Israel's Latest "Conditions" for Jenin Massacre Probe

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

AFP via Times of India - April 25, 2002

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=7964400


Israel sets conditions for Jenin fact-finding probe

JERUSALEM: Israel is seeking assurances that a UN fact-finding
mission into the carnage at the Jenin refugee camp will draw no
conclusions and incriminate no Israeli witness, Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres said on Thursday.

In an interview with Israeli army radio, Peres said Israel was ready
to cooperate fully with the UN panel but did not specify whether its
assistance depended on compliance with its conditions.

Israel on Tuesday abruptly withdrew its approval for the mission to
look into the circumstances surrounding nine days of bloodshed at the
West Bank camp, fearing it was headed for public-relations and legal
problems.

Peres said the Israelis, who sent a team of negotiators to New York
to hash out the terms of the fact-finding mission, were pressing for
"clarification" of three main points.

"We want assurances that the testimony of Israelis cannot be used
against them, that the mission will include an anti-terrorism expert
and that this mission will draw no conclusions," the chief Israeli
diplomat said.

He added that in no case "can Israel be prosecuted before the
International Court of Justice at the Hague."

The three-member UN panel was to gather information on events at the
camp that Palestinians say was the site of a massacre and Israelis
insist was a battlefield for opposing armed forces.

The Palestinians say that hundreds were killed, mainly civilians,
while the Israelis say "dozens" of fighters died in the fiercest
battle of their nearly month-old military push on the West Bank.

Israel fears that the UN fact-finders will focus on the destruction
at Jenin and ignore the wider context of the Jewish state's fears the
camp had become a haven for terrorists.

Peres said the UN mission headed by former Finnish president Martti
Ahtisaari would arrive later this week and "should have our total
cooperation." But he did not say what would happen if Israel did not
receive its "clarifications."

"Israel must go on the attack to counter a campaign of defamation
against us," he said. "They started out speaking of 3,000
Palestinians killed in the refugee camp, then went down to 500 and
now it turns out there are 50 dead, including 47 armed and three
civilians."

The minister said the initial announcement Israel had suspended its
cooperation with the UN panel was made "hastily, based on false
information about the mission's mandate conveyed to the Prime
Minister's office."

 
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