The Palestinian leadership made a mistake by suspending action on a UN report on Gaza war crimes, a member of President Mahmoud Abbas' inner circle said Wednesday - the first such acknowledgment after days of protests in the West Bank and Gaza. At issue is a 575-page UN report that alleged both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza last winter. Last week, Abbas withdrew Palestinian support for a vote in the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to have the report sent to the UN General Assembly for possible action. Such a vote would have been a first of many steps toward possible war crimes tribunals. With the Palestinians out of the picture, the council set the report aside for six months. Abbas made the decision under heavy US pressure, Palestinian and Israeli officials have said. US officials told Palestinian leaders that a war crimes debate would complicate efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, according to participants in such meetings. Abbas' aides have defended the step, saying the Palestinians needed more time to win international support for the UN report. They said deferring action did not mean burying the report. But Abbas apparently underestimated the angry response at home. With every day, there were more protests, marches and statements of condemnations, not only from his Hamas rivals, but also from human rights groups and intellectuals.
