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Arabs
Want Another U.N. Resolution Demanding Israeli Withdrawal
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| "This
is a situation where you have tanks, personnel carriers,
artillery inside heavily populated cities. You are talking
about the life of … thousands of human beings,” said chief
Palestinian U.N. observer Nasser al-Kidwa |
UNITED
NATIONS, April 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Palestinian
diplomats, preparing to push another U.N. Security Council resolution,
vowed to keep up pressure at the United Nations until Israeli
occupation forces withdrew from the West Bank and Gaza.
Consequently,
the council planned a public meeting for Wednesday, April 3, on the
Middle East crisis, the fourth in six days, at the request of Arab
nations. Palestinians want a resolution that demands the council
enforce the two documents it adopted in March on the ongoing violence
and warfare.
Nasser
al-Kidwa, the chief Palestinian U.N. observer, said the 15-member body
especially needed to follow up its Saturday resolution. This called
for a cease-fire and withdrawal of Israeli occupation troops from
Palestinian cities, including Ramallah, where Palestinian President
Yasser Arafat is confined to several rooms of his ruined compound.
"This
is an occupation on top of an occupation on top of an
occupation," al-Kidwa said. "This is a situation where you
have tanks, personnel carriers, artillery inside heavily populated
cities. You are talking about the life of human beings, thousands of
human beings."
Syria
agreed to introduce the resolution, although it walked out before
Saturday's Security Council vote and abstained on a council resolution
two weeks ago on grounds both documents were too weak.
"Even
though we didn't support the resolution, we are committed,"
Syria's U.N. Ambassador Mikhail Wehbe said.
Council
members late Tuesday, April 2, called al-Kidwa and Israel's U.N.
Ambassador Yehuda Lancry into separate sessions, each lasting more
than two hours, to hear why their leaders could or could not stop the
bloodshed.
Lancry
said Israel would withdraw from Palestinian territories once there was
a cease-fire.
He
said Israel made it clear it would accept American monitors once
confidence-building measures had been put in place as called for by a
commission led by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell. He claimed that
once a final peace pact had been achieved, Israel would not oppose
international troops.
Syria's
Wehbe said the soft-spoken Lancry "came solely to justify his
bloody policies."
Meanwhile,
confusion persisted about the interpretation of Saturday's resolution,
which the United States supported and then immediately said a
cease-fire had to precede any withdrawal of Israeli occupation troops.
U.S. President George W. Bush has avoided asking for an Israeli
withdrawal.
Before
the resolution was adopted, the council's president announced that
members had understood the elements in the resolution did not indicate
any sequencing of events. 
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