Secret UN report condemns US for Middle East failures
The highest ranking UN official in Israel has warned that American pressure has "pummelled into submission" the UN's role as an impartial Middle East negotiator in a damning confidential report.
The "End of Mission Report" by Alvaro de Soto has also condemned the boycott of the new Palestinian government and has accused Israel of adopting an "essentially rejectionist" stance towards talks with the Palestinians.
He says:
· The international boycott of the Palestinians, introduced after Hamas won elections last year, was "at best extremely short-sighted" and had "devastating consequences" for the Palestinian peopleThe reaction of the Quartet to the election of the Hamas government was lunatic, especially at a time when we claim to be wanting to export democracy to the region. The signal we have sent is that we are only interested in democracies that throw up answers that we approve of.
· Israel has adopted an "essentially rejectionist" stance towards the Palestinians
· The Quartet of Middle East negotiators - the US, the EU, Russia and the UN - has become a "side-show"
·The Palestinian record of stopping violence against Israel is "patchy at best, reprehensible at worst"
In the case of Hamas, we have not only rejected the democratic choice of the Palestinian people, but we have actually set out to punish the people of Palestine for making the "wrong choice".
And even when an alternative Palestinian government was hobbled together to please Israel, they have decided that they now find Abbas suspicious for agreeing to work with Hamas rather than to recognise a genuine compromise on the part of the Palestinians.
Mr de Soto, who had opposed the boycott, said this position "effectively transformed the Quartet from a negotiation-promoting foursome guided by a common document [the road map for peace] into a body that was all-but imposing sanctions on a freely elected government of a people under occupation as well as setting unattainable preconditions for dialogue".I can't think of any other example in the UN's history where they have imposed sanctions on the occupied people rather than on the occupier and nothing is a better example of how American pressure has corrupted the organisation from it's professed aims than that fact.
We are now punishing the occupied rather than the occupier. The world is upside down. And this has come about because of the influence of pro-Israeli groups within the US, who have a view of this conflict which is not shared by the rest of the world.
The consequences of this have been devastating for the impartiality of the UN as an organisation.Over the past two years, the Quartet has gradually lost its impartiality. "The fact is that even-handedness has been pummelled into submission in an unprecedented way since the beginning of 2007," he writes.
He blames overwhelming influence exerted by the US and an "ensuing tendency toward self-censorship" within the UN when it comes to criticism of Israel.
"At almost every juncture a premium is put on good relations with the US and improving the UN's relationship with Israel. I have no problem with either goal but I do have a problem with self-delusion," he writes. "Forgetting our ability to influence the Palestinian scene in the hope that it keeps open doors to Israel is to trade our Ace for a Joker."
The US also supported the Israeli decision to freeze Palestinian tax revenues. "The Quartet has been prevented from pronouncing on this because the US, as its representatives have intimated to us, does not wish Israel to transfer these funds to the PA [Palestinian Authority]," he writes. "There is a seeming reflex, in any given situation where the UN is to take a position, to ask first how Israel or Washington will react rather than what is the right position to take."The tensions which our boycott of the Palestinians has caused is now threatening a civil war within Palestine.
And, of course, if the Palestinians are attacking each other, then this is something which suits Israel. "Better they attack each other than attack us."The EU said yesterday that there was an imminent risk of civil war if fighting went on, and UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon urged support for Mr Abbas's efforts "to restore law and order".
In the heaviest day of fighting in Gaza for months, Hamas appeared to make its first concerted effort to seize power in Gaza. There was a wave of co-ordinated attacks, which appeared to overwhelm the larger but less effective Fatah force. "Decisiveness will be in the field," said Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for the Hamas military wing.
Fatah's central committee called an emergency meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank, and said it would suspend the activities of its ministers in the government. Fatah would pull out of the government if the fighting failed to stop, it said.
For the first time in several weeks, fighting spread to the West Bank when Fatah gunmen attacked a Hamas television studio in Ramallah and kidnapped a Hamas deputy cabinet minister from the city.
All of this destruction is coming about because Israel, backed by the US, refused to accept the democratic choice of the Palestinian people and we have been punishing the people of Palestine ever since for making a choice that we disagreed with.The effect of the boycott was to seriously damage the Palestinian economy and promote radicalism. It also lifted pressure from Israel. "With all focus on the failings of Hamas, the Israeli settlement enterprise and barrier construction has continued unabated," he writes.
The US, he argues, was clearly pushing for a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas but Washington misjudged Mr Abbas, who he argues had wanted to co-opt rather than defeat Hamas. Fighting between Fatah and Hamas has intensified in recent months. He quotes an unnamed US official as saying earlier this year: "I like this violence ... It means that other Palestinians are resisting Hamas." Since December at least 600 Palestinians have been killed in factional battles.
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