- GENEVA - Israel on Thursday
stepped up its attack on a UN special envoy who blamed it for causing hunger
amongst Palestinians, warning that it might not cooperate with future UN
human rights probes.
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- The envoy's report, released last month, warned the Palestinian
territories were on the verge of a "humanitarian catastrophe"
as a result of "extremely harsh" military measures being adopted
by Israeli forces.
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- The Israeli mission to the United Nations in Geneva said
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- the report by Jean Ziegler, UN special investigator for
the right to food, for the UN Human Rights Commission should be dismissed
as "unworthy of discussion or distribution as...a UN document".
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- The Geneva-based Commission will officially consider
the document at its 2004 annual meeting. However, it has been added as
an annex to the annual report by Ziegler to the UN General Assembly in
New York which is currently under way.
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- Israel, which accuses Ziegler, a Swiss sociologist, of
bias, said it would think twice in the future about cooperating with UN
human rights investigators, or rapporteurs as they are known.
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- "This will undoubtedly shade Israel's future decisions
with regard to the possibility of engaging in constructive dialogues with
other UN special rapporteurs," the Israeli mission said.
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- Israel, which has in the past been reluctant to allow
visits from UN human rights investigators, allowed Ziegler, an outspoken
former socialist member of the Swiss parliament, to travel to Israel earlier
this year.
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- It routinely refuses to allow the special investigator
for the occupied territories, South African judge John Dugard, to meet
and speak with Israeli officials for his annual report on the situation
there.
- http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/360628.html
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