UNITED NATIONS, April 4: At an open debate of the UN Security Council over 60 countries on Wednesday demanded that Israel pull its tanks and troops out of the West Bank cities immediately.
Some nations also demanded an end to the suicide bombings by the Palestinians. The emergency Security Council meeting called by the non-aligned and Arab nations representatives of Israel and Palestine at the United Nations offered diverging views on the current conflagration in the Middle East .
“The Israeli authorities have so insolently declared that the Israeli attacks will continue for weeks,” Ambassador Nasser Al- Kidwa, the permanent observer for Palestine, told the Council.
“This will lead us to a point of no return,” he warned.
Al-Kidwa called on the international community to “decisively reject” Israel’s actions, adding: “Our position against all terrorist attacks, including the explosions in Israel is clear and explicit — we condemn them in their entirety, but Israel remains an occupation force.”
Israel’s actions were sanctioned by the State, he said, while the Palestinian Authority had condemned terrorist acts in Israel, considering them contrary to Palestinian national interests.
The Security Council, he noted, must see to it that its resolutions were implemented immediately, as that was the only way to put an end to the violence and resume efforts for peace.
The Council must consider how to push peace forward, including through the presence of an international third party monitoring body to help implement the understandings reached by the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, and the recommendations made by a committee presided over by former US Senator George Mitchell.
Israeli Ambassador Yehuda Lancry called attention to the deadly suicide bombings that had been taking place in the country in recent days. Israel was prepared to fully implement the Council’s recent resolutions, he said, including its call for a genuine cessation of hostilities, terrorism and incitement and full implementation of the Tenet Plan and the Mitchell report.
Lancry emphasized that the Security Council should demand an immediate implementation of its recent resolution as well as a call on the Palestinian side to cease suicide bombings in Israel.
“This would not only be a more balanced position but could be the impetus needed to achieve a genuine ceasefire, begin the withdrawal of Israeli troops, and ultimately put both parties back on the path towards a process of dialogue and negotiations, and hopefully, a final status achievement in peaceful coexistence,” he said.
On Wednesday evening, the Council held two back-to-back formal private meetings on the Middle East - the first with Ambassador Lancry, and the second with Ambassador Al-Kidwa.
According to a UN spokesman, during each session, the representative of Israel and the observer of Palestine made opening statements, which were followed by an interactive question-and-answer period with the members of the Council.
Last Saturday the United Nations adopted a resolution calling for both sides “to move immediately to a meaningful ceasefire” and for “the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian cities, including Ramallah,” where Israel has Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat trapped in his compound.
The United States, uncharacteristically, backed the resolution but subsequently held that Israel was not required to act until the Palestinians agreed to a ceasefire.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and many council members insist there is no sequence to the actions demanded by the council, which are legally binding.
After the open debate ended on Wednesday evening, council members consulted privately and decided, at the request of the United States and others, to put off a vote until Thursday on the Palestinian-backed draft resolution. It demands that all provisions of Saturday’s resolution be implemented immediately.
Western diplomats said the United States opposes such language and would veto the resolution if necessary. But they held out the prospect that the text could be amended before the vote to make it acceptable to Washington.
A rival draft proposed by the five veto-wielding council members — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - was set aside. That measure demands the immediate cessation of “all acts of terror, provocation, incitement and destruction” and also demands “the immediate engagement of both parties” in the implementation of Saturday’s resolution.
After the eruption of renewed Middle East violence in September 2000, the Security Council remained sidelined because the United States, Israel’s closest council ally, thwarted virtually every effort by the Palestinians to get a resolution that would condemn Israeli action.
