Is anyone going to do anything serious to stop this modern-day blitzkrieg from a regime which so ironically has far too many similar characteristics to the Nazis of yesteryear?

[United Press International, 20 July 2001]: The CIA believes Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has decided to launch a retaliatory full-scale attack on Palestinian-controlled territory if there is another suicide bombing attack, several former Agency and other U.S. intelligence officials said.

Some intelligence sources said they expected the Israeli attack probably within a matter of days.

"There's no question that he's going in," said a former CIA official, referring to Sharon.

The question for these sources was when. They think the Israelis would wait until after the summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Genoa, Italy. The summit ends Sunday.

According to these sources, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat was already engaged in talks with Syria about relocating Palestinian leaders to that country.

One former CIA official, still active in the region, said he believed that Sharon would wait for the next in the recent wave of car-bomb attacks before launching "a full-scale assault" designed to drive Arafat into exile and destroy the PA.

"You'll have public outrage, you'll have high morale among the Israeli military -- it's the perfect time," the official said.

However, senior Israeli officials, including Sharon himself, have insisted that troop movements this week were intended to strengthen Israel's defensive position. Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior made this point in Washington Thursday.

Reports of an impending all-out Israeli attack have come as relations have worsened between the Israeli government and the CIA.

CIA Director George Tenet negotiated the cease-fire aimed at halting the seemingly endless violence in the West Bank and Gaza.

The CIA has been at the center of the Bush administration's efforts to stop the fighting between Palestinians and the Israeli Defense Forces that has claimed more than 600 lives, most of them Palestinians. But the cease-fire has all but collapsed, and observers point out that its collapse could be seen as a CIA failure.

A State Department official said, "The situation does not look good," and "We are all watching it," but he would not go so far as to confirm the impending attack. He also added that the Hadassah chain of hospitals in Israel "has been ratcheting up" its medical preparations.

Asked to comment, a State Department official said only: "You're getting into the area of sensitive foreign intelligence. We have no comment on intelligence operations."

As United Press International reported exclusively on June 12, Israel's military was poised to carry out a huge, full-force invasion that would involve two infantry and paratroop divisions, an armored force, plus large numbers of U.S.-supplied F-16 and F-15 jet fighters and Apache helicopter gunships that would attack the West Bank and Gaza including the major Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Qualqilya, Jericho, Tul karm, Nablus, Jenin, and Bethlehem. Portions of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would be captured and held for an indeterminate length of time.

Under that plan, the Israeli forces would also capture and kill any members of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Islamic Jihad or other organizations defined by Israel as "terrorist." A "wanted list" has already been drawn up by Israeli intelligence services and approved by Sharon, according to a U.S. administration official.

At the time the plan was halted, thanks to strong warnings from senior Bush administration officials, U.S. government sources said. There was no official confirmation of this incident.

Foreign ministers of the industrialized nations, meeting in Rome this week in advance of the G8 summit, repeated earlier calls for a force of international observers to be sent to the West Bank and Gaza to reduce the Palestinian-Israeli tension. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States would support international observers if Israel accepted them.

But Sharon has rejected the proposal. Antony Cordesman, the Arleigh Burke Chair for Strategic Assessment at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said: "Sharon didn't like having monitors because it ended the `My word against your word' game when it came seeing who was escalating the violence."

What worries some U.S. intelligence analysts is that, as one put it, "all the logistic and other preparations" for such an assault have been completed, including beefing up Israeli medical treatment facilities. Others argue that the Israeli contingency plan has been in place for some time as an option if the situation worsened.

"The plan is in place," a U.S. intelligence official said.

According to one intelligence source: "The administration is talking to Sharon every day counseling patience."

But as David Schenker, Middle East analyst for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told UPI recently, "If the cease-fire with Arafat doesn't hold, then the reprisal really could happen."

There has been a build-up of Israeli armor at strategic points, and the Sharon government has ploughed up road links to the West Bank, splitting the territory into eight blockaded zones, isolating Palestinian towns, and fuel supplies in the Gaza Strip have been cut off to reduce Palestinian mobility.

The huge numbers of Palestinians expected to be arrested would be kept in large detention centers, U.S. intelligence officials said.

An administration official pointed out that Sharon has been "churning out a lot of diversionary smoke," including false reports of Iranian soldiers moving into the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, fear of Iranian missiles, questionable reports of increasing Iraqi activity. But one analyst said Iraqi forces are "concentrated ... mainly on the east-west road that leads to Syria and to the Golan Heights."

"Sharon is a fine strategist. He knows how to mislead and distract," said an administration official.

But a major concern in U.S. government circles is that a major Israeli offensive against the Palestinians might trigger a wider Middle East conflict involving Iraq and Syria.

A former Defense Intelligence Agency official, on the ground in the Gaza Strip, told UPI on June 27 that Israeli Merkava tanks and M113 armored personnel carriers were active around Netsarim and Khan Yunis, and that "roads around settlements have been completely cut off from Palestinian use while buildings, trees, and people have been moved (bulldozed) as the Israelis clear fields of fire."

One military expert in Washington pointed out, however, that armor movements could also be a way to deter Palestinian attacks.

Writing from Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank, on Tuesday, this same source told UPI: "the situation is extremely tense "

He added, "Israeli assassinations/abductions in Area A (the West Bank and Gaza) have taken the rug out from under PA efforts, limited as they may be in real capability, to keep the violence down or limited to 1967 borders."

This source added in the same report that Hebron, which contains 500,000 people, is ringed by Israeli settlements and IDF outposts and spoke of OH58 Scout helicopters overhead.

As for an Israeli reprisal, he predicted: "If more Palestinian (shootings) occur -- particularly across the Green Line (which separates Israel and the Palestinian territories) -- the Israelis may choose a 'rolling' response, upping the response each time."

This has already happened, U.S. officials said.

"After a while, the eye for an eye policy involves and endless exchange of eyes," a former CIA official said, speaking of Sharon. "You have to act."

[THE WASHINGTON TIMES - 20 July]: U.S. and Israeli officials joined yesterday in rejecting a statement from foreign ministers at the Group of Eight summit in Italy calling for Israel and the Palestinians to agree to the deployment of international peace monitors. However, pressure on Israel was likely to mount after a Jewish extremist group claimed responsibility for the roadside killing of three Palestinians, including an infant, in the West Bank.

"We believe that third-party monitoring, accepted by both parties, would serve their interests in implementing" the peace plan put forward by former Sen. George Mitchell, the foreign ministers said in a statement issued at the end of two days of talks in Rome.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell represented the United States at the meeting.

The Palestinian Authority has for months asked that monitors be placed in the West Bank, arguing they are needed to protect Palestinian civilians from Israeli troops.

But Israel has steadfastly rejected the notion, saying it would simply provide a shield for Palestinian extremists.

They note that peacekeepers in southern Lebanon were unable to prevent attacks on Israeli troops there.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon repeated that stand yesterday, calling the proposal "a step doesn't want."

In Washington, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak also rejected the idea during an appearance at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he denounced his one-time peace partner Yasser Arafat as a "thug" who is uninterested in peace.

"Israel is an open, transparent society, and we will be the target of all blame" for any incidents, Mr. Barak said.

"But Arafat gets the terrorist organizations and tells them in closed rooms: 'Don't listen to what I say in public'" about halting violence.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior, also in Washington, came away from a meeting at the State Department assured that the United States remains opposed to an observer force, United Press International reported.

"He was very clear," Mr. Melchior said of his meeting with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. "The American position is the same as the Mitchell report -- no observers without agreement from both parties."

However, European support for observers may grow after Israeli settlers yesterday opened fire on a Palestinian car west of Hebron, killing three persons and wounding four, according to witnesses.

Akram Etnizi, a relative of the victims, told the Associated Press he was in a nearby car and watched as "one settler stepped up to the car and started shooting, and then drove away."

Israel television said an Israeli car ran an army roadblock nearby and escaped into Israel after the shooting. Responsibility was later claimed by a group calling itself the Road Safety Group, which is associated with the outlawed extremist group Kach.

The Israeli settlers' leadership council issued a statement saying that if an Israeli was responsible, the council "strongly denounces the despicable act." Mr. Barak, who offered at Camp David to give the Palestinian Authority more than 90 percent of the West Bank and Gaza in a peace deal, made clear in Washington yesterday he is turning toward "unilateral separation" from the Palestinians.

The separation plans Mr. Barak and others have floated in the last year include a border fence to divide Palestinians from Israel, which would annex the 10 percent to 20 percent of the West Bank that holds about 80 percent of the Israeli settlers.

Israel would also keep a defensive strip along the Jordan River valley and block all Palestinian workers from entering Israel.

"Arafat is guiding and encouraging terror, which comes from his own people, as well as closing his eyes to the terrorism of Islamic Jihad and Hamas," Mr. Barak said.

Although Mr. Barak has met many times with Mr. Arafat, including hosting him in the Barak home just three days before the outbreak of the latest intifada in September 2000, the retired general and political leader now feels betrayed.

Mr. Arafat "realized he doesn't have the character of a Palestinian (Anwar) Sadat, a King Hussein or a Charles de Gaulle," Mr. Barak said in reference to past leaders of Egypt, Jordan and France, respectively.

Mr. Barak, who also met yesterday with Mr. Armitage, called on all countries to "coordinate intelligence and diplomatic efforts" against the Palestinians so long as they continue to use terrorism.

"Don't let them land at any port or airport and immediately isolate anyone ready to host them," he said. "We will stand firm as long as needed."