Global Policy Forum

By Gerald Nadler

Brushing aside Israel's request for a delay, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent a fact-finding team on its way to look at Israel's military operation in the Jenin refugee camp. The three-member U.N. team and its military and police advisers were gathering Wednesday in Geneva for meetings. Annan said he expects them in the region on Saturday.

The Palestinians say the Israeli army carried out a massacre of civilians. Israel says its army fought fierce gunbattles with Palestinian gunmen during the eight-day assault on the Palestinian camp. After days of Palestinian insistence, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres agreed Friday to the fact-finding mission, saying the country had "nothing to hide." But on Tuesday in Jerusalem, Israel said it was delaying the team's arrival. An official charged the team was chosen by Annan without consulting Israel as had been agreed, and the members were political, not military as Israel requested.

Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari is leading the team, which also includes Cornelio Sommaruga, a former president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Sadako Ogata, the former U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The team has a military adviser, retired U.S. Gen. William Nash, and a police adviser, Peter Fitzgerald of Ireland. Ahtisaari arrived in Geneva, where he was to meet the other members of the team on Wednesday. He refused any comment.

A Western diplomat said Israel wanted to negotiate terms for the team's activities in Palestinian areas, and wanted Sommaruga removed. Israel's problems with the International Committee of the Red Cross - which Sommaruga headed from 1987 until 1999 - have continued since Israel was first rejected for membership in the organization in 1949. The ICRC recognizes only the Red Cross and the Muslim Crescent as official emblems and will not sanction the Jewish Star of David as a symbol for relief workers.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Yehuda Lancry, who met with Annan, also said Israel wanted more military and counterterrorism experts added, plus assurances the team would confine its activities to Jenin, and undertake an investigation of Palestinian terrorist activities in the refugee camp. Annan would not discuss his choice of team members, though he did not rule out adding additional experts if necessary, a statement from the U.N. spokesman said.

But Lancry told Israel Radio later: "He (Annan) is open to the idea of expanding the team to include a military expert and perhaps an expert on counter-terrorism, as full members and not advisers." The secretary-general said the mandate of the team was the Security Council's resolution adopted unanimously last Friday that welcomes the fact-finding mission.

That resolution also expresses concern at "the dire humanitarian situation of the Palestinian civilian population," especially in Jenin. On Tuesday, the council issued a statement saying it expects "fast implementation" of Friday's resolution - and Israel's "full cooperation" with the secretary-general and the team.

Israel asked to send representatives to brief U.N. officials "to make sure that the government's point of view was understood," and they could arrive on Thursday, the U.N. statement said. The secretary-general agreed to postpone the departure of the fact-finding team to allow those consultations, "but he expects the team to be in the Middle East by this Saturday."

Ahtisaari said before Israel demanded a delay that he expected to reach the region by the end of the week. So an arrival on Saturday would be on schedule, despite any brief postponement in the team's departure.

Israel has had a difficult relationship with the United Nations, which once had a resolution on the books equating Zionism with racism. Relations improved under Annan but were strained again last year after the United Nations admitted it misled Israel about potential evidence in the kidnapping of Israeli troops in south Lebanon. Recent remarks made by Annan's envoy to the Mideast over the Jenin operation infuriated the Israeli government.

Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer on Monday night demanded that Nash, appointed as military adviser, be made a full member of the team because of the complex security issues involved - a demand Lancry reiterated.

Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinian U.N. observer, called the Israeli decision to seek a delay "blatant blackmail which will definitely undermine the integrity of the fact-finding process." "We thought that the Israeli side did not have anything to hide, but obviously they do," he said.

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