June 14, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 28, 1428

UNITED NATIONS, June 13: A former UN Middle East envoy quit his job last month making bitter allegations that U.N. policy in the region had failed because it was subservient to US and Israeli interests, according to a leaked document.

In a confidential end-of-mission report, seen by Reuters, Alvaro de Soto poured scorn on the Quartet negotiating group of the United States, Russia, European Union and United Nations, and suggested the world body should pull out.

De Soto, a Peruvian diplomat who formerly worked on El Salvador, Cyprus and the Western Sahara, spent two years on the Middle East before resigning in May, ending a 25-year U.N.

He was replaced by Briton Michael Williams.

His scathing 53-page farewell, addressed to a handful of top UN officials and first reported by Britain's Guardian newspaper, made clear he left because he was frustrated that he was being ignored.

In the document dated May 5, he railed at restrictions he said were placed on him by UN headquarters against talking to the Hamas-led Palestinian government and to Syria.

De Soto condemned economic sanctions imposed by Israel, the United States and the EU on Hamas after it won Palestinian elections last year and said their effective endorsement by the Quartet had had `devastating consequences’ for Palestinians.

“The steps taken by the international community with the presumed purpose of bringing about a Palestinian entity that will live in peace with its neighbour Israel have had precisely the opposite effect,” he wrote.

“Even-handedness has been pummelled into submission in an unprecedented way since the beginning of 2007.”

SIDE-SHOW: U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon encouraged all envoys to express their personal views `in an open manner’ in end-of-mission reports, and that he had read De Soto's analysis.

“It's a valuable tool for him (Ban). It doesn't mean that he agrees with what is in it,” she said. Montas declined to discuss the content of the report, citing confidentiality.

De Soto criticised the Islamist Hamas movement for advocating Israel's destruction, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a foe of Hamas, for weak leadership, and the Palestinian failure to halt militant attacks on Israeli civilians.

But he also charged that Israeli policies seemed `perversely designed to encourage the continued action by Palestinian militants.” The goal of parallel Israeli and Palestinian states could be slipping away, he warned.

De Soto blasted what he called “the tendency that exists among USpolicy-makers ... to cower before any hint of Israeli displeasure and to pander shamelessly before Israeli-linked audiences.”

But much of his criticism was directed at the United Nations, where, he said, “a premium is put on good relations with the USand improving the UN’s relationship with Israel.”

“I don't honestly think the UN does Israel any favours at all by not speaking frankly to it about its failings regarding the peace process,” De Soto said.

He said Ban should “seriously reconsider” continued UN membership in the Quartet, which he said had become a “side-show” and “pretty much a group of friends of the U.S.”

De Soto said he regretted that his advice to U.N. headquarters had gone unheeded. “I concluded that my uphill effort was not going to succeed,” he said.—Reuters