Sharon vows war ‘to the bitter end
MSNBC NEWS SERVICES
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JERUSALEM, Oct. 17 — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon blamed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for Wednesday’s assassination of a Cabinet minister and vowed to wage “war to the bitter end” against terrorists. The possibility of stiff retaliation is likely to roil U.S. efforts to calm the region as it struggles to retain Arab support for its own war on terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
ONE OR MORE gunmen shot and killed Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi with three bullets to the head and neck in Jerusalem hotel. A radical Palestinian faction said it carried out the assassination to avenge the killing of its leader by Israel two months ago. The killing of Zeevi, 75, who advocated the ouster of all Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, threatened to re-ignite the cycle of violence that has wracked the holy land for the last year.
It came at a time when the U.S.-supported Sept. 26 cease-fire appeared to be holding in many areas and a day after Sharon outlined his position in future peace talks, saying he was willing to negotiate an accord that includes a Palestinian state, but would dictate strict limitations that Palestinians have already rejected.
Following the attack, Sharon convened Cabinet ministers for urgent consultations. According to a government source quoted by Reuters, the prime minister equated the impact of the assassination to the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes on New York and Washington.
“From today everything has changed just as President Bush said after the 11th of September,” the source quoted Sharon as telling senior security and cabinet officials.
DELICATE DIPLOMACY
Following the hijacking attacks on New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, the United States declared a war on terrorism while announcing that Saudi exile Osama bin Laden was the prime suspect in the strikes that killed more than 5,000 people.
On Oct. 7, U.S. forces launched airstrikes on Afghanistan, which has offered protection to bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network.
But the military campaign has required a delicate diplomatic dance by Washington as it needs support for a range of Muslim nations, most of whom are hostile to Israel.
For example, President Bush said last week that Syria has expressed a desire to help with the anti-terror coalition and “we’ll give them an opportunity to do so.”
But Syria is also the base of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s killing.
Earlier this month, Sharon was forced to apologize after he expressed irritation about the U.S. courting of Arab nations, suggesting it was similiar to efforts to placate Germany before World War II.
PFLP CLAIM
In a first response to Zeevi’s assassination, Israel reimposed some travel restrictions in the West Bank it had lifted earlier this week as part of a Sept. 26 truce deal that had appeared to be taking hold in many areas.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s government said in a statement that it condemned the killing and remained committed to a truce with Israel. Palestinian security officials said Arafat has ordered the arrests of the suspected assailants.
In the past year of fighting, Israel has killed more than 50 Palestinians, including several bystanders, in such attacks.
The highest-ranking target so far has been Mustafa Zibri, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who was killed Aug. 27 in an Israeli rocket attack on his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah. The PFLP on Wednesday said the killing of Zeevi was revenge for the death of its leader, widely known as Abu Ali Mustafa.
“Sharon has to know that Palestinian blood is not cheap and that those who target the leaders of the Palestinian people are not safe from being targeted and assassinated themselves,” the PFLP said in a leaflet sent to news agencies. Sharon said earlier this week that he would not abandon the targeted killings, despite the truce and sharp U.S. condemnation of the practice.
Zeevi was staying with his wife at the Hyatt Hotel in Jerusalem on Wednesday. At about 7 a.m., he was returning from the hotel restaurant to his eighth-floor room when he was attacked outside his room, police said. He was shot three times in the head and face. Zeevi’s wife, Yael, found him in the hallway, lying on his back in a pool of blood, witnesses said.
A fellow hotel guest, Rev. David Hocking, said he rushed into the hall after hearing Mrs. Zeevi’s screams. “I saw her kneeling over him. He had obviously been shot. The blood was everywhere,” said Hocking, who is leading a Christian tour group from Orange County, Calif.
Zeevi was clinically dead when he arrived at Hadassah Hospital, said Shmuel Shapira, the deputy director. Doctors managed to restore a heartbeat at one point, but after about three hours abandoned efforts to revive Zeevi.
A year of tumult.
At Ein el-Hilweh, Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, about 40 PFLP supporters with guns and pictures of Zibri danced and distributed sweets after hearing about Zeevi’s shooting. Cheers intensified with the news that he had died.
MEMORIAL SESSION
Addressing a special session of parliament, Sharon pointed the finger at Arafat. “The responsibility is Arafat’s alone, as someone who has carried out and is carrying out acts of terrorism and never took steps against it,” he said.
“We will carry out a war to the bitter end against the terrorists, those who help them and those who dispatch them,” the prime minister said. Sharon said that by providing a haven for “murderers,” Arafat’s Palestinian Authority showed that it seeks “the destruction of the state of Israel” and “opposes peace in the deepest sense.”
Britain condemned Zeevi’s killing and called for intensified efforts to revive the Middle East peace process. “The murder this morning is absolutely appalling and it just refocuses the need to get the peace process moving again,” said a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair.
INCONGRUOUS NICKNAME
Zeevi, a retired army general, was widely respected, even by political opponents, for his distinguished war record, but his advocacy of what he called the “transfer” of Palestinians across the borders into neighboring Arab countries was condemned by many as racist.
“I had enormous respect for him even though we didn’t agree on politics,” said Science Minister Matan Vilnai, also a retired general, who served under Zeevi in the paratroops. “His personal loyalty knew no bounds.”
Born in Jerusalem, Zeevi served from 1974 to 1977 as adviser to then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the war against terrorism. He opposed Israel’s 1979 peace treaty with Egypt and in 1988 founded the far-right Moledet Party that called for the “voluntary transfer” of Arabs from Israeli-controlled territory.
Zeevi sparked controversy in July for referring to Palestinians working and living illegally in Israel as “lice” and a “cancer.”
He was widely known by the incongruous nickname “Gandhi,” acquired because his youthful thinness reminded people of the pacifist Indian independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi.
On Monday, Zeevi and other members of the National Union, a bloc of two small parties, said they were quitting Sharon’s government. Zeevi and his allies argued Sharon was succumbing to U.S. pressure and that his policies toward the Palestinians were too soft.
The exit of the National Union, which controls seven seats in the 120-member parliament, did not endanger Sharon’s coalition government. However, Sharon, a hard-liner, now becomes more dependent on the moderate Labor Party.
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