Israel snubs 'hostile' UNBy Phil Reeves in Jerusalem
The Independent, 11 February 2001
A United Nations mission was yesterday due to start gathering
information in the Middle East about the massive violation of human
rights in the Israeli-occupied territories during the Palestinian
intifada. But Israel, which sees the UN as partisan and hostile, has
already made clear it will refuse to cooperate.
A United Nations mission was yesterday due to start gathering
information in the Middle East about the massive violation of human
rights in the Israeli-occupied territories during the Palestinian
intifada. But Israel, which sees the UN as partisan and hostile, has
already made clear it will refuse to cooperate.
The team was set to start in Gaza, where Israel has imposed
sweeping collective punishment measures on the 1.2 million
Palestinian residents with an economically devastating blockade,
which is pushing Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority to the brink
of financial collapse.
The three-member team is to "investigate humanitarian rights
violations and breaches of international humanitarian law", and
report to the UN Human Rights Commission next month. The inquiry was
set up by the 53-nation commission last October after approving a
motion, proposed by Arab countries, that condemned Israel for
"widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights".
Israel, whose troops have shot dead hundreds of young Palestinians
for rioting and maimed thousands more, was furious, calling it "vile
and one-sided".
It has done nothing to moderate its behaviour. On Friday, troops
were yet again firing live ammunition and lethal rubber-coated steel
bullets at rioters, scores of whom were injured in a wave of
violence in the West Bank and Gaza in the aftermath of the election
of Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister .
The human rights commissioner, Mary Robinson, who travelled to
inspect the situation first-hand in November, returned saying that
she was "shocked, dismayed and even devastated" by what she saw. The
UN team will find that the situation has worsened since her trip, as
the Israeli armed forces strive to contain the conflict which
combines sporadic rioting by youths, hurling stones and petrol
bombs, with a low-level guerrilla war including car bombs and
drive-by ambushes.
Stories of Israeli atrocities - from the rocketing of Palestinian
houses to the shooting of children in the head - have become so
commonplace that they rarely receive much publicity in the media,
whose attention has been absorbed by Ariel Sharon's overwhelming
defeat of Ehud Barak on Tuesday.
The Palestinians have also committed human rights violations, not
least the execution of alleged collaborators and attacks - including
a lynching - which have killed 50 Jewish civilians and soldiers. But
there is no comparison in the scale.
It is against this background that Israel is trying to persuade
the international community that the newly elected Premier is not,
as the Arabs allege, a war criminal - or even a hawk. This ambitious
drive includes tireless efforts by the embassy in London to persuade
the BBC to stop describing the Likud leader as a "hardliner" in news
reports. Astonishingly, BBC executives have actually taken the
requests seriously - though they have yet to bow to them.
