm.
Mr. Abbas finds himself squeezed on several fronts. The Obama administration is pressing the Israelis and the Palestinians to resume peace negotiations, but has not managed to persuade the Israelis to freeze settlement construction in the West Bank. The Abbas administration had made a building freeze a condition for renewed talks.
Last weekend, Hamas took credit for a release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons. Israel freed 20 female security prisoners in exchange for a videotape of an Israeli soldier who has been held captive since being seized in a raid by Hamas and other groups in June 2006.
In another sign of Palestinian restiveness, there has been simmering violence in the past few days in East Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Islamic Movement of Israel all accuse Israel of provocations at a site holy to both Jews and Muslims, and Israel is accusing the Palestinians of fanning the flames.
All this underlines the challenges facing George J. Mitchell, the Obama administration’s special Middle East envoy, who was expected to arrive in the region late Wednesday to continue efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Front Page Features