NEW YORK — Who says there are no do-overs in international politics? When, late last month, the Palestinian Authority asked the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to delay a vote on a resolution endorsing the Goldstone report on the Gaza war, the move sparked a firestorm of anger among Palestinians.

Hamas leaders and protesters in the West Bank declared that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had betrayed the Palestinian people by caving in to U.S. and Israeli pressure, scuttling a resolution on a report faulting Israel with war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.

So Abbas quickly reversed course, first pressing the UN Security Council to take up the matter – which it did, this week, albeit informally – and then asking the Human Rights Council to reconvene for a special session on the Goldstone report. The council, whose next scheduled session is next March, agreed.

The result was a quick endorsement Friday by the 47-member council of the report, produced by a fact-finding mission on the Gaza war led by retired South African jurist Richard Goldstone.

Israel had refused to co-operate with the fact-finding mission from the get-go, asserting that its mandate to investigate only Israeli “grave violations of human rights” and not Hamas’ actions was inherently biased.

While the report’s mandate later expanded to include consideration of Hamas misconduct during the fighting, the resolution the council endorsed Friday restored that bias, prompting a rebuke from Goldstone himself.

“There is not a single phrase condemning Hamas, as we have done in the report,” Goldstone was quoted as saying by AFP, the French press agency.

The Human Rights Council voted 25 to 6 to endorse Goldstone’s report and recommend that other UN bodies heed its recommendations. While the council’s vote is not legally binding, it asks that the UN General Assembly consider the Goldstone report, and the report itself recommends that the UN Security Council refer war crimes prosecutions to the International Criminal Court if Israel does not take action within six months to investigate the alleged crimes cited in the report.

In Friday’s vote, the six countries voting against the resolution were the United States, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Ukraine. Eleven countries abstained and five countries didn’t vote at all – a highly unusual occurrence at the council – including Britain and France. Among the yes votes were Russia, China, Argentina and Egypt.

The resolution also expressed “deep concern” at Israeli restrictions on Arab worshippers at the Temple Mount, which Israeli police imposed during unrest during the recent Sukkot holiday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel must prepare for a protracted struggle against a damning United Nations report on its winter offensive in Gaza, after the UN’s Human Rights Council endorsed the report.

“The delegitimization [of Israel] must be delegitimized,” said Netanyahu at meetings last Friday. He said the battle against the report would be legal and diplomatic, adding that Israel should take the appropriate measures against it.

While the UN investigation labelled Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli towns as war crimes, the bulk of the findings focused on Israeli actions during the three-week campaign.

The 575-page document concluded that Israel used disproportionate force, deliberately targeted civilians, used Palestinians as human shields and destroyed civilian infrastructure during the operation to root out Gaza rocket squads.

In his comments Friday, Netanyahu further said that the report was a symptom of a broader phenomenon that has taken place in the West and UN institutions over recent years.

“The UN has returned to the dark days during which it equated Zionism with racism,” he added.

Meanwhile, Israel will seek clarifications from Russia, China and India in light of their voting for the motion on Friday. Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Israel was disappointed by those countries’ behaviour.

“They needed to act with greater consideration, since the report is unprofessional, false and takes the right to selfdefence from democratic states, which in the end will also hurt them,” said Ayalon at a cultural event in Holon.

Also Friday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejected the council’s decision to endorse the report, calling the decision “unjust.”

The Foreign Ministry issued an official response to the UN vote, saying that “Israel will continue to exercise its right to self-defence and to preserve the security of its citizens.”

“Israel believes,” the statement continued, “that the decision harms efforts to protect human rights in accordance with international law and hinders efforts to promote the peace process as well as encouraging terror organizations around the world.”

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ian Kelly on Friday defended the U.S. vote against adopting the resolution, saying it had an “unbalanced focus” and that the U.S. is concerned “it will exacerbate polarization and divisiveness.”

Kelly continued by saying that the U.S. vote against endorsing the report “in no way diminishes the deep concern that we have about the tragic events of last January and the suffering caused by the violence in Gaza and southern Israel.”

The parties need adequate time to study the report and establish accountability measures, said Kelly, adding that U.S. envoy George Mitchell will be meeting with Israeli and Palestinian officials this week and next.

Meanwhile, Friday, Hamas welcomed the UN vote, saying that the organization hoped it would lead to “the beginning of the prosecution of the leaders of the occupation.”

With files from Ha’aretz