International

Annan may yield to Israeli demand

By Kesava Menon

Manama (Bahrain) April 24. Israel now appears to be veering back to extending co-operation with a U.N. fact-finding mission after initially agreeing to co-operate and then going back on that decision.

Israel's change of mind has come about with the U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, making adjustments to the composition of the fact-finding panel and its mandate. The decision to set up a fact-finding panel was taken by the U.N. Security Council in a compromise move between the Arab States on the one side and Israel and the U.S. on the other. Arab States insisted that a massacre of civilians had occurred in the West Bank town of Jenin during Israel's recent invasion and they wanted an international commission to investigate any breach of human rights conventions and to determine whether military crimes had been committed. But the U.S. threatened to use its veto power if the panel's mandate was formulated on these lines and so a compromise was reached where the commission's role was limited to ascertaining facts.

The Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, told Mr. Annan that his Government would co-operate with the fact-finding panel. However, after a cabinet meeting yesterday, the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, said Israel would not co-operate with the panel for three reasons. Israel, he said, had not been consulted before the panel was set up (for that matter, neither was the Palestinian Authority), one of the panel members was suspected of anti-Semitic attitudes and the panel was only going to examine the facts connected with Israel's military operations and not the terrorist activity to which the operations were a response. These objections were conveyed to the U.N. as well as the U.S.

Mr. Annan has reportedly said that a retired U.S. General, Bill Nash, who was formerly appointed only as an adviser, will now be a full member of the panel. Mr. Nash's elevation will apparently give the panel a military-professional dimension as well as a politico-diplomatic one. Israel insists that the operations in Jenin were carried out in a thoroughly professional manner with utmost care to avoid civilian casualties. But the Palestinians say that they have the facts to prove that a large number of civilian deaths took place due to the actions of a ruthless army and they have accused Israel of trying to sabotage the work of the fact-finding panel.

Meanwhile, Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials have met for direct negotiations for the first time to bring an end to the standoff over the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. About 200 Palestinians, including 50 armed men, are trapped inside the church and Israel says that it will not lift the siege unless some of the men who are on its wanted list surrender themselves for trial. The Palestinian Authority reportedly proposed that the wanted men could surrender to the Authority which would put them on trial in the Gaza Strip. Israel has spurned this compromise offer.

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