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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carolyn who wrote (3612)	9/13/2001 2:25:39 PM
From: ajs	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

Peres-Arafat meeting likely Sunday; Israel sends warning to PA By Nitzan Horowitz, Ha'aretz Correspondent Senior diplomatic sources in Jerusalem said Thursday that a meeting between Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was likely to take place Sunday, at Dahaniya airport in the Gaza Strip, which is under Palestinian control. Peres confirmed earlier Thursday that the meeting would take place, but declined to add any more details. Several government ministers urged Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to call off the Peres-Arafat meeting, likening it to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell meeting with Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in Tuesday's terror attacks in Washington and New York. "He really has a choice between being a bin Laden or being a partner for peace," government spokesman Raanan Gissin on Thursday quoted Sharon as telling U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell by telephone on Wednesday. "You have bin Laden who is the threat and we have Arafat who is constantly, constantly using terror. He adopted a strategy of terror, he has a coalition of terror." Israel has sent severe warnings to the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the terror attack in the United States. Peres and other Israeli officials have spoken with top PA officials, emphasizing that this is a critical moment in history when the PA can choose to end all the terrorism, immediately. If it does not, Israeli officials warned, the PA would be in a far worse position. Arafat canceled his much-anticipated reconciliation trip to Damascus on Wednesday. This was a signal that Arafat understood the severity of his situation, sources in Jerusalem said. A senior diplomatic source close to Sharon explained that the terror strikes in the U.S. had given Israel a much greater degree of freedom when it came to the use of political and military pressure on the PA. Politically, the source said, Israel believed that U.S. backing for Israel's principle of no negotiations under fire was likely to be much firmer, indeed absolute. Militarily, said the source, "we are operating in the Jenin area and nobody's complaining." Powell called Sharon and Arafat late Wednesday. Arafat agreed to the Powell request that he meet as soon as possible with Peres, said Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat. Some Israeli diplomatic sources said they believed that the world was now entering a period in which the willingness to accept terror and violence would disappear. Various justifications used in the past, like "low-level terror" and "freedom-fighters," wouldn't be acceptable to the international community, the sources commented. "The Palestinians have to make a historic strategic decision," said high-ranking sources at the Foreign Ministry. "It won't be possible to continue playing the game in which politics and terror are mixed. Their ability to win world sympathy using violence has been dramatically undermined. The world won't accept it now." From their conversations with Palestinian officials, Israeli sources said, they got the impression that the Palestinian leadership was under enormous pressure. "They face a dilemma and need to decide on the strategic level which way they want to go: the way Hamas and Jihad offer, or the way they chose in 1993." haaretzdaily.com

To: Carolyn who wrote (3612)	9/14/2001 4:14:35 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

Re: I think Iraq had something to do with it. The problem with that gang of usual suspects --Bin Laden, Iraq, Hizbollah, Egypt's Muslim Brothers, etc-- is that they're supposed to be under constant surveillance. The CIA, the Mossad, the NSA, MI5 are all supposed to keep track of them. As for Saddam Hussein, it's clear the guy had no interest in a frontal attack on the US... What was --and still is-- Saddam's strategy, after all? Saddam was patiently carrying on a media-war of attrition against the US... Saddam's end-game is to cast himself as the VICTIM of US policy --NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!! Indeed, Saddam's PR strategy has just crumbled. On the other hand, nobody seems to have ever kept track of Ahmad Shah Masood... Did the CIA cared about him? If they did, it likely was for the wrong reasons anyway. Masood was the puppet of the jackbooted Russian military... When he was solicited by French/Russian intelligence to carry out some dirty jobs (like hijacking a US airplane) he demanded a life insurance of sorts: he wanted to be invited in Europe as a legitimate statesman... He wanted to be piped in by Europe's highest authorities --he was officially invited by the EU Parliament's Chairwoman Nicole Fontaine, met with French minister Hubert Vedrine, Belgian Louis Michel, etc. All the European top brass greeted him with the full monty. But Masood knew that he was gonna play for high stakes: nobody wants to pull a dirty trick on the US without some kind of a cover... In case things turn nasty then, Masood thought, his swank with European leaders in full regalia would, somehow, allow him to blackmail his European bosses. Well, Masood should have reminded of Congolese leader Laurent-Desire Kabila and how the latter got double-crossed by his "senior partners"... Gus