Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Scoobah who wrote (1551)	2/3/2002 11:37:16 AM
From: Scoobah	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

DEBKAfile Palestinian Source: Palestinians Decide Sharon Here to Stay 3 February: Over the weekend, the Palestinians maintained a high level of violence against Israeli targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – focusing now on rocket, grenade, shooting and bombing attacks and attempted intrusions of settlements in the Gaza Strip. At the same time, a senior official Palestinian Authority official, talking to DEBKAfile in Ramallah Saturday night, February 2, registered some changing Palestinian perceptions on certain issues: Ariel Sharon: We now understand that our campaign to unseat Ariel Sharon, which worked against at least two of his predecessors, is a non-starter for the time being. We accept that he takes all the policy decisions and that he is the Bush team’s single preferred opposite number in the US-Israeli working relationship. This is what brought Abu Mazen (Arafat’s unofficial deputy Mahmoud Abbas), Mohammed Rashid (his top financial adviser) and Abu Ala (the Palestinian legislation Speaker, Ahmed Qorei) to call on Sharon at his Jerusalem home (last Wednesday, January 3). DEBKAfile’s political sources note that the interview took place at the end of the second month of Arafat’s confinement to his compound in Ramallah, hemmed in by an Israeli tank force. Yet his virtual house arrest was not an issue in his top aides’ encounter with Sharon, any more than it was when Qorei met foreign minister Shimon Peres in New York Saturday. The Palestinians have grasped that this specific point would have to be addressed to the White House, to which they have no access. Washington: We’re in a tight spot in our relations with the Americans and we are preparing an all-out effort to restore our communications. We might have to meet some of their terms, but certainly not all of them. Shimon Peres: No one in the Palestinian leadership wants to listen to his ideas any longer. In general, we feel he has led us up the garden path. We’re sure he is not one of Sharon’s strategic players. AbuAla is the only one who listens to him, but without agreeing. BinyaminBen Eliezer: We don’t entertain much hope of him as Labor leader, or even of the party itself. As things stand, Labor has very little say in national policy-making. Europe: We don’t quite understand what they want. In the last six months, they appear muddled and contradict themselves. Just as Peres follows Sharon’s lead, the Europeans are sitting on America’s tail, only they hate to admit it. Military (Terror) Campaign: That is not up to the executive branch on our side. All these decisions are the sole province of our president, Yasser Arafat. Other: Our Palestinian source declined to go on record on the issues of Arafat’s displacement as chairman of the Palestinian Authority, its links with the Hizballah, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the failed Karine-A arms smuggling attempt and the likelihood of a regional war erupting. ___________________________________

To: Scoobah who wrote (1551)	2/3/2002 11:52:30 AM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Respond to of 32591

Hizbollah Says Bush Is 'Great Satan' By REUTERS Filed at 11:33 a.m. ET BEIRUT (Reuters) - A senior Hizbollah leader lashed out against President Bush Sunday, labeling him the ``Great Satan'' and dismissing U.S. accusations that the Lebanese guerrilla group is ``terrorist'' organization. ``Bush is faithful to Satan, was his devotee, and is the greatest devotee in a leadership thirsty for killing and blood and aggression,'' Hizbollah's deputy secretary-general Sheikh Naeem Kassem told a rally. Kassem's comments are the first from the Shi'ite Muslim group since Bush accused Hizbollah of being part of a ''terrorist underworld'' in his State of the Union address Tuesday. Bush also called Iran, Iraq and North Korea an ``axis of evil,'' raising fears the United States was preparing to widen the war on terror, launched after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, outside Afghanistan. ``The evil of Bush, the Great Satan, will not be limited to our region but include the world,'' said Kassem. The United States has long deemed Syrian and Iranian-backed Hizbollah, which helped drive Israel out of south Lebanon after a 22-year occupation, a ``terrorist'' organization and has asked the Lebanese government to freeze the group's assets. Lebanon has refused, defending Hizbollah as legitimate resistance against Israeli occupation. Kassem said Washington was using the anti-terrorism banner to defend Israeli occupation of Arab land. ``The resistance will remain resistance even if America calls it terrorism and Israel will remain terrorist even if America gives it the right to kill for the sake of aggression and occupation of land,'' Kassem said. Hizbollah continues to attack Israeli troops in the Shebaa Farms, a disputed area on the border between Lebanon, Israel and Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which it has vowed to liberate. Lebanon and Syria claim the Shebaa Farms is still occupied Lebanese soil but the United Nations, which has certified Israel's withdrawal from south Lebanon as complete, considers it Syrian territory captured by Israel in 1967. nytimes.com

To: Scoobah who wrote (1551)	2/3/2002 12:02:03 PM
From: HH	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

Clintonism shredded.... recap 'Bush will no longer let Arafat get away with talking peace by day and engaging in terror by night. Saudi Arabia will not be forgiven for jumping in bed with the anti-American Iraq and Iran; or North Korea, for selling those two nations missiles and weapons of mass destruction. Washington’s response to the formation of a Saudi-Iranian-Iraqi-Syrian-Hizballah-Palestinian bloc was swift and clear: a new pro-American alliance made up of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Turkey' .......We draw a line in the sand..... I am confident that we are stronger and will prevail. Those fatcat Saudi's will soon regret who their bedpartners are. Let them twist in the wind. I think what I have learned more than anything in this state of affairs is a renewed admiration for Israel and her restrained strength. As a counterpart, a loathing for the weak-spined Saudi pretenders of Royalty. I have a friend who went to Saudi Arabia during DesertStorm and the Saudi's were falling all over themselves to seek protection,As soon as the threat was over, my friend said he was treated with no respect as if he were a lacky. Highest regards for Guillianni when he gave their money back. HH