In a surprise turnaround,
Israel decided Tuesday night to "postpone" its agreement to
cooperate with the UN fact-finding mission, with one diplomatic official saying
Israel was afraid of being "set-up."
The decision was made after
consultations Prime Minister Ariel Sharon held in his office with Defense
Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and representatives from the Defense Ministry and
the Foreign Ministry who are preparing Israel's case.
According to a
senior diplomatic official, Israel received intelligence information the
Palestinian Authority was busy setting the stage in Jenin to "cook up" evidence
for the fact-finding committee "proving" a massacre had taken place.
Israel, furthermore, received no assurances its representatives would be
allowed into the camp to present their arguments.
The official reason
for the decision was that UN General-Secretary Kofi Annan had changed the
fact-finding mission's terms of reference from strictly fact-finding to
something more expansive.
Israel is concerned, the official said, the
committee will go beyond investigating what happened in Jenin to a wider probe
that Israel never agreed to, and which could lead to a recommendation to Annan
to set up an investigative committee or to dispatch of international observers.
"The composition of the committee was done without our consultation or
agreement," the official said. "We are a sovereign country and don't have to
accept these types of dictates."
Israel, according to this official, is
also unhappy three of the four members of the committee are political officials,
not military officers able to go to a battlefield and - in a detached manner -
discern what happened.
"It is better for us to suffer a few bad days of
publicity now, rather than have to live with the consequences of a biased report
later on," the official said.
Earlier in the day, Sharon told the
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee he would accept the fact-finding
committee because it was the "lesser of evils." He said the US made it clear it
would not veto a Security Council resolution for a commission of inquiry, and
that the fact-finding mission was preferable to such a commission.
Foreign Ministry legal adviser Alan Baker, one of the members of the
team, said earlier in the day that although Israel expected to be consulted
before the committee was appointed, it did not object to the fact-finders.
"All the members of the team are respected professionals who have a
proven track record in the international community," Baker said. "We trust their
objectivity and professionalism."
Baker vehemently denied reports that
one of the members of the team, former president of the International Committee
of the Red Cross Cornelio Sommaruga, is anti-Israel or anti-Semitic.
Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote an article two years
ago on the controversy regarding keeping Magen David Adom out of the ICRC
because the Star of David is not a recognized symbol. Krauthammer quoted
Sommaruga as saying, "If we're going to have the Shield of David, why would we
not have to accept the swastika?"
Baker, who was present at the time of
the remarks, said that using this comment to allegedly show an anti-Jewish bias
on Sommaruga's part "is a vile manipulation of something said in a different
context."
"I know the context because I was there," Baker said. "When we
were talking about adding additional emblems in the Red Cross movement,
Sommaruga remembered that the old historic Indian symbol of the swastika, before
it was used by the Nazis, was proposed as a humanitarian red cross symbol. To
take it out of context as something he said - in an anti-Semitic context - is
vile, manipulative, and destructive."
Mordechai Yedid, the Foreign
Ministry's deputy director-general in charge of UN and international
organizations, said Sommaruga was behind a compromise that would have allowed
Israel to join the organization in 2000 - but that meeting was postponed after
the current violence broke out, and has not yet been rescheduled.
At the
same time, other diplomatic officials said Israel's relations with the ICRC hit
an all-time low when Sommaruga was its head - largely over allegations of
torture of security prisoners. These relations improved, however, after a
meeting Sommaruga had with then-Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon.
One of the
other members of the fact-finding committee, Sadako Ogata, the former UN high
commissioner for refugees, received an honorary doctorate from Ben-Gurion
University two years ago.
In her speech, Ogata said: "Israel is a
country rooted in history's worst tragedies of forced human displacement, and
millions of refugees owe their tragic plights to the Holocaust. The Jewish
people have behind them hundreds of years of persecution, flight, and exile. On
the other hand, not only economic migrants, but also refugees have built this
country and refugees of Jewish origin have made enormous contributions
everywhere."
Regarding former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, one
diplomatic official said he is of the old school European social democrats. The
official said Ahtisaari has demonstrated an understanding of the complexity of
the situation here, although he could not be called a "friend" or "supporter" of
Israel.
Annan yesterday upgraded the status of US Army Gen. William Nash
from adviser to a full member of the staff, a move that pleased Jerusalem. "We
wanted an American military man on the committee," Baker said. "And now we have
one."
A number of MKs took Sharon to task for initially agreeing to the
establishment of the fact-finding committee.
Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee chairman David Magen (Center) said the results of the inquiry can
already be predicted and they "won't be complementary to Israel."
Minister-without-Portfolio and National Religious Party leader Effi
Eitam, a former brigadier-general, said yesterday in a faction meeting that IDF
drones had filmed all of the activities during the operation in Jenin.
He said it would be better to hand over the tapes to the UN than to
allow soldiers who participated in the operation to testify before the inquiry.
One official presenting Israel's case said the staff is considering
whether to use the film from the drones, basing their decision on whether the
resolution of the pictures is of a high-enough level.
Former prime
minister Binyamin Netanyahu also came out against the committee, telling Israel
Radio it "will produce results that will harm Israel. It is completely
illegitimate."
"The UN has proven its bias by its failure to examine an
endless number of terror attacks against Israel," Netanyahu said from the US,
where he is on a mission to enlist support for Israel.
He also said the
UN had withheld information and misled Israel about the abduction of three
soldiers by Hizbullah.
The UN Security council convened Tuesday night
after Israel requested the delay. At the end of their meeting the Security
Council issued a statement saying it expects "fast implementation" of the
resolution adopted last Friday welcoming the fact-finding mission and Israel's
"full cooperation" with the secretary-general and the team.
While the
council was in session, Yehuda Lancry, Israel's UN Ambassador met with Annan at
UN headquarters to request changes in the composition of the team and the scope
of action of the mission.
Annan agreed to postpone the mission by a few
days and said in a statement that he expected the team to be in the region by
Saturday.
The three-member U.N. team and its military and police
advisers are currently gathering Wednesday in Geneva for meetings.
