But no doubt he was chummy with real assassins like Yasir Arafat and Sheikh Yasin, who gloried in their murders of civilian non-combatants. From the New York Sun, with thanks to Kemaste:
UNITED NATIONS – Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, yesterday urged that Secretary-General Annan fire his top adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi, for his anti-Israel tirades….
“We’ve had enough,” Mr. Gillerman told the Sun. After the incident in Dubai two weeks ago, Mr. Annan promised him in a private conversation that Mr. Brahimi would not repeat such statements, the ambassador said. A week later a similar sentiment, which Mr. Gillerman described as “bigoted,” was publicly expressed in Europe.
Mr. Brahimi has been a prominent player in Mr. Annan’s diplomatic team in postwar Afghanistan, where he has served as the secretary-general’s special representative, as well as in Iraq, where he helped shape the first sovereign government last summer.
After returning from Iraq, Mr. Annan announced that Mr. Brahimi has accepted a role as an undersecretary-general, one of the highest-paid positions at the U.N., serving “as a member of the secretary-general’s senior staff” and advising Mr. Annan “on a wide range of issues, including situations in the areas of conflict prevention and conflict resolution.”
As a former top official of the Arab League, Mr. Brahimi, an Algerian national, is considered by the U.N. to be an expert on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs. Mr. Annan is said to have relied heavily on many occasions on Mr. Brahimi’s advice on Middle East issues.
In his latest visit to Washington, where he met Secretary of State Powell and Condoleezza Rice, who has been nominated by the president to replace Mr. Powell, Mr. Annan stressed the need for deeper U.N. involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli dispute, according to sources on both sides of that issue. America has urged the U.N. to be more even-handed in its approach to the Middle East; it is seen by Washington as heavily pro-Arab….
According to AFP, Mr. Brahimi, in an interview conducted in French on Belgium’s RTBP radio last Friday, said, “You must condemn Mr. Sharon when he assassinates people, but you keep quiet just like you keep quiet when he uproots more than a million trees in the orchards of Palestine.”
He urged European listeners to be much more aggressive in pressuring Israel. “A return of peace will not happen all by itself,” he said. “It will happen only with a totally different European attitude.”
A day earlier, Mr. Brahimi addressed the Belgian senate, where he said that the root of international terrorism is related mostly to the Arab-Israeli conflict, according to AFP. “What is being done to solve this problem? Not enough,” he said.
“The international community has too easily accepted the cynical and ridiculous viewpoint of the Israeli prime minister, who considered the late president Yasser Arafat the only person responsible for insecurity in Israel and for the plight of his own people,” Mr. Brahimi told legislators.
“In fact, the Arab states have essentially abandoned the Palestinians in recent years and Europe has not yet used the considerable political influence it enjoys to advance peace,” he added. “European states and public opinion do not condemn loudly enough the grave violations of the most elementary human rights in Palestine.”
That’s certainly true, although not in the way he means.