FIVE PALESTINIANS KILLED AS WAR OF WORDS FLARES IN MIDDLE EAST
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FIVE PALESTINIANS KILLED AS WAR OF WORDS FLARES IN MIDDLE EAST

March 30, 2001

NABLUS, West Bank, March 30 (AFP) - Saturday, March 31 1:08 AM SGT : Clashes raged across the Palestinian territories Friday, killing five Palestinians, as Israelis and Palestinians exchanged fiery rhetoric on the traditionally violent anniversary of a 1976 Israeli crackdown on Arab demonstrators.

Four Palestinians were killed, all by live bullets to the head or neck, in the West Bank city of Nablus when Israeli troops opened fire on demonstrators throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at them.

Thirty-six other Palestinians were injured in the demonstration, two-thirds of them by live bullets.

Shortly earlier in Ramallah, a 21-year-old Palestinian was also shot dead and 11 other Palestinians injured, hospital sources said, when soldiers clashed with some 2,000 Palestinians who burned pictures of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and waved Palestinian and Iraqi flags.

Palestinians and Israeli Arabs had both been called on to demonstrate on Friday, or "Land Day," the 25th anniversary of the the Israeli army's killing of six Israeli Arabs during protests over the seizure of Arab lands in northern Israel.

The protests, which also fell on a weekly Palestinian "day of rage" against Israel, come two days after Israeli helicopters pounded bases of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Force 17 elite bodyguard unit, killing two, in response to a string of bombings that left four people dead, two of them suicide bombers.

An angry Arafat, returning Thursday from an Arab summit in Jordan, declared that the six-month-old Palestinian uprising would continue until "until the Palestinian flag flies over Jerusalem, capital of the future Palestinian state."

US President George W. Bush called on the two sides to take immediate steps to quell the violence, but singled out Arafat as not doing enough to promote peace.

"The signal I'm sending to the Palestinians is stop the violence. ... I hope Chairman Arafat hears it loud and clear," Bush told a White House press conference Thursday.

"Our goal is to encourage a series of reciprocal and parallel steps by both sides that will halt the escalation of violence, provide safety and security for civilans on both sides, and restore normalcy to the lives of everyone in the region," he said.

Arafat and the rest of the Palestinian leadership will discuss Bush's remarks at their weekly meeting Friday evening, said information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, who declined to comment himself on the the president's statement.

Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat blasted the United States on another issue, its veto Tuesday of a UN Security Council resolution that would have authorized an international observer force in the Palestinian territories.

"It seems Washington has decided to provide protection for the occupier, that is to say Israel, and to disregard the right to an international protection force for the Palestinian people under occupation," Erakat told Cairo radio.

Bush also said that in meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak next week and Jordan's King Abdullah II the week after he would "seek their help in defusing the tensions."

He said he hoped the two Arab leaders would try to persuade Arafat to speak out against violence and strongly suggested Arafat would not be invited to the White House until he acts.

But Arab newspapers denounced the United States, with the Al-Khaleej daily in the United Arab Emirates declaring that "the American campaign against Arafat ... is as serious as the attacks carried out by the Zionist entity."

"Israel wouldn't be able to defy the world if it hadn't full US support," said Al-Baath, the mouthpiece of Syria's ruling party.

In comments sure to infuriate Israel, Al-Baath declared that "Israel, society and officials alike, does not seek peace and that they are in truth racists and more Nazi than the Nazis."

At the Ain el-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, some 6,000 people demonstrated and pledged to "strike at the interests of the United States," Israel's main political and military ally.

Hoping to present Israel's case to the world, it was announced that Foreign Minister Shimon Peres will travel Monday to Sweden, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, for two days of talks, before visiting other European countries.

The EU issued a statement Friday in Stockholm calling on "both parties to act with maximum restraint, restore calm and do their utmost to prevent actions resulting in new victims."

Clashes also took place Friday in the Gaza Strip, where 16 young Palestinians were injured.

Israeli tanks also lobbed shells for the third straight day against an Arab neighborhood in the West Bank town of Hebron, which has been tense since Monday when a sniper shot dead a 10-month-old Jewish girl.

Shalevet Pass's family agreed to bury the girl on Sunday after initially refusing to hold a funeral until the Israeli army occupies an Arab district overlooking Hebron's Jewish quarter.

Also Friday, stones were thrown at Jews near the Wailing Wall in east Jerusalem following weekly prayers at the adjacent al-Aqsa mosque compound. No one was reported injured.

The shrine, Judaism's holiest and Islam's third most sacred, is the most bitterly disputed site in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A September 28 visit there by Sharon, then Israel's opposition leader, set off the six months of clashes, which have now killed 461 people, most of them Palestinians.

5 PALESTINIANS KILLED IN WEST BANK

JERUSALEM (AP) - Friday March 30, 2001 7:10 pm: Thousands of Palestinians clashed with Israeli troops Friday in a ``day of rage,'' their anger fueled by Israeli rocket attacks earlier this week and threats to recapture Palestinian lands. Five Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and more than 100 injured, including dozens hit by live Israeli fire.

Across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, demonstrators burned Israeli and U.S. flags, as well as effigies of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. In one march, led by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, the crowd chanted: ``Sharon, wait, Fatah is going to open your grave in Gaza.''

The Islamic militant group Hamas, which carried out two suicide bombings this week, killing two Israeli teen-agers, said more attacks would follow. ``Our message to Sharon is that we will not give up,'' said the Hamas leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

In Israel's Arab communities, tens of thousands of people marched peacefully to mark ``Land Day,'' a symbol of Israel's 1.2-million strong Arab community's struggle for equality. Land Day is the annual commemoration of 1976 protests against land expropriation in which six Israeli Arabs were killed by police.

Friday's protests capped a tumultuous week of suicide bombings, shootings and rocket attacks. In response to the flare-up, Arafat said the six-month-old Palestinian uprising would continue, and Sharon's defense minister warned that Israeli troops would re-enter Palestinian-controlled areas, if necessary.

In all, five Palestinians were killed and 81 wounded by Israeli fire Friday, Palestinian doctors said. Another 55 were hurt by rubber-coated steel bullets, according to hospital officials.

One of the fiercest clashes erupted in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Hundreds of Palestinians threw stones at troops who responded with rubber bullets and live rounds, killing a 21-year-old Palestinian. After an hour, Palestinian gunmen joined the confrontation, drawing heavy Israeli fire from tank-mounted machine guns. In the town of Nablus, four Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops.

In the divided town of Hebron, Palestinians fired at Jewish enclaves, and in return Israeli tanks shelled the neighborhood where the gunmen had taken up position. In the Gaza Strip, 30 gunmen from Arafat's Fatah group led a large march, firing in the air.

Mohammed Musallam, carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle, said attacks against Israel would continue. ``If Sharon thinks for a second to reoccupy the Palestinian areas, he should prepare black bags for the remains of his soldiers,'' Musallam said.

Israel's defense minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, has said that Israel would send forces to ``any place we feel ... is endangering us.'' The Palestinians control about two-thirds of Gaza and 40 percent of the West Bank under interim peace deals signed since 1993.

In the Israeli Arab town of Sakhnin, thousands of Arabs and some Jews joined Land Day commemorations. Marchers carried a large Palestinian flag in a show of solidarity with their Palestinian brethren in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Residents said that since the 1976 round of expropriations that sparked the initial protests, more land has been taken.

``Now the fight is about the land we have to live on, our houses. It has arrived at our bedrooms,'' said one of the marchers, who would only give his first name, Hassan. Marchers also laid wreaths at the graves of two Sakhnin residents killed in clashes last fall with Israeli troops. At the time, thousands of Israeli Arabs had staged anti-government protests to show their support for their Palestinian brethren.

At the most sensitive spot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, more than 100 Palestinians threw stones and several firebombs at Israeli police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Police briefly evacuated Jewish worshippers from the nearby Western Wall, Judaism's holiest shrine, after stones were thrown there from the mosque area. At one point, undercover police arrested seven stone-throwers and dragged them away.

The turbulent week began with the killing of a 10-month-old Israeli baby by Palestinian fire, followed by suicide bombings that killed two Israeli teen-agers.

Before Friday, six Palestinians were killed in subsequent clashes with Israeli troops, including a rocket attack Wednesday night on the headquarters of Arafat's Force 17 security branch.

Sharon, having ordered his first military operation since taking office March 7, has charged that Arafat was responsible for promoting violence, and that his elite Force 17 guard was behind some of the attacks.

Defiant after inspecting smoldering rubble at a rocketed Force 17 base, Arafat said the uprising would continue ``until we raise the Palestinian flag in every mosque and church and on the walls of Jerusalem.''

In Washington, President Bush called on Arafat to stop attacks on Israelis. ``I hope Chairman Arafat hears it loud and clear,'' Bush said Thursday. He also called on Israel to show restraint and ease restrictions on the Palestinians.


March 2001


Magazine



SHARON UPSCALES VIOLENCE TO UNPRECEDENTED LEVELS
(March 31, 2001)
Yesterday, on Palestinian Land Day, the Israeli army killed five Palestinians in Nablus and one in Ramallah during civilian demonstrations protesting the Israeli occupation. 150 Palestinians were injured, several of them in critical condition.

CHOMSKY ON THE MID-EAST CONFLICT
(March 31, 2001)
Well, just how dangerous is the crisis in the Middle East? There is a UN Special Envoy, a Norwegian, Roed-Larson. A couple of days ago, he warned that Israel's blockade of the Palestinian areas is leading to enormous suffering and could rapidly detonate a regional war.

FIVE PALESTINIANS KILLED AS WAR OF WORDS FLARES IN MIDDLE EAST
(March 30, 2001)
Clashes raged across the Palestinian territories Friday, killing five Palestinians, as Israelis and Palestinians exchanged fiery rhetoric on the traditionally violent anniversary of a 1976 Israeli crackdown on Arab demonstrators.

CLASHES ERUPT AMID WAVE OF ANTI-ISRAELI PROTESTS
(March 30, 2001)
Israeli troops opened fire with live rounds on Friday to try to halt Palestinians marching in cities across the West Bank and Gaza Strip to demand civil rights and an end to Israeli occupation.

AN ISRAELI OFFERS HOPE AMIDST THE DARKNESS
(March 30, 2001)
In the past two weeks, we are witnessing the beginning of a new phase: Israelis and Palestinians are extending a hesitant hand to each other, across the IDF's barricades and checkpoints.

A CONFLICT SINKING TO NEW DEPTHS
(March 29, 2001)
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has sunk to appalling new depths with several days of intensified violence that left children on both sides to form the bulk of the dead.

ISRAELIS STRIKE, NOBODY RESPONDS
(March 29, 2001)
The Egyptians and Jordanians could and should totally suspend their relations with Israel; but they do not. The Arabs could collectively demand Israel be suspended from the U.N. General Assembly; but they did not decide to do so at their little summit just ended where they in fact did nothing serious.

ASSAD & SADDAM "ATTACK"
(March 28, 2001)
Lot of rhetoric, more than expected in fact. But mostly a smookescreen for never-ending impotence and inexcuseable weakness. So much for the Arab Summit in Amman. Until those Arab "leaders" who have squandered the wealth and heritage of their countries, and indeed of their once powerful civilization, are replaced; until the "client regimes" of the Arab world are no more; this tragic spectacle known as Arab "summits" will continue to be a deep embarrassment and a historic tragedy.

ARAB SUMMITS - RIDICULOUS SPECTACLES
(March 27, 2001)
Arab "leaders", the "client regimes", and Arab "summits", have been ridiculous spectacles for a long time now. Last time they met like this the American armies were descending on Arabia, getting ready to destroy Iraq and put one of their own, the despicable British-created Emir, back on his oil throne in Kuwait City.

ARAB SUMMITEERS AND CROCODILE TEARS
(March 26, 2001)
"They will talk and talk and talk and look important and remain as always, impotent, indecisive and inactive. They might pledge a few pennies to the Palestinian dying or the mortally wounded, they might voice support of the 6-month-old Intifida, but nothing but pomp and ceremony will come of it all."

TIME TO FORCE A U.S. VETO AND TAKE SERIOUS ACTION AGAINST ISRAEL
(March 25, 2001)
What the Arab States meeting in summit in Amman on Tuesday should do is not a mystery: First they should insist on a U.N. Security Council resolution that has teeth; and if the U.S. vetos so be it.

THE U.N. AND THE ARAB LEAGUE CHARADES
(March 25, 2001)
The U.N. and Arab League charades have gone on for so many years now. Never has either body taken serious action when it comes to Israel. Always the U.S. is there to block the way, to twist things from potentially useful to impotent, to manuever so that the U.S. remains dominant internationally and Israel remains dominant in the region.

ISRAELI ARMY BRUTALLY ATTACKS PEACEFUL CIVILIAN PROTEST MARCH
(March 24, 2001)
Today at 1:00 p.m., the Israeli army fired sound bombs, tear gas, and rubber coated steel bullets at thousands of peaceful protesters at the Al-Ram checkpoint.

SHARON MOVING FAST
(March 24, 2001)
haron and company are now likely to move quickly to further "control" the Palestinians and establish their hegemonic and war-threatening policies in the Middle East.

Today in Occupied Palestine
(March 23, 2001)
Amr Moussa and the Arab political elite representing the "client regimes" have been deceived and acted foolishingly, as well as selfishly, for quite a long time now.

AL-JAZEERA - ARAFAT STILL TWISTS TO ISRAELI AND U.S. TUNE
(March 22, 2001)
Al-Jazeera satellite TV now feeds a hungry Arab world, one starved for so long that even this carefully-controlled Qatari-financed TV news and pictures source has met with considerable success.

WHAT SHOULD BE WITH ISRAEL
(March 22, 2001)
If the Arabs regimes were serious, indeed if they were truly independent, they would institute a Arab and Muslim regional boycott of Israel at this point, at least suspend all diplomatic and economic relations with Israel, and forcefully move to have the U.N. General Assembly suspend Israeli credentials (as was done with South Africa in the days of Apartheid) as soon as the U.S. again prevents the Security Council from acting in the days ahead.

ARAB AND MUSLIM GROUPS IN USA WORSE THAN EVER
(March 20, 2001)
We were wrong in our analysis earlier today. The Arab and Muslim groups did not even manage a few hundred protestors at the White House today -- the number was closer to a few dozen at most, including the handful of fanatical bearded and side-curled Naturei Karta Jews who are encouraged by these groups to show up these days.

WASHINGTON SCENE: ARAB AND MUSLIM GROUPS PROVE IMPOTENCE ONCE AGAIN
(March 20, 2001)
It's depressing, almost pathetic, to watch the Arab and Muslim American groups "protest" these days. Leaderless and strategyless, though as usual feverishly combining all of their capabilities together to create even this, the groups managed to bring maybe five or six hundred persons to the sidewalk across from the Washington Hilton last evening for a carefully self-controlled demonstration.

WHAT ISRAEL IS DOING IS "FORBIDDEN"
(March 19, 2001)
"What is being done in the territories is simply forbidden. To safeguard against such acts, people have established laws and norms; those who wish to return to the norms current a century ago ought not to be surprised when they are treated as pariahs - indeed, as ghosts from bygone days."

ARABS URGE U.N. TO SEND INTERNATIONAL FORCE TO PALESTINIAN
(March 16, 2001)
The Israelis will insist on a U.S. veto of any Security Council resolution involving any serious observer force. And Shimon Peres willingly serving Ariel Sharon as his Foreign Minister makes it much easier for the Israelis to deflect international pressures.

WE DIDN'T SEE; WE DIDN'T KNOW
(March 15, 2001)
The Palestinian people have many symbols, and one of them is Bir Zeit university near Ramallah - the secular intellectual center of the society.

SHARON COMETH
(March 14, 2001)
Monday in Washington the various Arab-American groups will stage a protest demonstration outside the Washington Hilton where now Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be talking to the lead organization that makes up the Israeli-Jewish lobby in Washington.

U.S. MEDIA ESTABLISHMENT HELPS PREPARE SHARON'S WAY
(March 13, 2001)
Sharon's PR people are working hard preparing his way for a triumphant visit to the USA in a few days. They choose Lally Weymouth, long a "friendly journalist", for one of his first major interviews -- published in Newsweek this week.

ISRAELI CONCENTRATION CAMPS
(March 12, 2001)
If barbed wire were used, the symbolism would be too much like concentration camps of old.

BIR ZEIT UNIVERSITY CRIES OUT FOR HELP
(March 11, 2001)
As usual these days, the Palestinian people are being collectively tortured into submission with still expanding forms of bondage, oppression, and brutal force.

PERES FRONTS FOR SHARON AS ISRAELIS PUSH FORWARD MAJOR PROPAGANDA
(March 10, 200198)
Who is more despicable is debateable these days. But surely Shimon Peres is deserving of nomination. As Israeli army snipers pick off Palestinians and as Israeli army bulldozers dig trenches around Palestinian towns and cities, Peres fronts for the new Sharon regime telling the world the Israelis are going to "make life better for the Palestinians"!

TRENCH AND SIEGE WARFARE
(March 8, 2001)
The words, and the acts, go back before the bible itself -- trench warfare and siege. The Romans built walls and laid siege to Jerusalem and Masada. Trenches, though for a different purpose, became synonymous with World War I.

CRIES FROM PALESTINE AND CRIES FROM ISRAEL
(March 6, 2001)
My sister-in-law just called crying - about 4 hours ago Al-Bireh had about 3 minutes of heavy gunfire..... her neighbor, Aida, was walking back home on the Friends road from Ramallah after shopping for the Eid holiday.

OH MY GOD! CLINTON WON'T LEAVE THE WORLD ALONE!
(March 5, 2001)
They came to Washington -- the two-for-one power couple -- with the campaign promise to bring health care to all Americans; they left (but Hillary is already back on Capitol Hill) with the dangerous corporate for profit HMO's in power and more uninsured than ever despite the economic juggernaunt.

MIDEAST CONFLICT TEARS AT BROTHERLY BOND
(March 5, 2001)
Hostilities engulf West Bank siblings, who remain close despite their split between Jewish and Muslim faiths.

BOMB BLAST IN ISRAELI COASTAL CITY
(March 4, 2001)
A powerful bomb exploded during morning rush hour Sunday in a crowded open-air market in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya.

ISRAELIS LAY SIEGE TO PALESTINIAN CITIES
(March 3, 2001)
Sometime in the future there will be a day of reckoning for the Israelis. But that day is not yet here while the suffering of the Palestinians is, literally, more and more as each day dawns.

FIELD OF THORNS
(March 3, 2001)
The Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which in late September 2000 began as a wave of popular protest against Ariel Sharon's belligerent incursion into Jerusalem's sacred Haram al-Sharif, has developed into a full-fledged war of attrition against the Israeli occupation, which rather ironically paved the aggressive right-wing leader's path to power.

REGIONAL WAR PREPARATIONS AND PUBLIC OPINION MANIPULATION ESCALATE
(March 2, 2001)
Iraq responded to U.S. air strikes on Feb. 16 by deploying thousands of troops from six divisions to positions near the Jordanian border, triggering military alerts in Tel Aviv, Washington and in several Gulf capitals.

SHARON AND PERES TEAM UP
(March 2, 2001)
It was a massacre. Not since Sabra and Chatila had I seen the innocent slaughtered like this. The Lebanese refugee women and children and men lay in heaps, their heads or arms or legs missing, beheaded or disemboweled.

SHARON GETS READY TO ACT. ARAFAT GETS READY TO LEAVE?
(March 1, 2001)
Arafat and regime are about collapse -- i.e., the money and capabilities provided by the U.S. and Israel to keep the PA going are being cut off if Arafat doesn't shape up!

BLEAK FUTURE FOR BOTH PALESTINIANS AND ISRAELIS
(March 1, 2001)
Shimon Peres has many secrets to try to keep, and that explains his desperation to stay in power practically at any cost. Ariel Sharon knows this.




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