<<This anti-Israeli stuff in this instance is simply a rationalisation on your part. >>
You simply aren't very well informed are you? They aren't refusing any UN inspections, only objecting to the current biased team. Note, How dare you call this "rationalisation on your part" when it is the opinion held by many others & based on fact?:
UN Jenin Investigation Proceeds
Wed Apr 24, 3:05 PM ET
By LAURIE COPANS, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel pressed for changes Wednesday in a U.N. team due to look into its assault of the Jenin refugee camp, calling the investigation biased, but U.N. chief Kofi Annan (news - web sites) refused to delay the mission.
With a confrontation brewing over the probe, Israel was sending officials to New York to try to persuade the U.N. secretary-general to add an American military expert to the core of the team and expand the probe's mandate to look at Palestinian suicide bombings.
Israel has not said whether it would try to prevent the U.N. team from reaching Jenin if the changes are not made.
Annan did not rule out changes to the team but rejected Israeli calls for a delay. A U.N. spokesman in Geneva, where the team members were gathering Wednesday, said the mission is "expected to be in the Middle East by this Saturday."
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Wednesday that Israel intends to cooperate, but said the team should not travel to the region until its composition and mandate was changed.
"We hope they will take into consideration our positions and they will fix things ... that they are coming to check not check only us but both sides," the defense minister said.
The Palestinians accused Israel of trying to hide wrongdoing during the fiercest fighting of Israel's West Bank campaign. "Israel wants to sabotage (the U.N.) mission," Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said. "I believe that these Israeli practices reflect one thing, that they have a big thing to hide."
In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said there was no evidence that Israeli troops massacred civilians in Jenin camp, as Palestinians claim, during the intense eight-bay battle there between soldiers and Palestinian gunmen.
"Clearly, innocent lives may well have been lost," Powell told Congress. But, he said, "I have no evidence of mass graves. I see no evidence that would support a massacre took place." He said the assessment was based on a Friday visit to the camp by Assistant Secretary of State William Burns.
Meanwhile, Israeli and Palestinian officials were to hold another round of negotiations to try to resolve a three-week standoff at the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Israeli troops have surrounded some 250 Palestinian gunmen in the shrine.
An Israeli soldier shot and seriously wounded an armed Palestinian standing near a window in the church on Wednesday, the army said. The wounded man was evacuated to the hospital, while two other Palestinian policemen from inside the church surrendered, saying they were ill, witnesses said.
The standoff in Bethlehem and another in Ramallah around the offices of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) are the two main remaining trouble spots after Israel pulled back from much of the wide-scale offensive it launched last month in the West Bank.
The Palestinians allege hundreds of people were killed, mostly civilians, during the fighting in Jenin camp. Israel denies that claim, putting the death toll at under a hundred, mostly gunmen. So far, 45 bodies have been retrieved, but other bodies may still be buried under the rubble.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites) denounced Israel's West Bankl campaign as "barbaric" during a nationwide address Wednesday. He accused Israel of covering up "despicable crimes" in Jenin camp.
Israel agreed to the U.N. resolution that created the fact-finding team on Jenin, saying it had nothing to hide. But Ben-Eliezer insisted Wednesday the team must also investigate Palestinian suicide bombings, saying 137 Israelis were killed in one recent four-week period, most in suicide bombings.
Gideon Meir, a Foreign Ministry official, said the U.N. team aimed only to find fault with Israel. "Everything is against Israel here. What about the terror attacks?" he said.
Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari is leading the team, which also includes Cornelio Sommaruga(*), a former president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Sadako Ogata, the former U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The team has a military adviser, retired U.S. Gen. William Nash, and a police adviser, Peter Fitzgerald of Ireland.
Some Israeli officials have said they want Sommaruga removed. Ben-Eliezer said Monday that Israel wants Nash made a full member of the team.
Israeli Cabinet Secretary Gideon Saar said Tuesday that Israel could block the team from entering the Jenin refugee camp if it believes the mission is not abiding by its mandate.
Meir said Israel has had bad experiences with U.N. fact-finding missions in the past. "We want to make sure this one is fair," he said.
The tensions between the world body and Israel were clear when the U.N. human rights chief submitted a report Wednesday calling for an independent investigation into violations committed by both sides. The Israeli ambassador in Geneva denounced the report by Mary Robinson as biased because it lays "blame specifically on Israel" with only vague references to Palestinian suicide bombings.
Israel has had a difficult relationship with the United Nations (news - web sites), which once had a resolution on the books equating Zionism with racism. Relations improved under Annan but were strained again last year after the United Nations admitted it misled Israel about potential evidence in the kidnapping of Israeli troops in south Lebanon. Recent remarks made by Annan's envoy to the Mideast over the Jenin operation infuriated the Israeli government.
Israel's problems with the International Committee of the Red Cross — which Sommaruga headed from 1987 until 1999 — have been continual since Israel was first rejected for membership in the organization in 1949.
In West Bank violence on Wednesday, two Palestinians were killed and seven arrested in an Israeli military operation near Hebron in the West Bank, the two sides said.
Palestinians said the army blew up a cave in which the men were hiding, near the village of Bani Naim. The army said it was tracking suspected Palestinian militants.
Also, three Palestinians were killed in an explosion in a house in the Jebaliya refugee camp near Gaza City. Witnesses suggested the blast may have occurred while the trio was preparing an explosive.
story.news.yahoo.com
* - a quote from Mr. Sommaruga: "If we're going to have the shield of David, why would we not have to accept the swastika?" From the Washington Post
washingtonpost.com |
