Israel condemns 'poison' remark by Annan envoy

Israel is considering a formal protest to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan after his top envoy described the Jewish state as “the great poison” in the Middle East.

Fury erupted when Lakhdar Brahimi, who is trying to help Iraqis agree on a transitional government to take power on June 30, gave an interview to France Inter radio on Wednesday, criticising both Israel’s repressive policy and America’s support for it.

Brahimi, a UN undersecretary-general and special adviser to Annan, said his effort to help establish an interim government in Iraq was being made more difficult by Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.

“There’s a lot of hatred because the very violent and repressive security policy of the Israeli government as well as this determination to occupy more and more Palestinian territory does not make matters easier,” he said.

“The problems are linked. There is no doubt that the great poison in the region is this Israeli policy of domination and the suffering imposed on the Palestinians, as well as the perception of all of the population in the region, and beyond, of the injustice of this policy and the equally unjust support … of the United States for this policy.”

At the UN briefing yesterday, spokesman Fred Eckhard tried to distance the world body from Brahimi’s comments.

“As a preliminary reaction, I could say that, as you know, he is a former foreign minister of Algeria and therefore he brings to the table strongly held and strongly expressed views about the Middle East peace process,” Eckhard said.

“However, the official position of the United Nations on such matters is that set out by the secretary-general in the many statements he has issued over the last seven years.

“Mr Brahimi was expressing his personal views. … The secretary-general’s views, as expressed over the last seven years, do not contain the word ‘poison’.”

Israel’s deputy UN ambassador Arye Mekel said his country was “very disturbed” by Brahimi’s statement which ”puts the objectivity and fairness of the top UN officials in question and increases Israel’s suspicion about the motivation of the United Nations”.

“We are considering a formal protest to the secretary-general,” he said. “We believe that a UN official should not criticise a member state and also - there is no such thing as a private statement by a UN official.”