Ex-UN envoy slams US support of Israel

Press Esc
Wednesday June 13, 2007

The former top UN diplomat in Tel Aviv has slammed the US for its support of Israel saying it hinders peace efforts in the Middle East.

Citing a confidential copy of Alvaro de Soto's "End of Mission Report", dated May 5, that The Guardian obtained, it reported that the former UN Middle East envoy also criticized the other participants in the region's peace process to varying degrees.

He says western-led peace negotiations have become largely irrelevant.

Mr. De Soto claims the Quartet of Middle East negotiators - the US, the EU, Russia and the UN - has become a "side-show".

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.

Mr. De Soto reveals that after Hamas won elections last year it wanted to form a broad coalition government with its more moderate rivals, including Fatah, run by the Palestinian Authority Cheif Mahmoud Abbas. But the US discouraged other Palestinian politicians from joining. "We were told that the US was against any 'blurring' of the line dividing Hamas from those Palestinian political forces committed to the two-state solution," Mr. De Soto writes. It was a year before a coalition government was finally formed.

Mr. De Soto opposed the international boycott placed on the Palestinian government after Hamas won elections last year. He argued that it was wrong to use pressure and isolation alone, and proposed retaining dialogue with Hamas. He wanted tougher criticism of Israel as well, but came up against a "heavy barrage" from US officials.
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 Peruvian diplomat added that the United States also supported the Tel Aviv's 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 said that the Quartet as a whole had lost its impartiality on the issue: "The fact is that even-handedness has been pummeled into submission in an unprecedented way since the beginning of 2007."

De Soto described the Western boycott of the Palestinian government as "at best extremely short-sighted" with "devastating consequences" for the Palestinian people.

Of the UN, De Soto wrote: "At almost every juncture, a premium is put on good relations with the US and improving the UN's relationship with Israel.

"There is a seeming reflex, in any given situation where then UN is to take a position, to ask first how Israel or Washington will react rather than what is the right position to take."

Mr. De Soto speaks of his frustration in the job, not least that he was refused permission to meet the Hamas and Syrian governments in Damascus. "At best I have been the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process in name only, and since the election of Hamas, I have been the secretary-general's personal representative to the Palestinian Authority for about 10 minutes in two phone calls and one handshake," he writes.

He stepped down in May at the end of his two-year contract and left the UN. The "tipping-point" for his departure came after the new UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said future meetings with a Palestinian prime minister would depend on the actions of his government.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's spokeswoman said it was "deeply regrettable" that the report had been leaked, adding that "the views in the report should not be considered official UN policy."

The report was meant only for senior UN officials, and its wording is far more critical than the public pronouncements of UN diplomats.

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