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MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 8/10: They never ever let Yasser Arafat come to Jerusalem. And Arafat missed his moment on the day of Feisal Husseini's burial earlier this summer when he could have, and should have, called their bluff. Now the Israelis, commanded by General Sharon, have done what they have been planning to do for some time, using the excuse of yesterday's terror bombing on Jaffa Road -- they have closed Orient House, the very symbol of things Palestinian in East Jerusalem, as well as many other organizations associated with the PA. Just as they have done for years claiming to be responding to attacks on settlers by setting up still more settlements, the Sharon/Peres/BenElizer government (and remember the Foreign Minister and Defense Minister are major figures in the Labor Party) has imposed even more harsh military occupation on the still Arab parts of Jerusalem. And clearly there is much more to come.
And, oh yes, we now think even more that Feisal's Husseini's death may not have been from natural causes; and we still think the Husseini family made a serious historic mistake not allowing a fast, complete and totally independent autopsy -- and we have spoken with some in the Husseini family who now agree and believe Feisal's sudden death in Kuwait on 31 May was at the least suspicious in how it happened as well as in how it was handled. Indeed, the circumstantial evidence is quite substantial that something is not quite right about all this, plus the way it was all handled is just one more condemnation of the incompetence of the Arafat regime.
That said, the Orient House that Feisal Husseini resurrected and championed as the symbol of the Palestinian claim to Jerusalem as of today is no more. And just as the Israeli flag flies from the highest building in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City (Sharon's doing as well, having "bought" the property back in the 1970s he claims), the Flag of Israel now flies over Orient House as well.
JERUSALEM (Reuters - 10 August) - Israeli police seized the main Palestinian headquarters in and around East Jerusalem Friday in a deeply symbolic campaign to assert control over the city after a Palestinian suicide bombing killed 15 people.
Israeli jets, described by the Palestinians as F-16s, also flattened a police station in the West Bank and tanks levelled a police post in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) in response to the bombing at a West Jerusalem pizza restaurant packed with families.
The suicide attack, from which many of the dead were women and children, was the worst in Jerusalem since a Palestinian uprising erupted over 10 months ago after peace talks stalled.
Israel's takeover of the Palestine Liberation Organization (news - web sites)'s East Jerusalem headquarters, known as Orient House, and nine other offices nearby was sure to anger the Palestinians and provoke a strong reaction.
Dozens of Israeli police swarmed around the ornate entrance of Orient House and raised a blue and white Israeli flag at its peaked roof. ``We are talking about an important decision and the first time the government in Israel has taken a decision to exercise Israel's control in Jerusalem,'' said a senior Israeli political source after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) met with cabinet ministers to approve a response to the bombing.
The source said cabinet ministers also decided to set up new Israeli police stations in East Jerusalem and uproot Palestinian security services operating in its environs.
The assault by both sides on Jerusalem -- which each claims as their capital -- appeared to bury hopes of ending the bloodshed in which more than 650 people have been killed.
Palestinian lawmaker Hatem Abdel-Qader said Israeli forces arrested two guards at Orient House and were searching the offices of the compound, a frequent site of foreign diplomatic visits and the main symbol of an official Palestinian presence in the city.
``This is a very dangerous measure. We will defend these institutions in Jerusalem, and Israel is mistaken by thinking that by occupying certain institutions in Jerusalem it will Judaise this occupied city,'' he said.
Palestinian political sources said President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) was contacting European and U.S. diplomats to enlist their help in persuading Israel to cede control of the buildings.
Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. It views the entire city as its capital.
The Palestinians want the eastern part of the city to be the capital of a future state, and Orient House has served as their municipal center.
Israeli troops also stormed the home of the governor of Abu Dis, a Palestinian village on the edge of East Jerusalem, and took over nearby houses it said served as command centers for various Palestinian security services.
Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces were demolishing the governor's headquarters as well as Palestinian intelligence offices in the nearby village of Eizaryeh.
``In light of the fact that the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) uses its security services in order to send attackers to carry out terror activities, and does not work to prevent them, it was decided to take over the compound (in Abu Dis) and to remove the offices of those (security) services,'' the Israeli army said.
The army also confirmed the attack on a police station on the edge of Ramallah in the West Bank, but did not say how it was carried out. Palestinian security sources said F-16 jets fired two missiles at the police station, which burst into flames and was destroyed. It had been evacuated earlier Thursday and no casualties were reported.
Israel last fired from F-16 warplanes in May, after a Palestinian bomber killed six people outside a shopping mall in the coastal city of Netanya. At least 12 Palestinians died in those raids.
In Gaza, Israeli tanks destroyed a police outpost with shells after penetrating about one kilometer (mile) into Palestinian-ruled territory, Palestinian police sources said. The operation was finished off by a bulldozer.
The suicide bomber from the militant Hamas group walked up to the counter of the Jerusalem pizzeria and detonated a nail-packed bomb in revenge for a West Bank missile strike which killed two Hamas leaders and six others on July 31.
Naor Shara, a soldier who was walking by at the time, said: ''The worst thing I saw, which I think will haunt me all my life, is a baby that was sitting in a stroller outside a shop and was dead. After the explosion, the baby's mother came out of the store and started screaming hysterically.''
Israel ignored a call by Arafat Thursday for a joint truce declaration. Arafat also condemned the bombing.
More than 500 Palestinians and nearly 150 Israelis have been killed in the bloodshed.
Condemnation of the bombing was widespread and included calls for restraint from the United States, Russia, Egypt, the United Nations and the European Union.
President Bush said Arafat must act immediately to arrest those responsible for the bombing and take action to prevent future attacks
At 2 a.m., 12 hours after a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 15 people in the middle of Jerusalem, Israeli police converged on the building, arrested the seven Palestinian guards, searched offices, confiscated documents and closed it down.
Israeli officials said it was a move to assert its authority in the traditionally Arab section of the city after years of growing Palestinian power centered on the Orient House, the unofficial foreign ministry and symbolic center of power of the nascent Palestinian government. Outraged Palestinians pledged to defend their institutions in the hotly disputed city.
At daybreak Friday, dozens of heavily-armed Israeli police were blocking all the streets leading to the building and did not permit anyone to enter, even local shopkeepers.
Smiling about the Israeli flag flying over the entrance in place of the Palestinian flag, a paramilitary border policeman carrying an M-16 assault rifle said Orient House had been turned into an Israeli police post. He refused to give his name.
However, West Bank police commander Shahar Ayalon said police have ``no intention to maintain a presence inside the buildings or the offices.''
Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau visited the site at midmorning Friday. Reporters were kept away.
Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin said the takeover was meant to restore Israeli control over east Jerusalem. ``This is just the beginning. We no longer trust the Palestinians to keep law and order,'' he told Israel television.
Palestinians warned that the move against their institutions would intensify the conflict.
Hussein al-Sheik, a leader of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement in the West Bank, said, ``This is a very serious, very dangerous step.'' He said that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is ``sending a message to the whole world that his policy is occupation by force.''
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 war, along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and other territories. Unlike the other areas, Israel annexed east Jerusalem days after the war and has declared ever since that the whole city is Israel's capital.
The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of the state they hope to create. The issue of Jerusalem was one of the main sticking points in peace talks that collapsed in January.
The building, set back from a side street in east Jerusalem, operated as a hotel for decades. But it was closed and decaying when Faisal Husseini, scion of a Palestinian family that owned the hotel, turned it into a study center, then gradually transformed it into his political power base.
Defying Israeli objections, Husseini hosted foreign diplomats at Orient House, including senior officials, and frequently met journalists there. After Israel and the Palestinians began signing interim peace accords in 1993, Husseini became the senior Palestinian official in Jerusalem.
Husseini died May 31 of a heart attack during a visit to Kuwait.
Quoting the interim accords, the Israelis said Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority was not permitted to conduct political activities in Jerusalem. Periodically, Israeli governments closed various Palestinian offices around the city, but closed Orient House temporarily only once, in 1997.
| Mid-East Realities | www.middleeast.org |
| Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/8/334.htm |