Additionally, the U.S. is blocking any international sanctions and any Security Council resolutions, not to mention action. By doing so the Israelis have an even freer hand then they might have expected; and they seem to be waiting for the moment when other conflicts erupt in other locations in connection with the "War Against Terrorism" to carry out their overall strategic goals. Another attempt is being made at the U.N. to send "international observers" to "protect" the Palestinians; but it is being blocked by Washington and London, and will be vetoed again by the Americans should it even come to another vote.

[Occupied Jerusalem, Islamic Association for Palestine, 24 January 2002]: Palestinian officials have accused the Israeli intelligence, the Mossad, of assassinating former Lebanese Christian official Elie Hobeika in BeirutThursday morning.

Ha'aretz reported this morning that Hobeika, who was a leader of the Israeli-backed militia involved in the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, was killed in a blast Thursday, according to reports from Lebanese security sources.

The report further stated that at least four other people were also killed, including three of Hobeika's bodyguards, and six were wounded in the explosion, which occurred in the Hazmiyeh district of Beirut as Hobeika was leaving his home.

Hobeika has indicated that he possessed "damning evidence" incriminating Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for the Sabra and Shatila massacres of Palestinian refugees in 1982.

The Palestinian radio, the voice of Palestine, quoted Palestinian sources on Tuesday as saying that "we have no doubt that the Mossad is responsible. They simply wanted to and did kill the witness, who happened to be an accomplice as well," the sources said.

In addition, a personal representative in southern Lebanon of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, Sultan Abu al Anian, charged that "Hobeika's assassination was plotted and carried out by the Israelis."

Hobeika, 45, led the right-wing Lebanese forces which massacred more than a thousand Palestinian refugees in the two refugee camps south of Beirut.

A few months ago, Hobeika said during a BBC documentary on the massacres that the then Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, whose army was in control of Beirut in 1982, was responsible for the massacres. He voiced willingness to testify if called upon in connection with the suit which Palestinian survivors brought against Sharon in Belgium.

The Belgian justice system will decide within 45 days if to proceed with the criminal investigation against Sharon.

Jerusalem Post - 24 January - Beirut, Lebanon: Former Lebanese Christian warlord Elie Hobeika was killed in a bomb explosion at his house a short time ago, witnesses said.

Hobeika, 45, led the right-wing Phalangist Lebanese Forces militia forces who scythed through the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Muslim west Beirut, slaughtering hundreds of men, women and children, in 1982.

Several months before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Hobeika was assigned liasion officer with the IDF. Following the war, he turned his back on Israel and joined the pro-Syrian camp in Lebanon, Israel Radio reported.

A car bomb exploded today outside his house in Beirut's eastern Hazmieh neighborhood. Lebanese security officials said Hobeika had just entered his Humvee, a military style armored truck, with three body guards inside when the explosion occurred at 9:40 a.m.

The explosion killed Hobeika and at least three of his bodyguards, police officials said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

It was not immediately clear whether the bomb was planted in Hobeika's Humvee, which was left a charred ruin. The Voice of Lebanon, radio station of the Christian Phalange faction, said the bomb was in a limousine parked nearby.

Ambulances, fire engines, civil defense and police vehicles rushed to the scene of the explosion just off the Beirut-Damascus highway five kilometers east of Beirut.

Several buildings were heavily damaged and a huge fire broke out, said the officials, speaking on customary condition of anonymity. Four charred bodies, including that of Hobeika, were taken to a morgue while five injured people were rushed to hospital for treatment, the officials said.

Voice of Lebanon and Lebanon's Future TV said the number of dead was five, including a man standing on the balcony of his nearby apartment when the explosion occurred.

Hobeika will be remembered for the Sabra and Shatilla massacre in September 1982. The Christian militiamen went into the refugee camps after their leader, President-elect Bashir Gemayel, was assassinated in a bombing at Phalange headquarters initially blamed on the Palestinians. It turned out that Gemayel was eliminated by the Syrians, who opposed his alliance with the Israelis.

Lebanese sources said Hobeika met with a Belgian parliamentary delegation this week in Beirut and agreed to testify against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a war crimes trial that may be held later this year in a Brussels court.

A group of Palestinian survivors of the Sabra and Shatilla massacres have filed suit in Belgium against Sharon, who was minister of defense during the invasion of Lebanon. The complaint filed in June with a Belgian judge demanded that Sharon be indicted for crimes against humanity in accordance with Belgian law that allows for such trials of foreigners in another country. The complaint did not mention Hobeika's role.

Hobeika has said he had "irrefutable proof" of his innocence in the killings.

A Belgian appeals court is expected to rule on March 6 on whether Sharon should stand trial.

[Haaretz - Tel Aviv - Thursday, January 24, 2002] With talk of all-out war resounding in the Holy Land, the Bush administration has granted Israel its widest military freedom of action since - in an ominous precedent - a Republican administration turned a blind eye to Ariel Sharon's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Hardliners on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have issued repeated calls to turn a runaway spiral of escalation into full-bore military conflict. Although their war cries have often been been sounded in the past, Washington's tacit approval of recent IDF military moves, coupled with its continuing pressure on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to crack down on militants in his midst, represents a marked departure from nearly two decades of nominal American even-handedness toward the battling sides.

Even U.S. diplomats whom Israeli hawks have viewed with suspicion as overly balanced toward the Palestinians, have weighed in on the side of non-intervention with IDF operations. Pressed by leftist Jewish and Arab students to speak out against Israeli military policies in the territories, U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer declared Wednesday:

"I have to tell you honestly - we are not going to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. The United States is not going to do it. If the people, the Israelis and Palestinians, don't put pressure on their governments to solve it, it doesn't matter who you get as a third party. The EU is not going to solve it, the UN is not going to solve it, Russia is not going to solve it, the United States is not going to solve it. It's going to require a deep, enduring commitment of the Israeli and Palestinian people to want to solve it, and then we can come in and help do so.

The Twin Towers and Pentagon terror strikes, as manifest in U.S. domestic politics, are at the root of the sea-change in U.S. policy toward the conflict, observes Ha'aretzcommentator Akiva Eldar. In American eyes, "September 11 has dramatically changed the balance of powers" in the Israeli-Palestinian sphere, Eldar says. In the new perception, Israel is seen as the equivalent of New York and the Pentagon, an identification only reinforced by recent news footage of Palestinian gunmen killing civilians celebrating a bat mitzva in Hadera or returning home from work on a main Jerusalem thoroughfare.

"Since Bin Laden is not currently in the headlines, Arafat has in a sense been replacing him" in the popular view. "So Arafat is actually becoming what Sharon wanted him to be, Israel's version of Bin Laden," Eldar continues.

Only at the beginning of the 1982 Lebanon war, when then-defense minister Ariel Sharon convinced Reagan White House officials that only a limited incursion was contemplated, has Israel enjoyed such a free hand to carry out military policy, independent of the ally that supplies it with indispensable military aid and materiel, Eldar says.

A decidedly pro-Israel tone among U.S.elected officials has become more evident as November Congressional elections near. In an unprecendented circumstance - and in the face of security threats - there have been no fewer than nine U.S. Congressional delegations visiting Israel in the last two weeks. Most, vowing support for Israel, snubbed Arafat altogether.

In the highest-profile visit of an American dignitary, former president Bill Clinton embraced Sharon, openly telling his Israeli hosts that the Palestinian leader was to blame for the failure of what Clinton called the "golden opportunity" for peace that the previous Israeli government had offered him at the ill-fated July, 2000 Camp David summit

At present, the only substantial pressure being applied on the Bush administration from domestic constituencies is coming from pro-Israel figures, Eldar says. U.S. officials have said privately that the American Jewish community has taken administration officials to task for maintaining channels of communication with Arafat and his deputies.

"The Arab lobby, the Egyptians, the Saudis don't seem to care anymore," Eldar says, adding that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has refrained from applying brakes on Sharon, while Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior officials are concentrating their Middle East attentions almost exclusively on Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Arafat has also undermined his own cause, Eldar notes, having embarassed Jerusalem-based U.S. diplomats, traditionally his allies and advocates, by lying to them on such key issues as curbing militants and Palestinian involvement in the weapons-laden ship intercepted by Israel.

"Arafat hasn't changed. What has changed is Israel's strategy," Eldar says. "Shimon Peres told the Knesset recently that we'd had five quiet days, but when Sharon was asked about it, he said there hadn't been quiet for as much as a minute. The Palestinians are now convinced that Sharon keeps provoking the violence, and that the Americans refuse to see this."

In the end, the White House may find its current policy counter-productive - perhaps dangerously so. "At the end of the day, when the fire gets out of control, it may hit American targets here and elsewhere. Then, the U.S. will have to do something. But it may be too late, because Arafat may by then have lost control."

Eldar says that, from the Bush Aministration's standpoint, the red line that Sharon dare not cross is assassinating Arafat. "They are afraid of the chaos that might ensue. The embassy and the CIA are telling Washington that no one knows what will happen after Arafat, and the chances that it will get worse are greater than the chances of any improvement."