MIDDLE EAST: The top UN envoy to the Middle East is no longer welcome in the Palestinian territories after he harshly criticised Mr Yasser Arafat, a senior adviser to the Palestinian president said yesterday.
"Terje Roed-Larsen's statement is not objective. As of today he is an unwelcome person in Palestinian territories," Mr Nabil Abu Rdainah said, referring to the envoy's latest monthly briefing to the UN Security Council, given on Tuesday.
Mr Roed-Larsen's office said he had not met Mr Arafat for the past year, but did not say why and had no other immediate comment.
Mr Roed-Larsen accused Mr Arafat of giving "only nominal and partial support" to Egyptian efforts to support Palestinian security reforms demanded by the international community in an effort to end almost four years of Middle East violence.
While Mr Arafat remained confined to his West Bank headquarters under virtual house arrest, surrounded by Israeli forces, Mr Roed-Larsen said, "this is not an excuse for passivity and inaction". He also criticised Israel, accusing the Jewish state of making "no progress" on international demands that it dismantle settlements built on Palestinian land since March, 2001, and move toward a total freeze of settlement activities.
Mr Roed-Larsen is a Middle East veteran, who as a Norwegian diplomat played a central role in conceiving the 1993 Oslo interim peace accords under which Israel gave Palestinians limited self-rule in territories it occupied in a 1967 war."Perhaps as a result of this [Palestinian rejection\], Roed-Larsen will become more welcome in Israel again. It's possible contacts with him could resume," said a senior Israeli political source.
A Muslim Peeping Tom who photographed a Palestinian Christian woman in the changing room of a clothes shop sparked a night of rioting near Bethlehem, according to witnesses.
At the height of the riot, hundreds of Muslims and Christians fought each other with metal rods and stones in the streets of the West Bank town of Beit Sahour, adjacent to Bethlehem, revered as the birthplace of Jesus.
The first explosion of violence between Christians and Muslims in the area for years began when a Muslim man sneaked a camera into a changing room.
The man raced to a taxi with the shopowner in pursuit. But he was forced to flee to a mosque when dozens of Beit Sahour residents arrived and began smashing the taxi.