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08.10.03, 22:47
Israel accused of starving West Bank
New York |By Charles Laurence and Kim Willsher | 05-10-2003
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.
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.
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.
According to newspaper reports in France, Ziegler's report will not now be
published until the spring.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
