Time For Sanctions

KOFI ANNAN has cancelled the proposed fact-finding mission by the United Nations to the Jenin Refugee Camp.This is a victory for the Israeli government that had set up insurmountable obstacles to the visit of the UN mission. Initially Israel had demanded military experts to join the expert UN group and this was agreed. Then Israel insisted that it control access to all witnesses, that the report should contain no conclusions, and that the evidence not be used in prosecution of war crimes. Israel also wanted the UN mission to investigate Palestinian terrorism.Yesterday Kofi Annan decided that so much time had elapsed since the Jenin fighting that it was getting progressively more difficult to establish the truth of what happened there. He aborted the mission.Israel has scored a short-term victory by blocking the mission but it has suffered a long-term defeat by discrediting its own military.Long into the future the burning question will remain ‘Why did Israel fear an investigation of alleged war crimes?’ Surely Israel did not believe that respected former heads of state on the mission would fake evidence to discredit the Israeli army? Why did Israel not welcome the opportunity to clear its name by bringing the UN mission to Jenin?Everyone will now automatically assume that Israel has a guilty conscience, and rightly because Israel has blocked a neutral fact-finding mission to establish the truth.It would be wrong of the world community to ignore this snub to the United Nations. It is time for the world to start considering progressive sanctions against Israel if it cannot accept to be bound by the norms of world politics.Ends