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| A Top Kofi Annan Aide Insults Israeli Leader |
| 2004-12-30 |
| Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, yesterday urged that Secretary-General Annan fire his top adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi, for his anti-Israel tirades. Mr. Brahami recently likened Prime Minister Sharon to an assassin, adding to a series of statements that embarrassed the secretary-general, who is trying to position himself as a player in the peace process between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs. In a phone call to a top U.N. official this week, Mr. Gillerman said that the latest anti-Israeli screed by Mr. Brahimi in Europe should be grounds for firing him, the ambassador told The New York Sun yesterday. Speaking on Belgian radio and to the Belgian senate last week, Mr. Brahimi compared Mr. Sharon to an assassin, urged Europeans to increase their pressure on Israel, and said that the world is too accepting of "cynical and ridiculous" Israeli positions on peace with the Palestinian Arabs, according to a report by Agence France-Presse that was translated from the French. Because Mr. Annan and many other top officials were out on vacation this week, Mr. Gillerman said he spoke with the head of the Asia-Pacific division, Geir Pederson, a Norwegian who is increasingly involved in issues related to the Middle East. He has asked Mr. Pederson to relay his message to Mr. Annan. A U.N. official who asked not to be named confirmed that the conversation took place, but refused to comment on it. For the second time this month, a U.N. spokesman yesterday distanced Mr. Annan from Mr. Brahimi's words, saying Mr. Brahimi spoke "in his personal capacity." He added that Mr. Annan's views on the Middle East "are well known." The U.N. issued a similar statement two weeks ago after Mr. Brahimi told an Arab audience that America professes to promote human rights in the Arab world while at the same time ignoring Israeli human rights violations. "We've had enough," Mr. Gillerman told the Sun. After the incident in Dubai two weeks ago, Mr. Annan promised him in a private conversation that Mr. Brahimi would not repeat such statements, the ambassador said. A week later a similar sentiment, which Mr. Gillerman described as "bigoted," was publicly expressed in Europe. Mr. Brahimi has been a prominent player in Mr. Annan's diplomatic team in postwar Afghanistan, where he has served as the secretary-general's special representative, as well as in Iraq, where he helped shape the first sovereign government last summer. After returning from Iraq, Mr. Annan announced that Mr. Brahimi has accepted a role as an undersecretary-general, one of the highest-paid positions at the U.N., serving "as a member of the secretary-general's senior staff" and advising Mr. Annan "on a wide range of issues, including situations in the areas of conflict prevention and conflict resolution." As a former top official of the Arab League, Mr. Brahimi, an Algerian national, is considered by the U.N. to be an expert on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs. Mr. Annan is said to have relied heavily on many occasions on Mr. Brahimi's advice on Middle East issues. In his latest visit to Washington, where he met Secretary of State Powell and Condoleezza Rice, who has been nominated by the president to replace Mr. Powell, Mr. Annan stressed the need for deeper U.N. involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, according to sources on both sides of that issue. America has urged the U.N. to be more even-handed in its approach to the Middle East; it is seen by Washington as heavily pro-Arab. Whether related to the Washington visit or not, after Mr. Annan returned last week, his chief of staff, Iqbal Riza, announced he would retire. In conversations with the Sun, several diplomats and U.N. officials named Mr. Riza, as well as Mr. Brahimi, as the most anti-Israeli officials in Mr. Annan's inner circle. According to AFP, Mr. Brahimi, in an interview conducted in French on Belgium's RTBP radio last Friday, said, "You must condemn Mr. Sharon when he assassinates people, but you keep quiet just like you keep quiet when he uproots more than a million trees in the orchards of Palestine." He urged European listeners to be much more aggressive in pressuring Israel. "A return of peace will not happen all by itself," he said. "It will happen only with a totally different European attitude." A day earlier, Mr. Brahimi addressed the Belgian senate, where he said that the root of international terrorism is related mostly to the Arab-Israeli conflict, according to AFP. "What is being done to solve this problem? Not enough," he said. "The international community has too easily accepted the cynical and ridiculous viewpoint of the Israeli prime minister, who considered the late president Yasser Arafat the only person responsible for insecurity in Israel and for the plight of his own people," Mr. Brahimi told legislators. "In fact, the Arab states have essentially abandoned the Palestinians in recent years and Europe has not yet used the considerable political influence it enjoys to advance peace," he added. "European states and public opinion do not condemn loudly enough the grave violations of the most elementary human rights in Palestine." |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #3 Why are the Israelis making a stink out of it? Just make a note of this latest affront and file it away for later reference. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-12-30 11:57:09 PM |
| #2 Brahami's bitch daughter works/ed for CNN. "He urged European listeners to be much more aggressive in pressuring Israel. "A return of peace will not happen all by itself," he said. "It will happen only with a totally different European attitude." Come out with the truth bastards, what you pigs really want to say is that "peace can only happen if Israel is exterminated." |
| Posted by: Poison Reverse 2004-12-30 11:35:02 PM |
| #1 This is not the first time Kofi's buddy Brahami has made some antisemitic comments. He also was in Saddam's hip pocket while he served as number two in the Arab Leaque, never speaking ill of the mass killings, etc. |
| Posted by: Capt America 2004-12-30 11:09:54 PM |