Ramallah – Ma’an – The official Palestinian stance on the UN-backed Goldstone report harmed Palestinian national interests and embarrassed supporters of the Palestinian people, Minister of Social Affairs Majida Al-Masri said Saturday.

The first member of the caretaker government to speak out against the Palestine Liberation Organization move, Al-Masri called delaying discussion of the report to the March 2010 Human Rights Council meeting a move that "gave Israeli war criminals the opportunity to avoid the report's repercussions."

Al-Masri, a member of the politburo of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) said the stance of the Palestinian ambassador to the UN "contradicts the Palestinian national consensus," adding that the delay had "angered friends and allies of the Palestinian people."

She called in the Palestinian leadership to "consider what happened there a lesson to avoid repeating in the future."

The DFLP leaders also accused the PLO, of which Hamas is not a member, of making a decision that "deepens Palestinian rivalry and raises questions about what motivated such a directive - as well as the decision-makers who ordered it."