Barak Opposes UN Force in Palestinian TerritoriesIsraeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said Monday that it is not necessary to post an international force administrated by the United Nations in the Palestinian territories."Observers can not provide a solution or a de-escalation to the violence and may even play a role in complicating the situation," Barak told a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset (parliament). Barak said there has been no reduction of clashes in the territories, blaming the Palestinian side for not doing enough to quell the violence. "The results show that there has been no drop in the level of violence, and thus the Sharm el Sheikh accords are not being fulfilled by the other side (Palestinians)," he said. "This is a shameful and severe violation of the agreements reached," he added. During the mid-October peace summit at the Egyptian Red Sea resort, the Palestinians demanded that the UN send a peace-keeping force to the Palestinian territories to help end the bloody conflict between Israeli troops and the Palestinians. The UN Security Council is to take up the demand in a closed session planned for Wednesday. Israel's The Jerusalem Post reported Monday that the United States is pondering a proposal on the posting of a force that would not be armed, but would have an observer status similar to that of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) sent by the UN in 1994 after the Hebron massacre incident. In the 1994 Hebron incident, Baruch Goldstein, a Jew, opened fire at Palestinian prayers inside the Ibrahim Mosque, killing over 20 Palestinians. The sole function of TIPH, which consists of 30 Norwegians, is to monitor and report events in the city. US President Bill Clinton will meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Washington on Thursday and three days later with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on ways to end the violence between the two sides, which has killed over 170 people, mostly Palestinians, in more than five weeks. Israel's Meretz party leader Yossi Sarid said Monday that Israel should consider the Palestinian demands for a UN-administrated international peace-keeping force to be deployed in the Palestinian territories. But Sarid said that the proposal should not include East Jerusalem. The Israeli government has so far openly rejected the idea. |
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