UNITED NATIONS – A U.N.-commissioned report on development in the Arab world strongly criticizes Arab regimes and their disregard for their citizens’ freedom. At the same time, in a fashion that American officials describe as gratuitous, the report accuses America and Israel of impeding Arab development.

Written by 36 Arab intellectuals and commissioned by the U.N. Development Program, the Arab Human Development Report 2004 revolves around one question: “Why, among all the regions in the world,” it asks, “do Arabs enjoy the least freedom?”

While the report stresses that Arab regimes are mostly responsible for what it calls the “black hole” at the center of Arab political life – specifically the offending regimes’ executive branches – its authors are wary of outside pressures on the governments, insisting that change must come from within.

“There is change in mind-sets in the region,” said Rima Khalaf. Rather than inspired by President Bush, the shift is “driven by the Arab street, not change adopted from afar,” the Jordanian former prime minister insisted. Ms. Khalaf leads the UNDP project that has produced three much-acclaimed reports, including the current one.

The authors were concerned about Arab suspicions that Israel or America controlled the reports’ findings, one official who was familiar with the project told The New York Sun. In addition to criticism of regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Ms. Khalaf’s homeland of Jordan, the report also blames “occupation” for impeding Arab development.

Occupiers, such as the American-led coalition in Iraq and the Israelis in “Palestine,” have “sapped the struggle for freedom and good governance in Arab countries,” the report concludes. Occupation, it argues, provides pretext for governments to impede reform, forces reformers to fight against occupiers, and strengthens Arab extremist movements.

“These kinds of gratuitous comments in the report are wrong,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, adding that generally “We think these reports have made a very important contribution.” Terrorists in Iraq are responsible for the lack of security, he argued, not the coalition. As for Israel, “We’ve been very clear about our positions on the wall, the barrier. We’ve been very clear on our positions on settlement activity.”

Mr. Boucher, however, was full of praise, going as far as saying that America’s vision for the Middle East is based on findings detailed in previous UNDP reports. “A lot of what we’re trying to do in this region, the programs we’re trying to design for this region, [is] based on conclusions from these reports,” he said.