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MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 7/25: Ariel Sharon has always been scamming everyone. His long career in the military is full of deception and treachery in public while committing blood-curdling massacres in private. In the most notorious case of all, the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps of 1982, Sharon managed to have his army provide the access and the night-time lighting but managed to partially cover his own personal tracks so he could claim "he didn't know"..."he didn't imagine"...tactics fitting of the Nazis of old whom his Jabotinsky-inspired Zionist movement has actually emulated at times in both words and deeds. This time around Sharon has been claiming he "accepts the Mitchell Plan" and "CIA observers" -- both tremendously advantageous to Israel in the first place -- but in actuality he has attached impossible conditions to what he has "accepted" all the while further expanding Israeli settlements and control while few of the world's politicians, or those in the corporate media for that matter, have been willing to call him the names he so aptly deserves.
Meanwhile Yasser Arafat has been secretly stashing away huge amounts of money that has flowed to his "Authority" mostly from the Europeans and the Arabs as well as some from the Americans and the Israelis themselves -- bribe money all designed to get him in the end to sign the "end of conflict" agreement now no more -- and which he, his Tawil in-law family, and his top lieutenants including Abu Mazen and Nabil Sha'ath have drained into their own foreign bank accounts while the Palestinian standard of living has actually substantially declined in the years since Arafat's "return".
Where will he go if he survives this latest twist in this new dastardly chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian, Arab-West, and now Muslim-Jewish conflict? Of the neighboring Arab States none want him there, with the possible exception of Egypt which may have made a secret deal to take Arafat on a "temporary basis". It's known Arafat has explored the possibilities of Baghdad, but there are some clear reasons that's not his choice. The Tunisians really don't want him back; and his relations with Tripoli have always been sour at best.
If only Arafat would finally do what would really be best for his people -- admit the corruption and incompetence of the movement he has led for so long, come clean about his terrible failures and misjudgements, atone for his inability to have delivered the many times promised and sometimes even declared Palestinian State, and retire somewhere to write his memoirs and curse those deserving (a very long list) before he fails at that last task as well.
We can't be sure at this point just where Yasser Arafat and his VIP global-trotting millionaires-club entourage are going to end up. We can be confident however that he will not do the right and honorable thing and that his people will continue to suffer more and more both at the hands of their occupiers and oppressors, as well as because of the terrible "leadership" which has so burdened them for so long.
GAZA, July 24 (UPI) -- Amid eruptions of Arab-Israeli violence and pitched battles between Palestinian factions, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Tuesday protested Israel's insistence on accepting a limited CIA presence instead of international observers, adding the Jewish state has already had made plans for a full-scale invasion of Palestinian territories.
"It is not up to their mood," Arafat repeated three times in reaction to Israel's acceptance of more CIA representatives. "A decision has been made and this decision will be implemented."
Arafat said that the decision to advocate sending international observers to Gaza and the West Bank was made during the Group of Eight summit held recently in Italy, the U.S.-Europe summit, the non-affiliated conference and Arab summit.
"Israel cannot tell the whole international majority that they should listen to (only Israel)," Arafat told reporters on his way home from a two-day visit to Jordan and Gulf states.
Arafat also said that an Israeli military plan, known as "the Oranim plan," has been drawn up for the invasion of the Palestinian Authority territories.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told European Union Foreign Policy envoy Javier Solana Tuesday that Israel would implement recommendations of the Mitchell fact-finding report only if Palestinians completely end "violence, incitement and terror."
Solana met Sharon to lobby Israel for this implementation and to convince the Israelis of the need to deploy international observers in Gaza and the West Bank. Solana served as a member of the Mitchell committee.
Israeli Radio reported that Sharon told Solana that Israel is committed to implementing the recommendations of the Mitchell report and U.S. cease-fire plan brokered by CIA Director George Tenet.
Solana is scheduled to meet with Arafat in Gaza on Wednesday.
Solana also visited the region to urge Israel to accept the appeal made by the G-8 leaders to send international observers to the Palestinian territories.
Sharon also told Solana that the seven-day test of the cease-fire would commence "only after there is absolute quiet," and that Israel would not negotiate under fire, adding that the EU should pressure Arafat to establish a complete cease-fire.
The meeting took place on the same day members of the Palestinian Fatah organization admitted to killing an Israeli teenager, saying it was in retaliation for the death of a Palestinian youth by Israeli soldiers earlier in the week.
Members of Fatah, wearing masks, attended the funeral of a 15-year-old Palestinian who was killed Monday and the Kataeb Shuhada El Aqsa -- a Fatah armed wing -- said they were responsible for killing the Israeli youth.
Israel radio, quoting Israeli security sources, said the boy had been stabbed and shot.
Palestinian Authority security forces handed the body over to Israeli officials early Tuesday. Palestinian radio said the youth had probably been killed near Ramallah in the West Bank, although the body was discovered near to the Pisgot settlement after allegedly being moved to divert blame.
Israeli Radio said that Israeli security is checking the identification of the victim and investigating the incident.
In response to inter-Palestinian violence, Israeli Radio quoted Palestinian sources as saying that Arafat had to cut short his two-day tour to the Arab Gulf countries after the two-day battle between armed Palestinian militants and Palestinian Authority police forces in Gaza.
A Palestinian security official who asked not to be identified accused the militant Hamas movement of being behind the provocations and the troubles that dominated most of the Gaza Strip on Sunday and Monday.
Three Hamas militants were shot and injured Sunday when Palestinian police officers opened fire on their car in northern Gaza, reportedly because they thought the group was an Israeli undercover death squad disguised with masks.
Then on Monday night, thousands demonstrated to protest a PA decision to arrest militant members of the Palestinian popular resistance committees of the intifada.
Palestinian militants also fired several bullets at the home of the chief of the Palestinian Authority's military intelligence, Musa Arafat, in Gaza City, where armed confrontations took place between his guards and Palestinian militants.
Meanwhile, Israeli Radio reported that Israel's army Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz proposed Tuesday the construction of a fence between Israel and Palestinian Authority-controlled territory in order to stop attacks in Israel.
According to Mofaz, such a fence would help to prevent attackers from entering Israel, but would not hermetically seal the border. Mofaz added that the decision to build such a fence was in the hands of the government.
In Beirut, Lebanon, British Foreign Minister Ben Bradshaw called on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to implement recommendations of the Mitchell committee to end the violence in the region.
Speaking after a meeting with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, Bradshaw said Britain and the European Union believe that the situation in the Middle East is delicate and will get worse if the report's recommendations are not implemented and cooling-off measures to restore confidence between Israel and the Palestinians are not adopted. (With Dalal Saoud reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.)
| Mid-East Realities | www.middleeast.org |
| Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/7/302.htm |