Israel Blocks U.N. Investigators
Sunday: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon opens the weekly Israeli security cabinet meeting.
Sunday, April 28, 2002
JERUSALEM — Israel's Cabinet barred a U.N. fact-finding mission on Sunday from investigating allegations surrounding Israeli army actions in a West Bank refugee camp, saying the United Nations is "out to get us." Ministers also approved a U.S. proposal aimed at ending the month-old siege outside Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters.
After seven hours of Cabinet discussion, Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin briefed reporters, saying the United Nations had reneged on agreements with Israel. The team's composition and intentions, he said, made it inevitable Israel would be unjustly blamed.
"This awful United Nations committee is out to get us and is likely to smear Israel and to force us to do things which Israel is not prepared even to hear about, such as interrogating soldiers and officers who took part in the fighting," Rivlin said. "No country in the world would agree to such a thing."
Israel has raised several objections since the U.N. Security Council approved the mission earlier this month to look into Palestinian claims – and Israeli denials – of a massacre in the camp during eight days of fierce fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan did not immediately comment on the Israeli decision. The Security Council, which approved the mission last week, was to hold an emergency meeting later Sunday.
Palestinian Cabinet Secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman accused Israel of trying to make the committee meaningless. "They claim there is nothing to hide," he said. "What then is the explanation of all these obstacles in front of the committee to prevent it from starting its mission?"
The Cabinet, in a 17-9 vote, also adopted a proposal by President Bush in which six wanted men inside Arafat's Ramallah compound would serve time in a Palestinian jail under the guard of American and British nonmilitary personnel. In exchange, Arafat would be free to move about the Palestinian territories or travel abroad for the first time since December.
The standoff also would end at Arafat's shell-shattered compound, which Israeli troops have surrounded since the March 29 start of Israel's military incursion into the West Bank aimed at dismantling Palestinian militias. Dozens of Palestinian gunmen have been killed, including some on Israel's most-wanted list, and more than 1,500 Palestinians remain in Israeli custody.
FNC
Israel had said it would not allow Arafat out of his compound until it had custody of six wanted men who are being held in Arafat's offices. Five of the six were wanted in connection with the October assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi. The sixth was accused in a large arms shipment, allegedly from Iran, that was intercepted by Israeli authorities on the Red Sea.
Later Sunday, U.S. and British consular officials met with Arafat in his Ramallah headquarters to directly convey the U.S. proposal. It wasn't clear if the Palestinians would immediately respond.
Mohammed Rashid, a top adviser to Arafat, said earlier that he believed the Palestinians were inclined to accept the proposal since it prevented the extraditions Israel had demanded.
Bush, who was at his Texas ranch, praised the Cabinet's acceptance of the proposal, calling it "helpful and constructive," the White House said in a statement. "The next move is up to Yasser Arafat."
The proposal says Israel stands by its "legitimate demand" that the six wanted men be handed over to Israel, but as long as British jailers and American representatives ensure they remain imprisoned they apparently could stay in a Palestinian jail.
Asked how long they would remain jailed, Sharon spokesman Arnon Perlman responded: "I think they will remain in prison unless they are extradited to Israel."
Four of the six were convicted last week in a hastily convened, one-session Palestinian court and received sentences of one to 18 years; the other two have yet to stand trial in any court. The Palestinians had arrested the six and were holding them at a prison in Arafat's compound before the Israeli incursion. They were moved into Arafat's offices to keep them out of Israeli hands.
Rivlin indicated the Cabinet agreed to the U.S. proposal on Ramallah essentially because it would need American support for its dispute with the United Nations.
AP
Sunday: An Israeli Army tank guards Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah.
Rivlin said Bush held three separate conversations with Sharon on Saturday about the plan, and saying no would leave Israel "to face the need to fight the committee when the Americans would be angry with us.
"Everybody agreed on the need to approve the request of the President of the United States in the knowledge that his help ... in the situation in which Israel finds itself now is the most important thing," Rivlin said.
Israel originally agreed to cooperate with the U.N. fact-finding team, but it has grown increasingly critical of it. In recent days, Israel has sought delays in the team's arrival and sent representatives to U.N. headquarters in New York to try to expand the core team to include military and counterterrorism experts and to clarify its mandate.
The main sticking points had been Israel's request it decide which Israelis would testify, and that the team would not investigate Israel's military operations beyond events in the Jenin refugee camp, a militant stronghold that was scene of the fiercest battles of the campaign.
Twenty-three Israeli soldiers died in Jenin; the Palestinian death toll is uncertain, with about 48 bodies found so far.
"Israel won't sit in the place of the accused," Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said before Cabinet deliberations ended. "Israel will sit in the place of the accuser. This is an attempt to place baseless blame, almost a blood libel, on Israel."
Perlman, the spokesman, said Peres called the committee and advised them that they would be "delayed until further clarifications."
The three-member team, headed by former Finnish president Martti Athisaari, and various advisers including retired U.S. Maj. Gen. William Nash, have been waiting in Geneva for an Israeli decision.
Also on Sunday:
– Negotiations to end the 27-day standoff at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity – where more than 200 Palestinians, including about 30 gunmen, other armed men and dozens of clergy were surrounded by Israeli forces – deadlocked and negotiators say it isn't clear when they will resume. Israel demands wanted men inside the compound be deported or stand trial; the Palestinians propose they be taken to the Gaza Strip.
– The Islamic militant Hamas group claimed responsibility for Saturday's rampage in the Jewish settlement of Adora in the West Bank that and killed four people, including a 5-year-old girl.
– A Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli troops Sunday near an army checkpoint outside Hebron, Palestinian security officials and witnesses said. The army did not immediately comment.
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