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ARMIES AND POLITICIANS POSITIONING THEMSELVES FOR "BIG BANG" AND THEREAFTER

July 23, 2001

MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 7/23: The "big bang" fighting isn't even really started yet (see previous articles for context), but not only are the fighters positioning themselves for what is to come, so are the politicians, for the aftermath. Ehud Barak is in the U.S. explaining why his former "peace partner" Arafat is really a big thug who can't possibly be believed or trusted, and how he Barak proved it, kind of sacrificing himself he continually implies. Bibi Netanyahu is back in Israel posturing for after the storm, screaming for the Knesset to annul Oslo and all that transpired from it, and, imagine this, laying into Sharon for his "restraint"! Sharon has craftily set the stage, prepared the troops, positioned himself, and the "big bang" surely isn't going to come by surprise!

On the Palestinian side Arafat is said to have made plans for "temporary relocation" to Egypt while he and top VIP Palestinian Authority figures have no doubt double-checked their fat foreign bank accounts and moved as much as they could of their Oslo-gleaned portfolios mostly to Europe.

And meanwhile the hired-gun consultants and spin agents are at it bigtime as well spewing forth their twisted versions of history for both personal and political gain.

In the short-term the Israelis have already won. As usual they have once again outmaneuvered the Arafat crowd when it comes to the very important area of international opinion and public relations. Just as the Israelis have such military supremacy over the entire Arab world they also still run circles around the weak and retarded Arab regimes when it comes to both propaganda and intelligence. Who would have believed Sharon would ever get himself elected Prime Minister, and with such an overwhelming mandate? Who would have believed that Sharon would be applauded by some denounced by others for his "restraint"? Who would have believed Shimon Peres would gleefully serve as Sharon's Foreign Minister and mouthpiece? And who would have believed that the Israeli army would be pre-positioning itself for many weeks for a massive strike while the impotent Arab regimes cower in fearful inaction; the U.N. doesn't even meet; and the Americans, as well as the Europeans, pretend its not their fault and get away with standing by?

But in the long term the Israelis are pursuing policies lead by their most notorious General and war criminal which may eventually bring down the wrath of God himself on them; precisely why all those who came before Sharon have always greatly hesitated to do what is now happening.

BARAK SHARES BLAME FOR CAMP DAVID FAILURE, SAYS CLINTON AIDE

By Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent

[The Independent, UK, 23 July 2001]: Just a year after the abortive Israeli-Palestinian "peace" talks at Camp David, one of Israel's greatest public relations triumphs - persuading the world that the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, was to blame for the collapse of the summit - is turning into a hollow victory.

For despite Israeli and American claims that Mr Arafat turned down an offer of "96 per cent" of the Palestinian occupied territories, one of former president Bill Clinton's senior Middle East advisers now says that Mr Clinton and the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, were equally responsible for the failure of the Camp David initiative.

Writing in the New York Review of Books, Robert Malley, who was Mr Clinton's special adviser on Arab-Israeli affairs, claims that Mr Barak failed to honour previous Israeli agreements - assurances which Mr Clinton had been personally guaranteed to Mr Arafat. Mr Barak, the author writes, failed to fulfil promises to withdraw from three villages around Jerusalem and to release Palestinian prisoners - provoking an angry confrontation with Mr Clinton.

The article, which is co-authored with Hussein Agha, a former Arafat adviser and university don, reveals only two of the reasons why Mr Arafat failed to reach a peace agreement but already the claims have severely damaged Israel's repeated assertion that the Palestinian leader "turned to violence" after "massive concessions" from Israel.

Immediately after the Camp David talks broke down, Israel mounted a huge public relations exercise to convince the international community that it had made unprecedented offers to Mr Arafat which amounted to the return of almost the entire occupied Palestinian territories. Israeli embassies wined and dined Western newspaper editors with stories of the supposed 96 per cent of land which was offered to Mr Arafat, repeating the tired old shibboleth that the Palestinian leader "never lost an opportunity to lose an opportunity".

Mr Clinton took the unprecedented step of appearing on Israeli television to blame Mr Arafat. American journalists dutifully reported that the Palestinian Authority president - out of greed or stupidity - had demanded the return of 100 per cent of the occupied land and, failing to achieve this, opted for a second intifada in which more than 600 men, women and children, the vast majority of them Palestinians, have been killed by Israeli soldiers, Jewish settlers, Palestinian guerrillas and suicide bombers.

In reality, Palestinian officials and American sources - the latter wisely avoiding Israeli condemnation by talking anonymously - have pointed out that the figure of 96 per cent represented the percentage of the land over which Israel was prepared to negotiate - not 96 per cent of the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Left out of the equation was Arab east Jerusalem - illegally annexed by Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six Day War - the huge belt of Jewish settlements, including Male Adumim, around the city and a 10-mile wide military buffer zone around the Palestinian territories.

Along with the obligation to lease back settlements - built illegally under international law on Arab land - to Israel for 25 years, the total Palestinian land from which Israel was prepared to withdraw came to only around 46 per cent - a far cry from the 96 per cent touted after Camp David.

With his usual inability to explain himself, Mr Arafat failed to explain these details after Camp David, preferring to concentrate on Israel's refusal to grant Palestinians sovereignty in east Jerusalem - an important symbolic point but by no means the only reason for Camp David's failure.

The Israelis had only offered the Palestinians "control" over some Arab streets in Jerusalem - a miniature version of the little "bantustans" that already exist in the West Bank - and "control" over the Al Aqsa mosque and its surrounds, the territory beneath (including the remains of the Jewish Temple) being under Israeli sovereignty. The Palestinians were apparently to receive some territorial waters in the Dead Sea - upon which they could hardly build any houses.

Mr Malley's disclosures - which do not include the percentage breakdown of land to be offered back to Mr Arafat - appear a little self-serving. By making Mr Barak share the blame for the collapse of Camp David, he cleans up Mr Clinton's image as a Middle East peacemaker, presenting him as a victim of Mr Barak's double-cross as well as Mr Arafat's intransigence.

According to the two authors, Mr Barak decided, for domestic political reasons, not to keep his promise to withdraw from the three villages outside Jerusalem, allowing instead the rapid construction of new - and illegal - Jewish settlements on Palestinian land.

He did not, the authors say, want to alienate the Israeli right wing before a final peace settlement. Mr Arafat was therefore reluctant to attend the talks even before they began - and suspicious of Mr Barak because the latter wanted to negotiate first with Syria.

The painful linguistic vice from which all US policy makers suffer in their attempts to be even-handed while at the same time being Israel's closest ally, was all too evident yesterday when the Arabs perused Washington's reaction to the killing by Jewish settlers of two Palestinian civilians and a three-month-old baby.

Never afraid to refer to the Palestinian murder of Israelis as "terrorism", the State Department referred to the latest killings as a barbaric attack of "unconscionable vigilantism".

NETANYAHU STIRS RIGHTWING LEADERSHIP DEBATE

JERUSALEM, July 22 (AFP) - Outspoken former Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu took the next step in his much touted political comeback on Sunday in a showdown with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is struggling to contain the Palestinian uprising.

Netanyahu used a meeting of the right-wing Likud party's central committee to tear into Sharon's policies to squash the uprising, or Intifada. "We have been told to use a policy of restraint but this restraint has only provoked an escalation of terrorism and new demands from the international community for more restraint," Sharon's firebrand rival said.

"Eventually, it will bring us foreign observers that will not fight against terrorism and will hamper our army," he added.

Sharon said he was leading an "anti-terrorist war operation" when Netanyahu criticised his "restraint" policy.

"We are pursuing a policy of active defence, with a priority placed on the roads of the West Bank. It is a question of an anti-terrorist operation coming from our right to self-defence," Sharon told the first meeting of the Likud party's central committee since he was elected in February.

He ruled out an overall offensive against the Palestinian Authority, called for by hardliners in his party.

"We have two possibilities -- either undertake harsh military actions against the Palestinian Authority, its leaders and institutions, or launch immediate spontaneous operations on the dot after each attack. It is that second strategy that we have adopted and we are going to pursue," he added.

The two right-wing rivals met and squared off for the first time since Sharon's election as each addressed the 2,700 members of the Likud central committee in Tel Aviv.

Sharon had to fend off angry rabble-rousers who stridently heckled his gloved approach toward the Palestinians.

"Yelling and shouting has never helped anyone deal with anything, certaintly not terrorism and certainly not with me," Sharon said, as he stared down the restive crowd's call for the use of greater military force.

"We are conducting an active defensive policy with the priority of security on West Bank roads. It is a counter-terrorist guerrilla offensive which follows from our right to self defence," he added.

Before the evening's events, Likud members had toiled to put the best spin on the political rumble.

"There is no division within the Likud but some criticism and some internal debate are natural practices of a democratic party like Likud," Likud MP and Netanyahu backer Yuval Steinitz told public television.

But Netanyahu has been fanning the flames of discontent, especially among his core base of right-wingers and hardliners, over Sharon's refusal to answer continuing Palestinian violence with an all-out army assault.

Last week he called Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "the head of the largest terror organisation in the world" and said parliament should annul the 1993 Oslo peace accords which gave the Palestinians limited independence.

Few observers would have thought Sharon, a hawkish former general detested in the Arab world for his alleged role in the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon, could find himself under attack for being too "soft".

But the 73-year-old has adopted a self-declared policy of "restraint" which he believes essential in securing support from the international community, seen here as overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian.

Israel has drawn limited praise from abroad for not retaliating with a massive military attack to the ongoing Palestinian violence, most recently a suicide bombing last week that killed two Israeli soldiers.

Yet after winning in a landslide in February by presenting himself as the man to restore security in the midst of the Palestinian uprising, Sharon's limited response to the continuing violence has left many supporters disappointed.

Hardline ministers have boycotted his cabinet meetings, while his so-called "national unity" government, a right-left coalition cobbled together to unite Israel against the Palestinian uprising, is increasingly under threat.

Environment Minister Tzahi Hanegbi said Likud would have to work to keep Sunday's gathering -- intended as a regular party meeting with the next election still two years away -- from degenerating into a political free-for-all.

"No one has an interest in letting the meeting get out of hand," Hanegbi told the Jerusalem Post.

No one except perhaps for Netanyahu, who used a divide-and-conquer strategy to become in 1996 the youngest ever Israeli prime minister and the only premier born after the Jewish state was founded in 1948.

After surviving a fraud and corruption investigation last year, the US-educated Netanyahu has been politicking his way across the nation, notably visiting with the families of Jewish settlers slain by Palestinians.

The Maariv paper reported last week that Netanyahu's internal polling shows him easily winning a head-to-head contest with Sharon for the Likud leadership by more than 20 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile Sharon is downplaying any talk of a political challenge from the man he served as foreign minister.

"I am not contending with anyone," he said on Saturday. "There are no internal party struggles at the moment."


July 2001


Magazine






DISASTEROUS ARAB-AMERICAN AFFAIRS IN WASHINGTON-PART 1
(July 31, 2001)
The Arabs are so weak in the Middle East and in the world for reasons that go deep into history and culture. This isn't a genetic matter, it's the way they are politically and socially organized in "modern times" that creates an absurd situation whereby a small resourceless country like Israel can dominate some 23 Arab countries with a population nearly as large as the United States.

IMPRISONED, TRAPPED, AND UNPREPARED BY ARAFAT
(July 31, 2001)
Arafat has once again trapped and imprisoned his own people -- keep reading. Wherever he has set up his headquarters corruption, repression, nepotism, and scandal have followed. And always these realities of what we have termed the "Arafat regime" are exploited to further fracture and weaken the Palestinian people -- a people whose basic claim to independence, "return", and reparations should at this point be unassailable.

DECEPTIVE AND OUT OF FOCUS REPORTS
(July 30, 2001)
About that report published "in full" in the Saudi Royal Family London newspaper Al-Hayat over the weekend and then, it now appears erroneously, picked up by Israel's top newspaper Ha'aretz. We already mentioned that the whole thing seemed suspicious. And sure enough with the Monday dawn of a new week and a little fast checking it seems the author, long-time military analysis and close CIA confidant at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Anthony Cordesman, says he didn't write it and the whole thing looks like a set-up.

AMERICAN STUDY: ISRAEL WOULD BE UNABLE TO REPEL ALL-OUT ARAB ATTACK
(July 30, 2001)
The report in Saturday's Ha'aretz is not up to their usual standards as names are misspelled and context missing -- it appears to be a journalistic quickie. But even so, and though the Israelis aren't going to admit it, they are becoming more nervous and insecure about their future. And among other reasons that's why they choose the heretofore unelectable Ariel Sharon as their Prime Minister.

CREEPING TEMPLE AND CREEPING EMBASSY
(July 29, 2001)
In 1967, as the Israeli army took control of all of Jerusalem, the Israeli Flag flew on what the Jews call "the Temple Mount" for the first time since Christ and Mohamed walked the area. Sensing what this could lead to General Moshe Dayan quickly ordered the flag lowered, turned the area that the Muslims call "the Noble Sanctuary", al Haram al Sharif, back over to the Islamic authorities, and though Israel claims sovereignty it's flag has never flown again over the area of the Temple Mount

THE BLEAK FUTURE TODAY IN THE HOLY CITY OF JERUSALEM
(July 29, 2001)
It was "radical" groups that emplanted themselves in the city of Hebron a long time ago, back in fact when the Labor party was still supreme in Israeli affairs. And just look today at that city where the common forefather of both the Jews and the Arabs is buried.

POTENTIAL EXPLOSION IN JERUSALEM SUNDAY
(July 28, 2001)
Arab leaders have warned that a messianic Jewish organisation's plan to make the first move towards rebuilding the Biblical Temple in Jerusalem is a "dangerous step" that could lead to uncontrollable consequences.

JEWS PREPARE FOR JERUSALEM THIRD TEMPLE- AND SO FINALLY DO THE ARABS
(July 28, 2001)
After today's previous MER article was published -- "God War Emerging In Holy Land" -- this Agence France-Presse article has just come over the wires. Characteristically the representatives of the Hashemite Kingdom -- the regime that has been most complicitous in secretly collaborating with the Israelis for decades to control the Palestinians sandwiched between them -- are publicly posturing in one way while actually acting in another.

RELIGIOUS WAR EMERGING IN THE HOLY LAND
(July 28, 2001)
In the years since the turn of the millenium the Arab-Israeli conflict is being transformed into an even more dangerous and potentially cataclysmic Muslim-Jewish war. Ariel Sharon's "visit" to the Temple Mount last year, accompanied by a huge military force, helped sparked Intifada II -- make no mistake about that.

WAR CRIMES TRIALS FOR SHARON ET. AL.?
(July 27, 2001)
In the end the Israelis are likely to find a way to deal with this new situation. They have great resources at their disposal when it comes to the media, intelligence information, lobbying capabilities, help from key governments in the US, UK, and Germany. They have a long history of twisting things to their advantage one way or another. And those opposed to them have a long reputation for much the opposite in fact.

TWISTING ARAFAT UNTIL HE IS DEAD OR GONE
(July 27, 2001)
The Israelis probably prefer Arafat dead at this point; but not at their own hand, at least not directly. Indeed, many of those who used the "Oslo Peace Process" to end Intifada I probably thought Arafat would have either been assassinated or died by now, leaving behind a "peace process" legacy as did Anwar Sadat when he was gunned down by his own soldiers just a few years after reluctantly signing on-the-dotted-line at Camp David 1.

"WARNING! ELECTRIC FENCE" - "WARNING! ISRAELI ARMY"
(July 26, 2001)
NEWSFLASH Thursday Evening 9pm ET: An Israeli teenager has been killed in a shooting attack in the West Bank and three bombs have gone off in the West Bank near Israeli vehicles. The attacks came hours after Palestinians buried a militant killed in an Israeli missile attack. Israeli tanks also shelled Palestinian police posts in a village north of Ramallah and a checkpoint run by Force 17, an elite unit of the police, south of the town, not far from the site of the shooting, said Palestinian security sources.

DEATH, REPRESSION, AND DESTRUCTION EVERYWHERE. SHARON'S POLICY TO PROVOKE VIOLENCE IS WORKING
(July 26, 2001)
Everywhere the settlements continue to expand even as the Israelis constantly twist their words as well as the facts. The Israelis know very well what they are doing and what they want -- they are taking the land and the resources from the indigenous people and then isolating the people in what amount to ghettos and concentration camps calling them "autonomous" areas.

ISRAELI RIGHT STRIKES WHILE ISRAELI LEFT WRITES
(July 25, 2001)
The Israeli army is partially mobilized and positioned for a quick and multi-directional assault on the forces of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, ironically armed by the Israelis themselves in years past. Draft mobilization offices have been opened by the Israelis in key U.S. and European cities. The Israelis propaganda machine has been beefed up and already beginning to operate on all cylinders.

PALESTINIAN CIVIL WAR DRAWS CLOSER
(July 25, 2001)
"Israel says Arafat is not doing enough to bolster a US-brokered truce, demanding he arrest activists and stop attacks against armed Jewish settlers and soldiers in occupied areas of the West Bank and Gaza. But Arafat has said he is not in control of security in occupied areas. Palestinians blame Israel for the on-going violence"

WHAT'S UP FOR ARAFAT?
(July 25, 2001)
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 ...

OFFICIAL PLO VERSION OF CAMP DAVID
(July 25, 2001)
The latest dueling, in advance of the "big bang" which Arafat himself now says is definitely coming -- and whose real purpose by the Israeli right-wing is to end the "Oslo Peace Process" once and for all -- is a battle for public opinion conducted through a convoluted debate over who offered what to whom and who is responsible for the failing of the "peace process".

REGIONAL WAR POSSIBILITIES
(July 24, 2001)
The following two articles are from publications associated with Janes Intelligence Weekly in the U.K. But what's looked at here are the short-term implications and the correct assessment that the very weak and in most cases U.S.-controlled Arab "client regimes" in the region will find one way or another to avoid any military clashes with the vastly superior Israelis.

PALESTINIAN CIVIL WAR LOOMS
(July 24, 2001)
Those who have read MER for some time know that we have long indicated that one of the Israeli goals was to foment a Palestinian civil war. Some of the Israelis, dubbed the "peace camp", preferred to twist Arafat into totally succumbing and signing some kind of "end of conflict" agreement along with creation of a rump and everywhere-controlled Palestinian State.

NEW BATTLE FOR HISTORY
(July 24, 2001)
The latest dueling, in advance of the "big bang" -- whose real purpose by the Israeli right-wing is to end the "Oslo Peace Process" once and for all -- is a battle for public opinion conducted through a convoluted debate over who offered what to whom and who is responsible for the failing of the "peace process".

ARMIES AND POLITICIANS POSITIONING THEMSELVES FOR "BIG BANG" AND THEREAFTER
(July 23, 2001)
Ehud Barak is in the U.S. explaining why his former "peace partner" Arafat is really a big thug who can't possibly be believed or trusted, and how he Barak proved it, kind of sacrificing himself he continually implies.

THE BIG LIES
(July 21, 2001)
Goebbels himself could not have done a better job. For those who don't recognize the name, check back in the not too distant history books under the heading Nazi Information Ministry.

ISRAEL SET TO ATTACK ACCORDING TO CIA
(July 20, 2001)
At first we had the adjective "cowardly" as a preface to "Arabs" in the headline. Let's be clear what we mean here. We're not talking about the Arab peoples, nor about those who do the brave struggling...and the real suffering...and the bleeding and the dying.

WAR DRUMS IN THE HOLY LAND
(July 20, 2001)
No way to know for sure, but if we had to predict at this moment the "Big Bang" (see previous "War Drums" articles for context) will be heard not this week but next after the Maccabiah games have ended and the G8 leaders survive Genoa.

AMERICANS GET ANOTHER WARNING
(July 19, 2001)
With the unprecedented "Red Zone" in Genoa; with key Washington buildings surrounded by concrete and high-tech survelliance; and with Americans warned again by their government to "beware" following on last month's Threatcon Delta alert; the "terrorists" have already accomplished a small part of their goal.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL AND ARAB LEAGUE OFFER LITTLE BUT WORDS AND A FEW BUCKS
(July 19, 2001)
It's that little old problem rearing it's ugly head again -- calls that come much too late and even then call for much too little. Worse yet the calls come in very self-serving ways from persons and institutions whose past records make them not very credible, and certainly not very potent.

FINALLY BURYING OSLO
(July 18, 2001)
The "Oslo Peace Process" -- which would have been more aptly named the "Rabin" or the "Clinton" -- has been brain-dead for some time now; kept alive only by extraordinary life-support efforts by its parent surrogates.

INDIA-PAKISTAN SUMMIT COLLAPSES, INDIA IMMEDIATELY ANNOUNCES MAJOR MILITARY ESCALATION WITH ISRAEL
(July 18, 2001)
With both Turkey and India the Israelis are developing formidable military, financial, and intelligence alliances surrounding the Arab and Muslim worlds. These relationships tremendously strengthen the Jewish State financially, militarily, and strategically at a very critical time.

TINDERBOX AWAITS MATCH
(July 17, 2001)
"This could result in a bloodbath and thereby set the entire region aflame. It's not out of the question that demonstrations could topple unpopular regimes in Jordan, Egypt or Saudi Arabia... The tinderbox is awaiting a match."

ARAFAT FADING
(July 17, 2001)
It's beginning to appear that it's just a matter of time now for Arafat to finally be gone. As far as the Israelis and Americans are concerned, it no longer really matters like it use to.

ISRAEL PUSHES PALESTINIANS TOWARD CIVIL WAR
(July 17, 2001)
"No power in the world can stop the resistance operations that come as a reaction to the Israeli aggression ... we have nothing more to lose."

ISRAELIS PUSHING HARD TO PROVOKE MORE PALESTINIAN ATTACKS
(July 16, 2001)
A few years ago when the Americans essentially forced Yasser Arafat to sign one of those deals, this one about Hebron, that was supposed to push the "peace process" forward, it was foreseeable that sooner rather than later Hebron would once again erupt.

MUBARAK REGIME EARNS ITS PAY ONCE AGAIN
(July 15, 2001)
Today the Egyptians hosted Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat in Cairo. It's a replay of this kind of thing they've been doing for quite some years now. The Egyptians are at it again, fronting for the Americans as they have ever since the original Camp David extravaganza in 1978.

WAR DRUMS FROM ISRAEL
(July 15, 2001)
Longtime top adviser to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Osama el-Baz, has issued a not-so-veiled warning to the Israelis not to attack Syria. The head of Egyptian military intelligence rushed to Israel a few days ago supposedly to warn the Israelis not to dethrone Yasser Arafat.

RACE TO NUCLEAR WAR
(July 14, 2001)
While the Israelis and the Arabs confront each other in a conflict that may now last for a very long time and even lead to a Middle East holocaust in the future; and while the other "peace process" in Northern Ireland also collapses due to its similar duplicitous nature; it is in the subcontinent that the race toward a possible nuclear conflagration is furthest advanced at this moment in history.

MORE U.S. DUPLICLITY - COLIN POWELL NOW IN CHARGE
(July 13, 2001)
It was another top General turned State Department Secretary who gave Ariel Sharon the behind-the-scenes "green light" back in 1982 - General Alexander Haig.

PREPARING FOR THE WAR OF HIS CHOOSING
(July 13, 2001)
What we feared has come true: Two ethno-national groups, living in each other's backyards, are going through a proces of regression to superstitious tribalism. The sounds of the drums are heard throughout the land calling both tribes to gather around the campfire, dress in the colors of war and head out to battle to eliminate the very last member of the other side.

INVASION WATCH?
(July 13, 2001)
What are we to call this situation? "War Watch"...no, the sides are far too uneven, it's not really going to be a war...not unless one or more of the Arab regimes should find itself cornered or facing revolution.

WEST WING PARTIALLY EVACUATED
(July 12, 2001)
A few barks from the sniffers dogs and even after all the security checks required to get into the White House grounds the Secret Service pulled the alarm and quickly began the evacuation procedure.

ISRAELIS GENERALS' PLAN TO "SMASH" PALESTINIANS
(July 12, 2001)
Israeli generals have updated plans for an all-out assault to smash the Palestinian authority, force out leader Yasser Arafat and kill or detain its army, according to a report published Thursday in London.

JANES "FOREIGN REPORTS" DETAILS ISRAELI INVASION PLAN
(July 12, 2001)
The report that a force of some 30,000 Israeli troops is preparing to take on Arafat's "Authority" and bring it to an end was just published in one of the most reputable international publications, one published by the Janes Intelligence network in the U.K. and available only to members who pay a sizeable yearly subscription fee.

ISRAELIS PREPARE WAY TO TAKE OUT ARAFAT REGIME AND TO TAKE ON IRAN'S NEW WEAPON SYSTEMS
(July 11, 2001)
Whatever the truth of Israel's latest allegations against both the Arafat Authority and Iran, there should be little doubt what the Israelis are really up to at this point, with Shimon Peres leading the charge.

BULLDOZERS PREPARING THE WAY FOR THE "BIG BANG"
(July 11, 2001)
It's all part of the same game. The Israelis think they have the Palestinians trapped. They publicly debate how to put them in their place with bulldozers, expulsions, invasion, awaiting the "big bang".

ISRAELIS UNDER SIEGE WITH ARAFAT FACING HIS OWN
(July 10, 2001)
Nearly half of the Israeli Jewish population got a stern warning yesterday - don't drink the water. Today Israel's lifeline, it's international airport between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, is under virtual siege with huge traffic jams as all vehicles undergo the kind of rigorous fender-to-fender inspection previously reserved for just "Arab" cars with special blue plates.

ALGERIA READY TO EXPLODE
(July 10, 2001)
While the legacy of British colonialism still lingers in Palestine and Kashmir, still threatening cataclysmic conflict in both regions, in Algeria it is the legacy of French colonialism, which also of course still has loud echoes in Lebanon and Syria.

WAR IS IN THE AIR - Part 2
(July 10, 2001)
The Egyptians are arming with missiles to deter Israeli strikes against Egyptian cities or strategic targets such as the Aswan dam. These may be conceived as deterrent weapons; but they also could be used in other situations.

WAR IS IN THE AIR - Part 1
(July 9, 2001)
"The stage, therefore, has been set for the outbreak of the next wear: wall-to-wall political approval for a military solution to the current crisis, the appropriate international preparations during the period of restraint."

EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE "RIGHT OF RETURN" BUT WERE TOO AFRAID TO ASK
(July 7, 2001)
"Who will compensate me and my family for all the suffering we went through? Financial compensation cannot replace the right of return....The main thing is to go back to where I belong."

THE STAGE IS NOW SET
(July 7, 2001)
This is the way such things are done these days. Lots of testing of the waters. Lots of preparing the way. Lots of trial balloons. If (probably no longer when) the Israelis "remove" Arafat one way or another -- just as it was they who put him where he is in the first place -- it will no longer come as such a great shock.

FENCING THE PALESTINIANS IN - "UNILATERAL SEPARATION"
(July 6, 2001)
Having to a considerable extent succeeding in colonizing the "occupied territories", especially the most important areas around Jerusalem and the most cultivatable areas along with the crucial water resources, the Israelis are now ready for more fences and barricades.

STOPPING SHARON - PROBABLY TOO LATE
(July 6, 2001)
He's not likely to be stopped now. He's prepared most of his life for this moment in history. And as Israeli Prime Minister for just the past few months he's already visited the American President twice, Downing Street, and now both Germany and France, applauded in public more for his "restraint" as the "new Sharon" rather than for his war criminal past and the neo-apartheid oppression machine he now bears full responsibility for.

ISRAEL SHAHAK DIES AS CALAMITY HE FORESAW APPROACHES
(July 5, 2001)
Just what "cease-fire" is Sarid talking about? And if he really wants a serious outside force, why is he not appealing to the U.N. under Chapter 7 and why are not the Arabs included?

ISRAELIS TO NOW KILL MORE PALESTINIAN ACTIVISTS
(July 4, 2001)
Ariel Sharon and his government are preparing the way to kill more Palestinian street and faction leaders using various forms of high-tech assassination. They are also preparing world public opinion not only for bringing the Arafat "Authority" to an end but for killing and expelling as many Palestinians as circumstances will allow.

THE REAL ARAFAT
(July 3, 2001)
Of course Sharon's comment yesterday is ridiculous. Problem is the strategy behind it is not. "You must comply, resistance is futile" is indeed the loud message from Sharon to Arafat; and Sharon does intend to prove his words in the weeks and months ahead, make no mistake about that.

THE REAL SHARON, MASKED AND PREPARING FOR ANOTHER "GREEN LIGHT"
(July 2, 2001)
Ariel Sharon has Yasser Arafat cornered now -- right where he wants him. Sharon has in essence forced Arafat to publicly call off the Intifada -- or else Sharon made it rather clear, most of all to his American allies, that he would call off Arafat's regime whatever the consequences.

5 PALESTINIANS KILLED SUNDAY
(July 1, 2001)
Five Palestinian militants have been killed by Israeli forces, three in a pinpoint helicopter attack and two in a clash with soldiers. The helicopter fired missiles at a car in which the three men were travelling near Qabatiye in the northern West Bank, Palestinian security officials said.

SYRIA STRUCK FOR SECOND TIME SINCE SHARON BECAME PM
(July 1, 2001)
The Arabs have an amazing tolerance for being struck. Partly it is because of their weakness of course; coupled with their long history of subjugation and occupation. But those who know Arab society also are aware that after taking it and taking it there sometimes comes a moment of powerful emotional uproar screaming for revenge.

SHARON PLAYS THE PALESTINIANS OFF AGAINST EACH OTHER
(July 1, 2001)
While Ariel Sharon uses the greatest pressure of all so far in order to bow the Arafat regime into submission -- the possibility of crushing Arafat's "Authority" through brut military force -- at the same time he holds out the carrot.




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