Secretary-General Annan Plans Harsh Criticism of Israel, Aides Say
UNITED NATIONS — As part of a series of speeches meant to summarize his 10-year U.N. tenure, Secretary-General Annan plans to criticize Israel today in much harsher tones than he has used in the past, aides said.
The address at the U.N. Security Council follows a speech in Missouri yesterday in which Mr. Annan implicitly criticized President Bush while lauding the United Nations and its ideals.
Mr. Annan — who has yet to assume personal responsibility for U.N. failures during his 10-year stewardship, which ends December 31 — traveled to the Truman Presidential Museum and Library in Independence, Mo., to evoke the spirit of the American president who displayed a sign on his desk saying, "The Buck Stops Here."
In yesterday's speech, Mr. Annan looked back with nostalgia to the accolades and hopes for the United Nations in the days of President Truman, after World War II, when the organization was being formed. He all but ignored the 60 years since then, in which few, if any, of those original hopes have been realized.
"In the final months of his tenure, he is carrying a series of speeches summarizing his experiences as they evolved over 10 years," a friend and former spokesman of Mr. Annan who is writing a book on the outgoing secretary-general, Fred Eckhart, said. "It would be a mistake to see these speeches as aimed specifically at any country."
After saying yesterday that America's moral leadership has been weakened because of a reduced respect for human rights, Mr. Annan will say today that Israel's standing as the only democracy in the Middle East is diminished by its "occupation" of lands it captured in 1967. He also plans to accuse Israel of driving Arabs from their homes in earlier disputes.
In Jerusalem, Mr. Annan's views on Israel are considered an improvement over those of his predecessors. Nevertheless, Israel and its supporters see Mr. Annan as a representative and leader of an organization that routinely vilifies the Jewish state and singles it out for condemnation.
"There is little doubt that the greatest burden of suffering" in the Middle East "has fallen on those driven from their homes or forced to live either in exile or under a foreign occupation — the Palestinian people," Mr. Annan will say, according to a draft of his remarks seen by The New York Sun.
Israel, he will add, is "justifiably proud" of its democracy, but it "compromises its democratic character by continuing to rule over an entire people and to implant its own citizens in their land."
Mr. Annan will use "tough language on the occupation" and "franker" language than he normally does to describe the Israeli-Arab dispute, a senior aide to the secretary-general told the Sun.
The aide, who requested anonymity because the language of the speech was still being finalized last night, said Mr. Annan planned to use "tougher language on the Palestinians as well," and that he also will criticize the regular emergency sessions the General Assembly dedicates to criticizing Israel.
According to the draft, however, Mr. Annan will not mention the Israeli soldiers that Hamas and Hezbollah kidnapped last summer in two attacks that sparked wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Mr. Annan has said he had designated a "facilitator" to secure the release the two soldiers held by Hezbollah.
Mr. Annan will deliver the speech today during the final monthly Security Council briefing he will attend on the situation in the Middle East.
Although previously planned as a forum for the world's leading foreign ministers, Mr. Annan's will end up reporting mostly to U.N. ambassadors. America's council seat will not even be occupied by a permanent representative; Ambassador John Bolton resigned earlier this month.
This month, the current Arab representative on the 15-member Security Council, Qatar, holds the council's rotating presidency. The Qatari ambassador to the United Nations, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser, had envisioned today's session as a forum to be attended by the members' foreign ministers.
But in a sign of the divisions within the council on Middle Eastern issues, no member accepted the invitation and only Qatar's foreign minister will attend, alongside the secretary-general of the Arab League, Amre Moussa.
In another sign of those divisions, the council failed to unite yesterday behind a simple statement supporting Mr. Annan's recent report on Lebanon because it contained mild language describing the flow of weapons to Hezbollah.
Council members, meanwhile, were shown for the first time a draft resolution on Iran proposed by Britain, France, and Germany. The draft, which includes milder sanctions originally envisioned by America and its European allies, contains a partial travel ban and other restrictions against several Iranian officials. The Russian ambassador to the United Nations said Moscow still opposed some provisions.
