Secret UN report damns US for "pummelling into submission" its impartiality on Palestine

galway | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Wednesday June 13, 2007 12:02 by TD - Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign

The Quartet of Middle East negotiators - the US, the EU, Russia and the UN - has become a "side-show"

The highest ranking UN official in Israel, Alvaro de Soto, 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, the Peruvian diplomat who worked for the UN for 25 years in El Salvador, Cyprus and Western Sahara contends that :

· 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"