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CLASHES ERUPT AMID WAVE OF ANTI-ISRAELI PROTESTS
March 30, 2001
By Andrew Roche
JERUSALEM, March 30 (Reuters) - 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.
At least one person was killed and more than 30 were wounded as thousands of
people, chanting "End to occupation," marched to commemorate the 25th anniversary
of the killing of six Arab Israelis by Israeli soldiers during mass protests
in 1976.
Passions were fuelled by a week of Palestinian bomb attacks, Israeli missile
strikes on security targets in Gaza and the West Bank, and demands by U.S. President
George W. Bush that the Palestinians in particular do more to halt the violence.
Protesters marched in the West bank cities of Hebron, Ramallah and Nablus. Protests
also took place inside Israel itself and in Gaza, which borders Egypt.
Troops shot dead a 21-year-old Palestinian who was hurling stones at them as
more than 1,000 people marched towards an army checkpoint near Ramallah, witnesses
and doctors said. They said Mohammed al-Wawi, 21, was struck in the head.
Troops responded with rubber bullets, then live ammunition and eventually heavy
machineguns, a Reuters correspondent at the protest said.
The crowd in Ramallah burned an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
chanting "Brigades, Brigades" in support of militants who carried out suicide
bombings this week in which two Israeli teenagers were killed.
Protesters hurled stones and home-made petrol bombs at soldiers during protests
in Hebron. Witnesses said the troops responded with live ammunition, but the
army denied this.
In the old walled city of Jerusalem, police fought stone-throwing Palestinians
after stones and bottles were hurled from Muslim holy sites at praying Jews.
About 10,000 protesters also gathered in Nablus, where marchers called for anyone
with weapons not to take part. The army fired rubber-coated metal bullets and
live rounds to try to disperse them, a Reuters correspondent said.
TENSIONS HIGH
Tensions have risen this week as a Palestinian uprising against Israel's occupaton
of the West Bank and Gaza entered its seventh month.
Siding with Israel its long-time ally, the United States accused Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat on Thursday of failing to end the bloodshed that began
after U.S.-sponsored efforts to forge a final peace deal failed.
"The signal I am sending to the Palestinians is stop the violence and I can't
make it any more clear," Bush told a news conference. "I hope that Chairman Arafat
hears it loud and clear. He's going to hear it again on the telephone today."
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell also made the point in a telephone call
to Arafat.
Arafat said on Thursday the uprising would continue "until the Palestinian flag
is raised on the walls, churches and mosques of holy Jerusalem."
He vowed defiance despite Israeli air strikes on Wednesday which hit facilities
used by his elite security forces in Ramallah and Gaza. His home in Gaza was
also hit.
Palestinian cabinet minister Nabil Shaath said in Geneva on Friday the United
States was "really missing a very important point, namely that what we are facing
is an Israeli occupation that is deepening and aggravating."
"When you talk about the responsibility for violence you first start talking
about the responsibility of the occupying (power) and then you talk about the
responsibility of the occupied," he said before addressing the U.N. Commission
on Human Rights.
"I wish the United States would really come back to act as the real sponsor of
the peace process, find out what really needs to be done on both sides and take
the side of the victims for a change," he said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres called Bush's remarks "very reasonable."
Other Israeli ministers said the new govenrment had shown restraint and would
stage more assaults if Israelis contineud to come under attack.
ARAB ISRAELIS MARCH
At least 359 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs and 69 other Israelis have been killed
since the uprising, or Intifada, erupted in late September.
As clashes flared on Friday in the West Bank, Israeli Arabs staged a peaceful
march in the Arab town of Sakhnin in northern Israel, the epicentre of protests
in what is known as Land Day .
Sakhnin was shut down by a general strike and about 10,000 people joined the
march.
A Israeli state inquiry has been investigating police conduct in the killing
of the 13 Israeli Arabs during stone-throwing demonstrations inside Israel last
October.
Land Day commemorates the police killings of six Arabs in 1976 during mass protests
against land expropriation policies. Police said they would stay out of Arab
communities to avoid confrontation.
Palestinians who stayed in Israel and became citizens after it was created in
1948 complain of entrenched discrimination and confiscation of land to build
Jewish towns and military bases.
Arabs make up 18 percent of a population of six million.
PROTESTS SWEEP WEST BANK
By MARK LAVIE
JERUSALEM (AP - 30 March): Large-scale protests swept the West Bank and Gaza
Strip on Friday, with thousands of Palestinians hurling stones at Israeli soldiers,
who responded by firing live rounds and rubber bullets. A Palestinian man was
killed and dozens were injured.
Demonstrators burned Israeli and U.S. flags, as well as effigies of Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon, in their weekly ``Day of Rage.''
In Israel's Arab communities, thousands took to the streets 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 violent week of suicide bombings, shootings and rocket
attacks that killed three Israelis and eight Palestinians. In response to the
flare-up, Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat both said the violent confrontation
was likely to continue for some time.
In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Israeli troops fired live rounds and rubber
bullets at Palestinian stone-throwers, killing a 21-year-old man and wounding
seven others, including a teen-age girl.
In the Gaza Strip, 30 gunmen from Arafat's Fatah group led a large march, firing
in the air and chanting ``Sharon, wait, Fatah is going to open your grave in
Gaza.''
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.
Musallam was responding to warnings by Israel's defense minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer,
that Israeli soldiers would enter Palestinian-controlled areas if necessary.
Asked about chasing militants into Palestinian territory, Ben-Eliezer said, ``Everything
... is kosher.'' He said Israel would send forces to ``any place we feel ...
is endangering us.''
In the West Bank town of Nablus, 10,000 demonstrators took to the streets. Several
thousand then broke away, marching toward an Israeli checkpoint where they threw
stones, drawing rubber bullets and tear gas.
In the Israeli Arab town of Sakhnin, thousands of Arabs and some Jews joined
Land Day commemorations. 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, Fakri Abu-Raya, 40.
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 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 stonethrowers and dragged them away.
The turbulent week began with the killing of a 10-month-old Israeli baby by Palestinian
snipers, followed by suicide bombings that killed two Israeli teen-agers. 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.
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March 2001
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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