Mid-East Realitieswww.middleeast.org

"Nazi Behavior" Charges Arafat As Israelis Crush Palestinians into Submission

"Is this not one of the methods used by the Nazis against the Jews...Is this not a new Nazi racism? Is this acceptable to the international community?" - Yasser Arafat

NOW IT'S THE WAR OF THE REFUGEE CAMPS

"I am receiving from the territories - from places
like Tul Karm, Jenin and Deheisheh - cries for help.
The people who are turning to me describe the dead
and wounded in the houses and in the streets, the
lack of medical personnel and medications. I listen
to them, but I don't know what to say to them or
what to do."
- Palestinian Aid Worker

MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 3/12/2002: Nothing like this has happened to the Palestinians since the 1967 War. And this time the cowardly "Arab leaders" are simply watching and pretending; while those who claim to be supportive of the Palestinians in the U.S. are, disorganized, inept, impotent, demoralized, and used up.

Tremendous fear has spread through the refugee camps of Occupied Palestine. Going on a hundred have been killed, thousands have been injured and more thousands arrested, many are newly homeless, incidents of cold blood murder are spreading. Tanks, helicopter gunships, and fighter aircraft have been unleashed against an essentially defenseless civilian population who for most have lived under Israeli military occupation their entire lives. The American role in all this should be obvious, but the American media refuses to acknowledge this reality instead focusing on such absurdities as the "General Zinni Peace Mission", the "Saudi Peace Plan", and George Bush's "civilized world" speeches.

The events of these days will have dangerous, far-reaching, and potentially cataclysmic ramifications far into the years ahead. The very future existence of Israel, not just of the Palestinians, has now once again come into focus as never before.

NEW GAZA INCURSION LEAVES 19 DEAD

[BBC News - Tuesday, 12 March]: Nineteen Palestinians have been killed when Israeli troops using up to 30 tanks entered a refugee camp on Monday evening.

The deaths - in the Jabalya camp - came after six Palestinians died earlier in the day in clashes in Ramallah and the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli troops detained more than 1,000 Palestinians during the raids.

Earlier, Israel announced that it was lifting its travel ban on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, in return for his arrest of all the suspected assassins of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi.

One eyewitness in Jabalya reported very heavy fighting between Israeli troops and gunmen in the streets of the camp. He told the BBC's Gaza correspondent Kylie Morris that he was too frightened to open his windows to investigate any further.

Some residents fled the northern communities and made their way into nearby Gaza City itself.

Our correspondent says Jabalya is a stronghold for Palestinian national and Islamic groups.

On Monday it was the site of a march organised by the Islamic militant group Hamas to mark the Palestinian suicide attacks in Netanya and Jerusalem.

The advance follows similar operations by Israel in refugee camps in Qalqilya, Bethlehem and Tulkarm.

In addition to the incursion into Jabalya, Israel fired rockets from Apache helicopters into a facility belonging to Mr Arafat's personal guard, Force-17, in Gaza's south.

And after midnight, Israeli gunboats fired on a Palestinian naval headquarters near Dir al-Balah in central Gaza.

Palestinian security sources said one person was killed and several others wounded in the attack.

Mr Arafat remained in his compound all day on Monday. Officials did not say when he would leave Ramallah.

When he begins to move around Palestinian territories, correspondents said he will see for himself the recent devastation inflicted by Israeli air strikes which have reduced his offices in Gaza, and in Nablus and Jenin in the West Bank, to rubble.

Israel says Mr Arafat will "need permission" before travelling abroad; Palestinian officials hope he will attend an Arab summit in Beirut later this month, where an emerging Arab peace initiative is expected to be presented.

Tens of thousands of right-wing Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv on Monday night to urge their government to step up the military campaign.

The demonstration follows a threat by four right-wing cabinet ministers to leave Mr Sharon's coalition because of what they see as his new softer line on the Palestinians.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said the Israeli decision to allow Mr Arafat to move had little significance: "What is needed from the Israeli Government is to stop immediately its crimes and massacres against the Palestinian people and to end the closure that all the Palestinian people have been living under for more than 18 months," he said.

About 400 Palestinians were rounded up in the West Bank town of Qalqilya on Monday, and close to 600 were detained in a refugee camp at Deheishe, near Bethlehem, in a search for militants.

Men aged between 15 and 45 in Deheishe were forced to stand - stripped to the waist and holding their hands to their heads - in a yard on the outskirts of the camp before they were taken away in plastic handcuffs.

Yasser Arafat accused Israeli soldiers of behaving like Nazis in the round-ups. In an interview broadcast on Abu Dhabi television, he said Israeli soldiers had written numbers on the arms of Palestinians they arrested in a similar operation in Tulkarm last week.

"Is this not one of the methods used by the Nazis against the Jews," Mr Arafat asked. "Is this not a new Nazi racism? Is this acceptable to the international community?"

UN CHIEFS MUST SUMMON THE COURAGE TO TAKE ON ISRAEL

Few Arabs have any faith in
the United States to broker
peace in the Middle East,
writes Amin Saikal*.

Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)- 12 March 2002: Israeli-Palestinian violence has reached a dismal point. Having backed the right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to intensify military suppression of the Palestinians since last December, US President George Bush finds it once again necessary to send his Middle East envoy, General Anthony Zinni, back to the region to mediate a ceasefire. But Zinni will not find it easy to restore the faith of the Palestinians in the United States or to bridge the deep animosities between the protagonists. It is time for a collective international intervention under the leadership of the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to break the cycle of violence.

The US has had numerous opportunities to act to bring the two sides to the negotiating table. But despite its good intentions, it has constantly found itself limited by its strategic partnership with Israel. It has too often overlooked the imbalance that exists between Israel as a powerful and determined occupying power and the Palestinians as a largely defenceless and occupied people. It has shown great concern for the security of Israel but paid less attention to the fact that that security can only be achieved through peace with the Palestinians, and that peace will not be achieved until such time as Israel gives back the lands which it has forcibly taken from the Palestinians and has defended ferociously against Palestinian resistance. Violence as a means to achieve political objectives must not be condoned but, equally, injustice must not be rewarded in any way whatsoever.

The strategy that Sharon has adopted to quell the Palestinian resistance has so far proved disastrous. It has involved not only targeted assassination of Palestinian figures but also collective punishment of the Palestinians in response to Palestinian acts of retaliation for targeted assassinations. It has aimed at humiliating and degrading the Palestinians as a people and bombing them into the Stone Age, so that even if they are granted independence they would remain traumatised by the scars of Israeli occupation for a long time to come. Yet all this has brought Israel neither peace nor security.

Sharon has acted in the full knowledge that the Palestinians are organically linked to the wider Arab people, who share the suffering of Palestinians and view their humiliation as their own. It is not surprising that there is so much dislike of Israel and the US in the Arab world. While most Arab governments are under US sway and are divided over what to do about the Palestinian problem, the Arab masses are cumulatively and painfully outraged at the behaviour of both Israel and the US. This has led some of them to identify silently with Osama bin Laden. Most cannot understand why the US and its allies have been more than helpful to the Afghans to liberate themselves from the savage rule of the Taliban but have remained indifferent to the plight of the Palestinian people.

The feeling of despondency over US policy behaviour runs so deep among the Arabs that unless the US restructures and refocuses its Middle East policy, no amount of campaigning against terror may be able to produce the desired results. There is a widespread view among them that the Bush Administration has badly let the Arabs down by adopting Sharon's agenda, which has never included a final settlement with the Palestinians on a mutually acceptable basis. With the US reputation as peace broker in the Middle East in tatters, it is now time for an alternative mediator.

Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah has lately aired a proposal as an Arab initiative to secure a comprehensive resolution of the Middle East conflict based on a total Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, that it took over in the 1967 war in return for a total Arab recognition of Israel as a secure sovereign state in the region. While this proposal has raised some hopes, it is unlikely to succeed as long as Sharon is in power. Sharon is not committed to a final settlement with the Palestinians. Nor is he willing to consider any possible withdrawal from East Jerusalem. The only way that Abdullah's proposal could succeed is for the US, the European Union and the UN to back it collectively and to cajole Sharon in whatever way necessary to accept it. The person who could take the lead in this respect is Kofi Annan.

Annan is the only one with a global moral authority to persuade and pressure the major powers. He will not find the task easy, because Israel would be averse to it. But the mission will require him to be bold, courageous, imaginative and sustained. And it is time for the Security Council to activate the Secretary-General's good offices.

* Amin Saikal is professor of political science and director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University; and can be reached at Amin@MiddleEast.Org

THIS IS WHAT OSLO HAS GIVEN US

600 Rounded-Up in Dheisheh, House-to-House Searches Underway
Israeli Defense Minister, Benyamin Ben-Elazar in Dheisheh

By Muna Hamzeh*
Monday, March 11, 2002: At about 6:30 a.m. Palestine time today, Israeli troops called on all male residents of Dheisheh Refugee Camp between the ages of 14-50 to assemble in the courtyard of a stone factory at the western edge of the camp. Six huundred men are being detained. The majority of men between the ages of 14-40 have been outside the camp since Thursday. The men who were rounded-up today have been blindfolded and their hands tied. Some western camera crews were able to film the men. Local Bethlehem TV stations have broadcast the photos and the women and children in the camp are watching their loved ones on their TV screens being mis-treated by the soldiers. The children are in a state of hysterics after seeing their fathers and/or older brothers in this state on TV. As the soldiers approach each blindfolded man, they are spitting on him and beating him. One by one, the men are being taken into a side room inside the factory and interrogated. Masked Palestinian collaborators are at hand to tell the soldiers which of the men is an active member of the resistence. This is what Oslo has given us.

The latest news from the camp is that the men who have been interrogated and will be released have been placed in one room and the plan is to release them at the end of the day. But the release won't take place until Israeli troops finish the house-to-house searched currently underway. About ten minutes ago, I called my friend Hourieh. "The searches are taking place about three blocks from my house. My only hope is that they will get to my house before it gets dark. All we can do is sit and wait our turn." Only women and children are inside the houses and according to one woman whose house was searched less than an hour ago, the soldiers aren't leaving anything inside in tact. The contents of all closets, cupboards, shelves, everything is being turned on the floor. The soldiers are destroying any furniture or belongings they feel like destroying.

About three hours ago, Israeli Defense Minister Benyamin Ben Elazar was in Dheisheh to inspect the site where the men are being held. An exchange of gunfire was reported during his visit, but it is all quiet now.

Dheisheh's entire civilian population is being subjected to the horror of Israel's military might. Every woman in the camp now does not know whether her husband will return home today or will be taken away. The detained 600 men have not had anything to eat or drink for the past 10 hours. Nor have they been able to relieve themselves. The number of those who will be take away remains unclear.

Yesterday the Israeli military dynamited four houses in the camp. All four houses being to families who lost sons in this Intifada. Another family was notified that their house will be dynamited today. The close proximity of the houses - many houses share a wall with a neighbor, means that the destruction of the houses has caused extensive damage to neighboring homes. Keep in mind that the Palestinians have no insurance on their homes and there are government funds to compenstate anyone for their loss.
Mid-East Realitieswww.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2002/3/693.htm