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

To: Scoobah who wrote (583)	11/25/2001 9:49:18 PM
From: Scoobah	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 32591

Background / Zinni heads into the storm By Peter Hirschberg, Ha'aretz Correspondent Anthony Zinni: The U.S. envoy represents the last stage - not the first - of the Bush administration's Mideast involvement. If new U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni had any illusions about the elusiveness of the task that awaits him when he arrives Monday in the region on his cease-fire mission, they would have been rapidly extinguished by the bloody three-day prelude to his visit, in which 12 Palestinians and one Israel have been killed. The swirl of violence continued Sunday, with Israel Defense Forces helicopters and troops mounting a missile attack on Palestinian Authority installations in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for increased Palestinian mortar fire over the last few days. In one such attack, an IDF reservist was killed Saturday night in Gaza. Security along the 1967 Green Line border was also stepped up Sunday in the face of Hamas threats to avenge Israel's assassination of Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, the movement's military-wing leader in the West Bank. Abu Hanoud, whom the army has tried to kill twice in the past, was blown apart when a helicopter targeted his car near the West Bank town of Nablus on Friday night. The Palestinians said the targeting of Abu Hanoud - two of his deputies were also killed in the strike - was a deliberate attempt by Israel to sabotage the cease-fire mission headed by Zinni, and Undersecretary of State William Burns, even before it got underway. "I cannot forecast whether these [U.S.] efforts will succeed because [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon is trying to drown these efforts in a sea of blood," Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told Voice of Palestine radio. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the prevailing view is that the killing of Abu Hanoud is an attempt by Sharon to provoke Hamas into a revenge attack in order to thwart the new American initiative. "The assassination of Abu Hanoud thus places the Hamas leadership in a quandary - if they react with a powerful revenge attack, they will damage Arafat in his talks with Burns and Zinni. But if they fail to react, Hamas' prestige will be hurt," writes Ha'aretz Palestinian affairs commentator Danny Rubinstein. Senior PA officials, writes Rubinstein, were making a concerted effort over the weekend to calm Hamas leaders, "asking them to exercise restraint, at least in the coming days, to show the Americans and world public opinion that the Israelis are the ones carrying out violent acts and trying to bring about a deterioration in the situation." Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, however, defended the assassination Sunday, saying Abu Hanoud had orchestrated suicide bombings in which dozens of Israelis had been killed. Peres told Israel Radio that Abu Hanoud was a "professional terrorist" and that killing him was a legitimate act of self-defense. Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said killing Abu Hanoud was imperative because he had been planning further attacks. He said it was "inconceivable" not to have killed him, even on the eve of the U.S. peace mission. Sharon told the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday that he placed great importance on reaching a cease-fire agreement, but that Zinni's visit was essentially "a test for [PA Chairman Yasser] Arafat and the Palestinian leadership to show whether their intentions really are to advance the diplomatic process." Zinni's two-week sojourn is not expected to be much more than a crash-course in the excruciating nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and an attempt to get to know the two sides. Few expect any results on the ground during his first visit. Both President George Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have made it clear that Zinni's mission represents a greater U.S. commitment to the region and a desire on the part of the administration to see a rapid calming of the conflict, writes Ha'aretz correspondent Nitzan Horowitz. "But Zinni is also the last stage, at least as things stand at present," adds Horowitz. "Powell does not plan to come to the region when the talks reach a more critical phase, and Bush has no intention of operating the way Clinton did and inviting the sides to come and slug it out at Camp David. The administration took a step forward with Powell's speech, and another step in sending Zinni, and it has no plans to go a single step further. This means Zinni is the last stage in the American involvement and that is why the administration attaches such importance to his mission."