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Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Machaon who wrote (321)	11/16/2001 10:05:51 AM
From: Scoobah	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32591

Nasrallah: Hezbollah rejected secret U.S. reconciliation offer haaretzdaily.com Friday, November 16, 2001 Kislev 1, 5762 Israel Time: 17:02 (GMT+2) 14:32 16/11/2001 Last update - 15:49 16/11/2001 U.S. would have forgiven group for alleged attacks on Westerners in exchange for ending hostility against Israel. By Reuters BEIRUT - Hezbollah said on Friday it had rejected a secret U.S. offer to "forgive" alleged involvement in attacks on Westerners in exchange for ending the guerrillas' hostility towards Israel. In an interview in the Kuwaiti Al-Rai Al-Am daily, Hezbollah spiritual leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said the offer followed suicide attacks on U.S. targets that killed thousands of people on September 11 and sparked Washington's anti-terror war. "The United States thought we'd be stricken with fear," he said. "They came to us thinking there was a chance we'd give after September 11 what we'd refused before." He said unnamed intermediaries had offered to "forgive Hezbollah its past", including the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 people and has helped make Hezbollah a fixture on U.S. lists of "terrorist" organizations. In return, Hezbollah would distinguish between Islam and "terrorism", withdraw from the Arab-Israeli conflict, cut ties to Syria and radical Palestinian groups that fight Israel, and turn over information Washington assumed it had about militant Islamist groups, Nasrallah said. "Of course we rejected all these offers because we believe it's a political bomb aimed at finishing off Hezbollah," he said, adding that Washington's recent decision to ask Lebanon to freeze Hezbollah's assets was a response to being snubbed. Washington also suspects Hezbollah, whose main backers are Iran and Syria, of kidnapping Westerners during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. The United States intervened in the conflict to back a government of pro-Israeli Lebanese Christian militiamen. Lebanon has condemned the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, but says it will not cooperate with U.S. financial sanctions against Hezbollah, which was primarily responsible for ending Israel's 22-year-long military presence in south Lebanon last year. Hezbollah has vowed to drive Israeli troops from the Shebaa Farms, a disputed patch of land near the Lebanese border and the Golan Heights, and kidnapped three Israeli soldiers there in a raid last year. The three soldiers - Adi Avitan, Benny Avraham and Omar Souad - were abducted in October 2000 on the Israel-Lebanon border by Lebanese-based Hezbollah guerillas believed to be disguised as UN troops. Israel has recently declared the three to be fallen in action. Hezbollah also kidnapped Israeli businessman Elhanan Tanenbaum. The Shiite Muslim organization claims the Israeli businessman is a Mossad agent. Nasrallah said Hezbollah had also rejected a U.S. offer after the Israeli withdrawal from the south that entailed quitting its campaign in Shebaa Farms in exchange for political recognition and the release of Arab prisoners in Israel. The United Nations has certified Israel's pullout from Lebanon as complete, and does not recognize claims by Beirut, Damascus and Hezbollah that Shebaa Farms is Lebanese territory. Nasrallah: Israel ready to negotiate for soldiers; so are we On Thursday, Nasrallah said that Israel had returned to negotiations on a prisoner exchange involving the three IDF soldiers kidnapped by the group, and said that his party was still ready to negotiate. "Israel has returned to give and take [negotiations] through intermediaries. We are ready to negotiate," Nasrallah told the Kuwait's Al-Rai Al-Am newspaper. He did not elaborate. Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer recently told reporters that Israel had proof from an eye-witness that the three soldiers were no longer alive. "Someone saw" the captured soldiers' bodies, Ben-Eliezer said. Hezbollah has refused to disclose any information on the soldiers until Israel releases some Lebanese prisoners it has been holding for up to 23 years. Driving a hard bargain, Hezbollah has told German mediators that it wanted Israel to release Arab prisoners as well for a prisoner swap to go through. Israel has freed Arab prisoners in the past in exchange for the remains of its fallen soldiers. "We had decided from the start not to talk about the situation of the three Israeli soldiers. Let the enemy announce they are alive, dead, half dead or half alive - whatever it wants," Nasrallah said in the interview.