"Signing a bad agreement under threat and coercion of an artificial deadline would be the essence of irresponsibility." Hanan Ashrawi Ramallah, Occupied Palestine

Clinton and the Israelis have set the stage for the last act of their multi-year drama attempting to trap the Palestinians on controlled reservations and calling it "an end to the conflict". But like a modern-day computer game the users can interact and change the outcome to various scenarios. Essentially the "or else" threats to Yasser Arafat are now coming through big time and may finally come true. Arafat is being told either control your people, stop the violence, "end the conflict", sign the deal, or your regime is likely to be brought to an end. If you can't or won't do these things, what are you needed for? If Clinton is leaving, and if Barak is going to be replaced by Sharon, Arafat is being told that he too is dispensable...unless of course he continues to make himself indispensable. And we all know what that now means. But Arafat knows very well at this point that making himself indispensable to the Americans and Israelis may mean they are more than ever willing to sacrifice him to his own people, as they have done with others before. And so we may be witnessing not only the final hurrah of Bill Clinton -- at least before he becomes a talk-show host -- but the end of the Arafat Regime and the disengenous "Peace Process" as we have known it, plus of course the coming to power of the bloody Israeli thug, Ariel Sharon, who has not only masterminded his own rise to power but been the main architect of what has happened in the occupied territories as well as the kind of "peace process" that evolved because of it.

Welcome to the big bad dangerous year of 2001.

ARAFAT RUSHES TO WASHINGTON

Arafat to U.S. as Netanya bomb hurts 54, Israel imposes sanctions on PA, VIPs barred for first time. Arafat visit a last-ditch peace effort

HA'ARETZ - E n g l i s h E d i t i o n - By Amos Harel, David Ratner, Mazal Mualem and Amit Ben-AroyaTuesday - January 2, 2001:

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat prepared to head for Washington last night to the echo of yet another car bombing in central Israel.

The car bomb in downtown Netanya injured 54 people, one critically, but most lightly.

Palestinian officials announced Arafat's trip as a last-ditch search for a breakthrough before U.S. President Clinton leaves office. It followed a new phone call from Clinton putting pressure on Arafat to say 'yes' to his bridging proposal.

Arafat spokesman Nabil Aburedeneh said it would be a decisive visit at which the future of the peace process would be determined. Clinton will give Arafat the clarifications the latter has requested on details of the American proposal.

Israel, meanwhile, responded to yesterday's Netanya car bomb with a series of sanctions against the PA, including - for the first time since the violence broke out in September - restrictions on the movement of Palestinian VIPs. The VIPs will be barred from entering Israel and their movements will be restricted in parts of the territories under joint Israeli-Palestinian control.

The government also ordered the closure of Gaza international airport and the Allenby Bridge border crossing, and barred all goods other than humanitarian essentials such as food and medicine, from entering Palestinian territory. A plan to allow 16,000 Palestinian workers to enter Israel was also put on ice. Last the government essentially reversed all the steps it had taken over the last month to ease the closure on the PA.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak, speaking earlier to the IDF general staff, warned that if Arafat does not accept the American bridging proposal, the current violence is likely to escalate further and could lead to a regional conflict. If this happens, Israel would impose additional military and economic sanctions on the PA, he said.

In Netanya the explosion occurred at the corner of Dizengoff and Herzl Streets at about 7 P.M. Witnesses initially said they heard three separate explosions, but police believe all came from the same 10-kilogram bomb, placed in a stolen Suzuki Baleno. Police said the explosion was not the a suicide attack but the bomb apparently was set off by remote control. Witnesses said immediately after the bomb went off, they saw a car fleeing toward the West Bank.

However, police believe the bomber was in fact the one seriously injured person when the bomb was apparently detonated from close by. Police said that given the size of the bomb and the rush-hour streets, the low level of casualties was a miracle.

"There was a boom, boom and another boom," said a witness who was crying and gave his name only as David. "All the windows were blown out. It was terrifying."

"People are hysterical," another witness, who did not give her name, told Israel Radio. "Shop windows have been blown everywhere. People are crying. There is black smoke everywhere."

No one yet claimed responsibility for the attack, which coincided with the 36th anniversary of the founding of Arafat's Fatah movement. Though Israel is investigating this angle, there is as yet no evidence to show that the timing was anything but coincidence.

However, evidence obtained by the security services recently indicates that Fatah has been involved in other attacks inside the Green Line over the last few months, for the first time since 1993.

The other leading suspect is Islamic Jihad, which executed a similar attack in Hadera in November. The Shin Bet security service has recently had warnings of a planned Jihad attack in the center of the country, and the movement is known to be strong in northern Samaria, from whence the terrorists apparently came.

Following the explosion, police and ambulances immediately rushed to the site, where police began checking nearby parked cars for possible additional bombs while Magen David Adom crews treated the wounded. The one seriously injured victim was sent to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.

Another 17 casualties were sent to Netanya's Laniado Hospital, all of whom were lightly injured, while 14 were sent to Hillel Yaffe Hospital in Hadera, of whom two were lightly to moderately injured and the rest lightly injured. Another two lightly injured people were sent to Meir Hospital in Kfar Sava. Most of the injuries were caused by either shrapnel or shock.

The bomb also caused heavy damage to parked cars and nearby stores and apartments.

Shortly afterward, Netanya residents rushed to the site for an impromptu demonstration. Demonstrators shouted "death to the Arabs!" and attacked Barak's government, while crying "Hooray for Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu]!" Several right-wing leaders demanded that Barak break off talks with the Palestinians in response to the attack, as did Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau.

"The slogan that we negotiate as if there were no terror and vice versa has gone bankrupt," said Lau. "If there is a Palestinian leadership, it must take control of events, and if Arafat is not in charge, then he is also not someone with whom we can negotiate."

A spokesman for Barak called the attack a "very serious terrorist bombing."

"Israel will not be able to tolerate the wave of attacks of the last week or 10 days without continuing to act with determination against those who direct the terrorists and those who carry out the attacks," added Danny Yatom, a top Barak aide.

Communications Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Israel should respond against Palestinian targets. "I think the time has come to stand up and say 'enough,'" he told Israel Radio. "In my opinion, the reaction has to be vigorous and immediate ... It has to be made clear to Yasser Arafat, whom I still see as responsible for all that is happening ... that there will be no more forbearance.

ISRAEL HEIGHTENS SIEGE OVER PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

EXCESSIVE USE OF MILITARY FORCE AGAINST

UNARMED CIVILIANS CONTINUES

[Palestine Monitor - 2 January 2001]
The Israeli government has recently heightened the state of siege imposed over the Palestinian territories by sealing all exit and entry points into the West Bank and Gaza through the military closure of all land bridges and of the Palestinian Airport. The Gaza Strip has been divided into four areas separated by Israeli erected roadblocks and checkpoints. The north of Gaza, the central region, as well as Rafah and Khan Younis in the south have all been placed under closure, not allowing passage of peoples or goods between each of these areas.

Every major town and village in the West Bank has also been placed under complete closure and Israeli tanks have recently been positioned threateningly close to the borders of Palestinian controlled areas. The effects of closure upon the Palestinian population have been disastrous. The health care system in Palestine is now completely paralyzed, bringing the national vaccination program to near collapse.

In the West Bank town of Ramallah yesterday the Palestinian Red Crescent Society's Headquarters was attacked with automatic machine gun fire and other heavy ammunition shot from Pisgot settlement. Five first aid vehicles were destroyed, including an ambulance as well as a vehicle used to transport deaf children. The water reservoir on top of the building was also destroyed.

While the Israeli military and government continue to claim that their soldiers only fire live ammunition at civilians when they are endangered, the story of Jadallah al-Jabari, a Palestinian man from Hebron, proves otherwise. Yesterday, Al-Jabari, a 50 year-old sanitation worker for the city, approached an Israeli soldier on foot at a barrier of concrete blocks. After the soldiers asked the man where he was going, an Israeli soldier shot Al-Jabari in the foot. An Associated Press cameraman was present and filmed Al-Jabari whose foot had been severed from his leg, leaving it hanging by sinew and flesh. Eyewitnesses attest that the soldiers delayed the call for a medic for fifteen minutes after the man had been shot while he lay in the street bleeding.

We, members of Palestinian civil society are appalled at the Israeli army's use of excessive force against Palestinian civilians. We urgently appeal to the international community to insist that Israel lift the siege on Palestinian villages and towns and cease attacks on unarmed civilians. We add our voice to the widespread call for international protection to prevent further escalation of the situation.