Required Reading

Unfortunately, the Israeli political system tends to privilege the immediate and ephemeral over the long-term vital interests of the country. There is a broad swathe of Israeli opinion fully aware that time is not on Israel's side. We are not a friend of Israel if we allow Israel to fall into the self-delusion that the Palestinians are the only ones to blame, or that it can continue blithely to ignore its obligations under existing agreements without paying an international diplomatic price in the short-term, and a bitter price regarding its security and identity in the long-term.

Alvaro de Soto, until May 2007 the chief UN diplomat for the Middle East, slams Israel and the United States for their impediments to peace with the Palestinians.

What strikes me the most about the report is just how bleeding obvious and measured its conclusions are. For example, it uses the time honoured weasel phrase "the Palestinians consider" when describing much of the atrocities committed by Israel, instead of just outright condemning them. But for the most part it is a well written report. The central point de Soto makes is that the US and Israel have no interest in achieving peace with the Palestinians and some Palestinian militants have not helped their cause by continuing intermittent violence. That the report has caused such a furore says a lot about the extent of justice and accountability in our civilised West-centric world.

The report was meant to be confidential but was leaked to the media. You can read it in its entirety here. I strongly recommend making the time to do just that, it's around 50 pages long so you can get through it on a casual weekend. The document sheds a great deal of light not just on the Israel/Palestine conflict, but on the dynamics and impotence of the United Nations system. For those of you who have worked with or in the UN (you know who you are!) it should, sadly, not come as a surprise.