Region | Palestinian Territories
UN envoy blasts US for pro-Israeli agenda
The United Nations' outgoing Middle East envoy has accused the US of using undue pressure to impose a one-sided pro-Israeli agenda on diplomacy in the region.
- By Harvey Morris, Financial Times
- Published: 23:38 May 3, 2009
- Image Credit: EPA
- Young boys serve tea to Hamas fighters while on patrol in Gaza City.
Occupied Jerusalem: The United Nations' outgoing Middle East envoy has accused the US of using undue pressure to impose a one-sided pro-Israeli agenda on diplomacy in the region and urged Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, to consider pulling out of the international peace Quartet.
In a hard-hitting confidential report, intended for internal UN consumption, �lvaro de Soto, a veteran Peruvian diplomat who quit his Jerusalem-based post in May, said the Bush administration had forced through an international boycott of the Hamas government that had devastating consequences for the Palestinian people.
Interlocutors
Relying on a "small clique of Palestinian interlocutors who tell them what they want to hear", Washington was persuaded Hamas could be confronted and overthrown by its internal rivals.
De Soto's end of mission report, written last month, emerged as Hamas gained further ground this week in battles against Fatah fighters in the Gaza Strip, the latest and fiercest confrontation so far between the two factions.
As Hamas gave Fatah-aligned security personnel 48 hours to surrender their weapons, hundreds were reported to be fleeing across the Gaza border into Egypt.
In his 52-page report, de Soto refers to a meeting at which two senior US officials, deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams and assistant secretary of state David Welch, exerted pressure through "ominous innuendo" about Congress's ability to curb its funding of the UN.
He said the consequences of the policy of the Quartet - the UN, US, European Union and Russia - had been to "take all pressure off Israel. With all focus on the failings of Hamas, the Israeli settlement enterprise and barrier construction has continued unabated".
De Soto complains he was not authorised by Kofi Annan, former UN secretary-general, to maintain contacts with Hamas ministers, although this was a natural role for UN diplomacy.
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