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Envoy`s Middle East UN letter

A special Middle East envoy, James D. Wolfensohn, warned that "disturbing signs of internal fragmentation" within the Palestinian Authority are undermining efforts to improve security and attract foreign investment to the Gaza Strip. Mr. Wolfensohn`s assessment came in an October 17 letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations.

Wolfensohn also said that the government of Israel had failed to move forward on the many proposals to improve the crossing situation between Israel and Gaza, and has yet to arrange passage between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank or to accept European supervision of the Egypt-Gaza border crossing. Of course, there was little note that since Rome wasn`t built in a day, a conflict the United Nations helped to fester and prolong can`t be solved in a short amount of time either.

"In substance, the parties are not far from agreement, but they are finding that old habits die hard," Wolfensohn wrote in the letter to Annan. There was no word on whether or not the United Nations` old habits of anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism "die hard" either.