Read Alvaro de Soto's end of mission report
By Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem and Ian Williams in New York
Wednesday June 13, 2007
Guardian
The highest ranking UN official in Israel has warned that American pressure has "pummelled into submission" the UN's role as an impartial Middle East negotiator in a damning confidential report.
The 53-page "End of Mission Report" by Alvaro de Soto, the UN's Middle East envoy, obtained by the Guardian, presents a devastating account of failed diplomacy and condemns the sweeping boycott of the Palestinian government.
It is dated May 5 this year, just before Mr de Soto stepped down.
...Mr de Soto condemns Israel for setting unachievable preconditions for talks and the Palestinians for their violence.
Western-led peace negotiations have become largely irrelevant, he says.
Mr de Soto is a Peruvian diplomat who worked for the UN for 25 years in El Salvador, Cyprus and Western Sahara.
He says:Mr de Soto acknowledges in the report that he is its sole author. It was meant only for senior UN officials, and its wording is far more critical than the public pronouncements of UN diplomats.
· The international boycott of the Palestinians, introduced after Hamas won elections last year, was "at best extremely short-sighted" and had "devastating consequences" for the Palestinian people
· Israel has adopted an "essentially rejectionist" stance towards the Palestinians
· The Quartet of Middle East negotiators - the US, the EU, Russia and the UN - has become a "side-show"
·The Palestinian record of stopping violence against Israel is "patchy at best, reprehensible at worst"
Last night, Mr de Soto, who is in New York, told the Guardian: "It is a confidential document and not intended for publication."
In January last year, the Quartet called on the newly elected Hamas government to commit to non-violence, recognise Israel and accept previous agreements. When Hamas refused to sign up to the principles, the international community halted direct funding to the Palestinian government and Israel started to freeze the monthly tax revenues that it had agreed to pass to the Palestinians. Several hundred million dollars remain frozen.
Mr de Soto, who had opposed the boycott, said this position:
"effectively transformed the Quartet from a negotiation-promoting foursome guided by a common document [the road map for peace] into a body that was all-but imposing sanctions on a freely elected government of a people under occupation as well as setting unattainable preconditions for dialogue".
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