Gary Fitleberg, October 24, 2004

A senior United Nations official told the Security Council on Friday he had a "palpable sense of drift and foreboding" about prospects for a Middle East peace unless the international community intervened.

Kieran Prendergast, the undersecretary-general for political affairs, said that a two-state solution enjoyed strong support from the Israeli and Arab "Palestinian" public but the "parties cannot succeed left to themselves."

"Even to speak in terms of a peace process seems to put one at a distance from the present reality," he said. "The international community's more vigorous engagement is therefore an indispensable ingredient."

Prendergast cited the bombings at Sinai resorts this month that killed more than 30 people in a place "hitherto known as a haven for coexistence and tourism."

Since the start of the latest intifada in September 2000, Prendergast said, some 3,839 Arab "Palestinians" and 979 Israelis had been killed and an estimated 36,000 Palestinians and 6,297 Israelis wounded.

"These statistics are staggering," he told the council in his public briefing, submitted monthly.

"Are we going to go on like this? Is there not a better way," he asked."

Prendergast said violence, rather than negotiations, appeared to be the mode of communication.

"There is a palpable sense of drift and foreboding - in the case of the alleged "occupied" so-called "Palestinian" territory, of drift towards chaos," he said.

"Neither side is fulfilling it obligations under the road map," a peace process backed by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, he said.

Prendergast said Secretary-General Kofi Annan would soon establish a new group to register all damage caused by the constructions of the West Bank separation fence, as requested by the General Assembly.

"His aim will be to establish as soon as possible a body that would be able to examine requests and eligibility for registration, as well as to verify the facts and extent of damage and of the causal link between the construction of the barrier and the damage sustained," Prendergast said.

Prendergast called on the Palestinian Authority/Palestine Liberation Organization to quell terror emanating from territory under its control. And he said Israel had to organize its planned pullout from Gaza and the northern part of Judea & Samaria (wrongly called "West Bank") in the context of the Road Map and in coordination with the Arab "Palestinians".

Gary Fitleberg is a Political Analyst specializing in International Relations with emphasis on Middle East affairs.

Copyright © 2004 Gary Fitleberg