- NEW YORK -- A United
Nations report which blames Israel for causing starvation in Gaza and the
West Bank has prompted a furious diplomatic row with the Israeli government
of Ariel Sharon.
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- The leaked report by Jean Ziegler, a Swiss sociologist
and UN special envoy, blames Israel's security policies for "collective
punishment" of the Palestinians. Ziegler spent 10 days in the occupied
territories in July and was due to present his report to the UN General
Assembly in New York on November 18.
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- Furious Israeli officials, however, have denounced the
report as "highly political", saying that Ziegler had gone beyond
his mandate. With support from American diplomats at the UN, Israel has
called for the report to be rejected before it reaches the floor of the
Assembly, and asked the UN Human Rights Commission, for whom Ziegler was
working as a food rights specialist, to discipline him.
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- According to newspaper reports in France, Ziegler's report
will not now be published until the spring.
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- Tuvia Israeli, Israel's deputy representative to the
UN, said: "Ziegler's behaviour has been a bitter blow to our relations
with the UN which were already extremely strained." He said that Ziegler's
silence about the rampant corruption at the heart of the Palestinian Authority
was unacceptable.
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- Privately, UN officials in Geneva, where the Human Rights
Commission is based, also expressed frustration at having "wasted
a golden opportunity" to improve cooperation with the Israeli government.
They regretted that Ziegler had been "carried away by his indignation".
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- Ziegler appeared yesterday ready to lock horns with the
UN. "It is a very explosive report about the silent tragedy behind
the visible tragedy of the Palestinian territories," he said.
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- In the 25-page report, a copy of which has been seen
by The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Ziegler says 22 per cent of Palestinian children
under the age of five suffer severe malnutrition, and most families have
only one meal a day.
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- He describes that as "absurd" in a historically
fertile land, blaming the "apartheid" security fence, the seizing
and destruction of Palestinian farmland, and roadblocks for preventing
food from reaching Palestinian communities.
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- "The Occupied Palestinian Territories is on the
verge of humanitarian catastrophe as a result of the extremely harsh military
measures imposed by the occupying Israeli military forces since the outbreak
of the second Intifada in September 2000," the report warns.
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- Ziegler became one of the first UN envoys to be allowed
to report on conditions in the occupied territories with co-operation and
assistance from Israel.
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- Israel wants the report to be dismissed on technical
grounds, claiming that Ziegler breached protocol because the report was
leaked to the French newspaper, Liberation, before their government had
a chance to lodge a reaction.
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- Ziegler defended his report yesterday as "the truth"
and said the leak had been beyond his control. He said that the draft report
had been sent to Israeli agencies that had helped his research at the same
time as it was submitted to the Human Rights Commission.
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- © The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2003
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- http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=99397
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