Israel must leave our land, Palestinians tell UN

The Palestinians have insisted that Israel must end its occupation to make way for a Palestinian state to bring peace to the region - a view backed by many Arab and non-Arab countries alike.

The United States, saying it was looking for a way to end 17 months of Palestinian-Israeli fighting, praised a Saudi peace suggestion and said it intended to send envoy Anthony Zinni back to the region when conditions permitted.

But US ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte told the Security Council yesterday that a plan by former US senator George Mitchell - and not council action at this time - was the way to end the violence. The Mitchell initiative calls for a ceasefire, followed by peace-building measures.

The emergency council session was called by the Arab group of nations, which termed the current Middle East situation critical.

The Arab group has been discussing a Palestinian-proposed resolution that incorporates part of the Saudi proposal, which calls for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza in exchange for peace with Arab nations. It has not yet introduced a resolution.

More than a dozen speakers addressed the council meeting, which will resume today. More than 20 countries are still waiting to speak.

Marwan Jilani, the deputy Palestinian observer at the United Nations, riveted the chamber’s attention by accusing Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon of seeking to turn Palestinian territory into ‘‘collective detention jails’’ in trying to crush the Palestinian uprising.

Sharon, Jilani said, was pursuing the aim ‘‘of breaking the will of the Palestinian people, humiliating them and destroying their national dignity’’.

Israeli forces had committed extrajudicial killings, destroyed homes, buildings, agricultural field and roads, and confiscated more land for settlements, he said.

Only an end to the ‘‘Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Arab territories occupied since 1967’’ and establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel with east Jerusalem as its capital could lead to peace, he said.

‘‘This is the vision that has received international consensus’’ including that of US president George Bush, he said. ‘‘What remains is for it to be accepted by the Israeli side.’’

Israel’s deputy ambassador Aaron Jacob, however, accused Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat of orchestrating a terrorist campaign against Israelis.

‘‘Israeli civilians have been subjected to every manner of terrorist activity, suicide bombers in crowded restaurants and cafes, abductions and murders of our citizens, ambushes and sniper attacks on the roads, missile attacks on our territories,’’ Jacob said.

Israel, he said, was committed to the Mitchell plan, but he said ‘‘violence must be ended unconditionally’’. He urged the council to refrain from any action that would ‘‘detract from our immediate and crucial objective of ending the violence’’.

Negroponte, however, said security was ‘‘not a one-way street (and) Israel too must meet its obligations’’. He said Israeli raids against the Palestinian security apparatus charged with preventing violence ‘‘are counter-productive’’.

The Saudi proposal, floated recently by Crown Prince Abdullah in an interview with the New York Times, was praised by Morocco.

But Syria’s UN ambassador Mikhail Wehbe struck a discordant note, saying there were many peace proposals but a blueprint for peace already existed based on UN resolutions.

‘‘There is a peace process,’’ he stressed. ‘‘That process requires a clear, explicit political will - and not further initiatives.’’

Meanwhile Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs met in Tel Aviv to decide on steps to ease 17 months of violence, as interest in the Saudi Arabian peace initiative increased.

Javier Solana, the top European Union diplomat, said he would make a previously unscheduled trip to Riyadh today to hear first-hand about the Saudi initiative from Crown Prince Abdullah.

Solana said Ariel Sharon ‘‘would be willing to meet anybody from Saudi Arabia, formally, informally, publicly, discreetly, whatever, to get better information about the significance of this idea’’. However, Sharon rejects the concept of a total Israeli withdrawal from the territories.

In violence early today, one Palestinian gunman was killed and five injured when Israeli tanks tried to enter the Balata refugee camp next to Nablus, Palestinians said. All were linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, they said.