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Israelis strike, Palestinians without strategy

February 13, 2001

ISRAELI STRIKE, PALESTINIANS LEADERLESS AND WITHOUT STRATEGY

The Israelis have had a long-term strategy for a very long time; and they have pursued it regardless of what party was in power and who happened to be Prime Minister of the moment. And of course the U.S. government has been the co-conspirator in all this all along; and the Arab client regimes have actually at times helped the Israelis accomplish their goals, if not consciously then as the result of their misguided and self-seeking policies.

The result? Apartheid has taken hold since Madrid and Oslo in rampant fashion.

Jerusalem is everywhere surrounded by Israeli towns now called "suburbs" (including Gilo), and approaching a quarter of a million Israelis live in towns and settlements throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And now the Israelis have a government more ideolgically than ever committed to Jabotinsky's brand of Revionist Zionism, with none other than Shimon Peres agreeing it appears to be the Foreign Minister!

As for the Palestinians, "There is no strategy whatsoever", a prominent Palestinian activist told The Washington Post the other day, while Arafat has been reduced to sending congratulatory messages to Sharon with rumors of his own impending demise, either at the hands of the Israelis or of his own people, gaining momentum while corruption, repression, and deception are omnipresent.

Meanwhile conditions for the Palestinian people now under the double-occupation of the "Authority" and the Israeli Army are worse than ever:

ISRAELIS ASSASSINATE LONG-TIME ARAFAT "FORCE-17" BODYGUARD

GAZA CITY (Arabia-on-Line, Agencies, 13 February): The Israeli army carried out a new assassination early Tuesday killing an officer in Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's private security force.

Massud Ayyad's car was rocketed by an Israeli helicopter in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials said. Ayyad, a major in Arafat's Force-17 bodyguard, was killed instantly when a helicopter fired four rockets on his car as he drove in the Jabaliya area of the northern Gaza Strip, security officials said. The Israeli army claimed Ayyad to be an agent of the Lebanese Hizbollah group and had carried out a series of attacks against Israel. "Massud Ayyad headed a dangerous Palestinian organization of the Hizbollah in the Gaza Strip and carried out a long series of terrorist attacks," the army alleged in their statement.

In court documents made public Tuesday, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak said he considers Israel's policy of liquidating Palestinians suspected of activities opposing the Israeli occupation to be justified. He claimed in a letter to the court that Israel's policy, which has attracted widespread criticism from human rights groups, was based on "international law." It followed an appeal to the court by the widow of the Fatah chief in the West Bank town of Tulkarem, Thabet Thabet, who was assassinated by the Israeli army on December 31.

"International law allows a strike against someone identified with certainty as being prepared to commit an attack against Israeli targets," Barak alleged in the letter. "This pertains to a war situation in general and to the right of self-defense specifically," Barak said.

The Palestinian Authority says that since the beginning of November, Israel has assassinated around 20 Palestinians. They were all suspected of attacks during the Intifada (uprising) that erupted in late September against Israeli occupation. The Palestinians and many international organizations have branded the Israeli policy as state terrorism. A total of 355 Palestinians, have been killed in the violence that has raged across the region over the past four and half months.

PALESTINIAN KILLED IN ISRAELI HELICOPTER ATTACK

GAZA (Reuters - 13 Feb) - An Israeli helicopter fired three missiles at a car in the Gaza Strip Tuesday, killing a Palestinian military leader in an attack that Israel called a clear message that militants must not harm its citizens.

The Israeli army said the man, Masoud Ayad, was setting up a Palestinian branch of the Lebanese Hizbollah group in the Gaza Strip and accused him of being behind a series of shooting, bomb and mortar attacks against Jewish settlements in the strip.

"Anyone who intends to harm Israelis will not escape and the long arm of the Israel Defense Forces will know how to locate and even the score with him," Israel's caretaker prime minister, Ehud Barak, said in a statement.

The Palestinian Authority issued a statement condemning the killing as "an ugly crime" and said it was part of Israel's "assassination policy against (Palestinian) cadres and citizens."

It denied Ayad was working on behalf of Hizbollah and said he had been a loyal member of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction for the past 30 years.

Palestinians in the Palestinian-ruled strip said Ayad, 60, had been recently promoted to lieutenant-colonel from major in Force 17, Arafat's elite force.

They said he was also known as an arms dealer.

Palestinian Minister Says Uprising Will Continue

Palestinian cabinet minister Hassan Asfour told Reuters Ayad's killing would not stop Palestinians from continuing their uprising and that Palestinians were capable of retaliating against Israel's "aggressions."

"The Israeli will feel no peace and no security if the Palestinian does not feel the same peace and security," he said.

Israel has been widely criticized by human rights groups for assassinating Palestinian military figures whom they suspect of attacks against Israelis.

Palestinians say at least 20 activists have been killed since a Palestinian uprising erupted almost five months ago.

Barak, defeated in an election last week by right-wing Likud party leader Ariel Sharon, praised the Israeli security forces for "its attack on a senior terrorist."

Ayad's body was trapped under the twisted metal of the car, which was destroyed by at least three missiles fired from a helicopter hovering overhead, witnesses said.

Smoke rose from the black and twisted metal of Ayad's car which was driving along a road near the Erez crossing with Israel when it was struck by the missiles.

Hundreds of Palestinians shouting "Death to Israel," arrived at the scene soon after the missile strike and one man held up a bloody kaffiyah taken from the wreckage. A damaged Kalashnikov automatic rifle was also seen in the rubble.

Witnesses said the helicopter had been hovering for around three hours before the attack.

Some 389 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed during the revolt. They include 53 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs.

PROPOSED BRITISH PARLIAMENTARY RESOLUTION ON THE ELECTION OF ARIEL SHARON

Sponsor: George Galloway, MP 2/7/01
(4 MP sponsors as of today)

That this House notes with concern the election of Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister of Israel; recalls his record of involvement in war crimes going back as far as the 1950s and in particular the crimes committed during the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, an invasion which reduced an Arab capital to ruins amidst the ashes of napalm, phosphorous and fragmentation weaponry, and which culminated in an Israeli inquiry finding Sharon 'personally indirectly responsible' for the massacres in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Beirut between 16th and 18th September 1982 in which almost 3,000 people were butchered; notes that these victims were defined by the International Commission of Inquiry as 'protected persons' within the meaning of the 4th Geneva Convention to whom Israel had a special obligation under protocol to prevent the commission of 'outrages' against them; notes further the implacable refusal by General Sharon to acknowledge the solemn and binding agreements signed by his country during the Oslo process which he has declared dead; further notes his offensive remarks against both Jordan and Egypt, the two Arab countries with whom Israel has signed a peace treaty; expresses the fear that the election of General Sharon may lead to a state of war in the Middle East; and asks Her Majesty's Government immediately to freeze all sales of military equipment to Israel and to recall Her Majesty's ambassador from Tel Aviv for consultations.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF WHAT THE ISRAELIS ARE DOING DAILY TO THE PALESTINIANS
Date: Monday - 12 February 2001

Ramallah

Atif Nabulsi, 35, was shot this morning while in his car near Rafat village in Betonia, Ramallah. An ambulance was prevented from rescuing the citizen by Israeli occupation forces who left him bleeding for an hour before carrying him to Ofra military camp, where his corpse is still held until this moment. During confrontations near Am ari refugee camp this afternoon, Sami al-Qatari was shot in the head by occupation forces.

Bethlehem

Ziad Abu Swai, 20, was shot dead this morning when Israeli occupation forces opened fire at a bus transporting 25 workers. Another worker, Muhammed Barmeel, 45, is critically injured. In Al Khader's old quarter, confrontations broke off resulting in a number of injuries. Israeli occupation forces later closed the whole area and underwent military reinforcements.

Hebron

Military reinforcements took place around Hebron and an extremely strict military closure remains in place. Arroub refugee camp was raided this morning. Dozens of young students fainted and suffered breathing problems today, when Israeli occupation forces fired tear gas bombs at a girl s school playground. Confrontations later broke out in the neighboring Takrour village.

Jerusalem

A woman, Wajdan al-Sa diya, and her son Ala were beaten by Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem s Old City today and carried to hospital. Israeli forces opened fire at those who tried to interfere when Wajdan and her son were being physically attacked.

Qalqilya

In Qalqilya, two Palestinians were injured during confrontations with occupation forces yesterday at the southern entrance of the city. Fadi Amer, 15, was shot with rubber coated metal bullet in the head. Mash hgour Taha, 16 was also shot with rubber coated metal bullet in the head. They were both carried to hospital in the city for mediation.

Gaza Strip

Israeli occupation forces closed Salah Din road, which liks the middle area with the south of Gaza Strip. Witnesses said that military reinforcements have taken place in al-Qarara area.

Nablus

The imposed military closure on Nablus and its towns and villages has been tightened even further. Entrances to Beit Forik village have completely been closed. Israeli occupation forces are still based in two homes in Salem village, placing its citizens under constant fire. Israeli occupation forces in Salem also fired light and sound bombs regularly at the citizens.

Gaza Strip - Demolition and settlement activities

Israeli army demolished a home in Gaza and enclosed 22; vast areas bulldozed.

The Israeli army has started implementing the decision to demolish 22 Palestinian homes in Gaza s Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis, in order to establish a military base instead and on surrounding agricultural land. Israeli occupation forces demolished one home, of nine inhabitants, without previous warning, yesterday near Kfar Darom settlement in the Gaza trip and bulldozed a vast area of agricultural land in the area. Israeli occupation forces since early morning yesterday enclosed 22 homes in Mawasi, west of Khan Younis city after having ordered its citizens to evacuate their homes in preparation for demolition. The inhabitants refused to leave or evacuate their homes. Witnesses said that three Israeli bulldozers protected by a tank and a large number of army forces spread in the area since early morning. Israeli bulldozers yesterday began bypass road construction starting from the military road block west of the area until Tel Sultan, the only entrance to Mawasi area on the beach.

February 2001

Magazine

PERES UNMASKS AND JOINS SHARON
(February 27, 2001)
Was it the Likud Party, or the Labor Party, that authorized more illegal settlements in the occupied territories since the Gulf War and the Madrid Peace Conference?

PERES AND COLLEAGUES "SLITHER ON THEIR BELLIES"
(February 26, 2001)
For those who still needed proof of the cravenness and duplicity of Israel's Labor Party, the party that spawned "Peace Now" and "Oslo" among other gross deceptions, it came today.

Defectors say Iraq tested Nuclear Bomb
(February 25, 2001)
When Iraq was more overtly building nuclear weapons, the Israelis struck in 1981 destroying the Osirak reactor near Baghdad that could have provided the crucial processed uranium fuel.

"Go back, we don't want you"
(February 24, 2001)
General Colin Powell, now combining even more closely than usual the Pentagon with the State Department, was afraid to go to Gaza; and rightly so.

The Hebron MASSACRE - 7 long years ago
(February 24, 2001)
Abraham's dysfunctional family has had unbelieveable historical ramifications for which the focal point today is Hebron, site of Abraham's burial place, a religious site to both Jews and Muslim alike who are today quite literally at each other's throats.

Council on foreign relations help legitimize Sharon
(February 23, 2001)
The Council on Foreign Relations, New York-power elite-based but in recent years integrating more with the Washington government and corporate elite, has been for quite some time, to put it bluntly, a rather tricky and chicanery Israeli-oriented Zionist center when it comes to matters relevant to Israel.

Iraq - The great Cover-Up
(February 23, 2001)
As terrible as what the Israelis, with their superpower American ally (and European connivance), are doing to the Palestinians, what has been and is being done to the Iraqis and the Chechnyans is also truly appauling.

Arab expulsion admitted by Sharon Ally
(February 22, 2001)
One day maybe Israel -- like South Africa and Chile before it -- will have some kind of "truth finding" commission to try to purge itself of the past.

Protests in Jordan
(February 22, 2001)
If it weren't for the Hashemite Regime in today's Jordan, yesterday's Transjordan, and before that the East Bank of Palestine, the Israelis would never have been able to vanquish the Palestinian people in days past and would never be able to do to the remaining Palestinians what is happening today.

Powell and Sharon - Street protests?
(February 21, 2001)
Clearly, the US is rushing to court unpopularity across the world, contrary to expectations that the Bush national security establishment would conduct itself with a degree of sophistication.

"This is only the beginning"
(February 21, 2001)
The crippling is not just physical. Psychologically, culturally, economically, and even morally, the Palestinian people are being twisted and tortured beyond all recognition of their former selves.

Gaza Ghetto, Gaza Concentration Camp, Gaza Prison
(February 19, 2001)
For four months, the Gaza Strip has been effectively isolated from the world. Over 1 million Palestinians are caged in an area of not more than 365km2.

Locked in an Orwellian eternal war
(February 19, 2001)
President Bush Jr didn't seem so confident the other day as he told the world of the newly increased bombing of Iraq. But he made it clear that "until the world is told otherwise" the Americans are convinced they run the world and it is up to them to decide whom to bomb, whom to favor, whom to take out, whom to reward.

Arafat collapsing
(February 16, 2001)
The Arafat Regime is collapsing. Here are some of the details, twisted somewhat of course because the reports are from Israel's best newspaper, Ha'aretz, in view of the fact that Palestinian and Arab news sources are unable and unwilling to provide such insights.

The realization, "perhaps the dream"
(February 16, 2001)
Out of the cycle of violence the gradual, hesitant understanding - perhaps the dream - will grow, that the only way is through a struggle to create a land of Israel/Palestine that is undivided in both physical and human terms, pluralistic and open; a land in which civilized relations, human touch, intimate coexistence and a link to a common homeland would be stronger than militant tribalism and the separation into national ghettoes.

"Collective suicide" or Zionism united?
(February 15, 2001)
If there is a national unity government, it will be evident that the differences between Labour as the main branch of the left and the Likud as the main branch of the right are not that big.

Death and assissination
(February 14, 2001)
It didn't take long for the Israelis, now Sharon-led, to start creating the escalating provocations that will then bring about still more Palestinian rage which will then give the Israelis the excuse they seek to pulverize the Palestinians still harder, possibly destroying the regime they earlier created, and possibly leading to another Palestinian "nakbah" (disaster).

Israelis strike, Palestinians without strategy
(February 13, 2001)
The Israelis have had a long-term strategy for a very long time; and they have pursued it regardless of what party was in power and who happened to be Prime Minister of the moment.

Dozens of Palestinians wounded
(February 12, 2001)
Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians in the West Bank Monday as Israel's rightwing Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon sought to forge a unity government.

"Holy war" is forever
(February 12, 2001)
Fifty four years ago when an international commission of that day was hearing from Jews and Arabs about what the new U.N. should do about Palestine there was testimony from very credible and very establishment Jewish Zionist sources opposing creation of a "separatist Jewish State" precisely because it would bring about an unending conflict with the Palestinian Arab population.

War preparations continue
(February 11, 2001)
The Arafat Regime, the "Authority", is near collapse -- not just financially, but credibility wise as well. The Israeli government is near "unity" -- with General Sharon in charge.

The PA is about to collapse
(February 10, 2001)
How ironic history can be. After generations of struggle and such suffering the regime that rules the Palestinians is now in the hands of Ariel Sharon representing Israel, the U.S. Congress representing the financial levers of the American Empire, and the European governments which in this situation operate on the pretense that they are better than either of the above.

Rocking Israel to its Biblical core
(February 9, 2001)
Well if King David was a nebbish (modern translation might be "nerd"), one has to wonder how history will record Ariel Sharon, the man with such a past whom the Jews of Israel have just overwhelming elected their leader.

Sharon maneuvers for starting position
(February 9, 2001)
It's time for serious political confusion and disinformation now. As the armies prepare themselves for the clashes likely to come in one form or another, the politicians maneuver for new starting positions.

Clinton pardoned Mossad spy for Israelis
(February 9, 2001)
The Israelis adore Bill Clinton, as all the pollsters know. Deep down even the common everyday Israelis know he was their man in the White House.

The many crimes of Ariel Sharon
(February 8, 2001)
Some incorrigible optimists have suggested that only a right-wing extremist of the notoriety of Likud leader Ariel Sharon will have the credentials to broker any sort of lasting settlement with the Palestinians.

Sharon wastes no time - Arafat bows
(February 7, 2001)
We will give him the benefit of the doubt. If he comes with good ideas that will bring us closer to the peace process, why not? The world has seen many such situations before.

Holy war for Jerusalem
(February 7, 2001)
We're on the way now to a new and expanded struggle, maybe even a religious war, Jerusalem the focalpoint.

The cold logic of Sharon
(February 7, 2001)
Many Israelis just stayed home. Others cast a blank vote. But a considerable minority thrust Ariel Sharon into the greatest electoral landslide in that country's history -- obviously as well an overwhelming majority of those who did vote.

Sharon wins and Peres wants in
(February 6, 2001)
He may be a brutish thug, he may fit the definition of war criminal, he may be a Jewish racist -- but now he is also the Prime Minister-elect of Israel, overwhelmingly swept into power in a way few imagined possible just a year ago.

All sides now committed to escalation
(February 6, 2001)
Now the real craziness begins. The Palestinians are committed to heating things up to demonstrate their resolve and their capabilities. The Israelis are committed to "stopping the violence" which means clamping the boot down on the Palestinians even more harshly.

The legacy of Ariel Sharon
(February 5, 2001)
This is a place of filth and blood which will forever be associated with Ariel Sharon. In Israel today, he may well be elected prime minister.

BBC casts doubt of Pan AM convictions
(February 5, 2001)
In advance of whatever the Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi is going to produce as "evidence" of innocence today, the BBC has published the following story quoting the very Scottish law professor who arranged the trial in The Netherlands casting great doubt about the veracity of the verdict reached:

What's left of Israel's left
(February 5, 2001)
What's left of Israel's left is in a fractured and demoralized state of affairs. Not only is Ariel Sharon about to become Israel's Prime Minister, but in all likelihood he is to be swept into power tomorrow in a landslide unprecedented in Israel's history.

The Pan Am 103 Verdict
(February 3, 2001)
The papers are filled with pictures of happy relatives of the victims of the 1988 bombing of PanAm 103. A Libyan, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, was just found guilty of the bombing by a Scottish court in the Hague, his co-defendant, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, being acquitted... What's wrong is that the evidence against Megrahi is thin to the point of transparency.

Rivers of blood
(February 2, 2001)
The bloodiness and racism of Sharon's past is fact. And these two articles help bring that past forward to the present.

Waiting for Sharon
(February 2, 2001)
They believe a Sharon victory will be a boon for their cause. 'He will expose the true face of Israel,' says an activist in Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement in Nablus, 'and force the world, including the US, to address its real responsibilities to the peace process...

Israeli Arabs boycott Barak, await Sharon
(February 1, 2001)
As the extreme right-wing revolution in Israel nears, as Ariel Sharon and friends prepare to take over political power, the "Israeli Arab vote" will not be enough to save Ehud Barak, and in fact it will not even be mobilized on his behalf this time, though Yasser Arafat and his friends have surely tried.