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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (3497)	3/31/2002 12:38:11 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

As two weak men act tough, the extremists impose their will . It began with teens throwing rocks. Now war looms. Peter Beaumont in Ramallah asks how this crisis could happen Observer Worldview Sunday March 31, 2002 The Observer The road that leads to Yasser Arafat's West Bank headquarters in Ramallah climbs from the city centre past hillside suburbs where the wealthiest of Palestinians reside. At the apex of the hill you turn a corner. Then you see the wall of Arafat's compound and its massive gate. The Israeli army didn't bother with the gate. The road that leads to Arafat's compound is also the road that leads to war. The question is: how did it come to this? One partial answer is a prediction from the years before the Oslo peace process collapsed. Both sides expected the greatest danger to arise when the leaders sat down to discuss the most difficult issues that had been put carefully to one side: a final settlement that would resolve once and for all whether (and how many) Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return, the status of Jerusalem and its holy sites, and how much of the territories still under Israeli occupation would be returned. This was made explicit to me in the first few weeks of the intifada. In autumn 2000 I ran into the Tanzim militia leader, Marwan Bargouti, at a funeral in the main cemetery in Ramallah. I found him standing beneath a tree to one side of a group of mourners, a little way from a line of a dozen open graves, dug in anticipation of the dead to come. He told me then, with what I regarded as a strange optimism, that violence 'could stop tomorrow'. He was not alone. Leaders of the uprising told me the same story. So too did Israeli army officers and political advisers, though with a different slant. The message was that the violence and the rioting were part of a negotiating process for a final settlement that stalled at Camp David. No one wanted, or expected a wider war. But it has come. I was last in Israel and Palestine in January. I missed Bargouti, but this time I caught a fleeting glimpse of his wife, again in Ramallah, and at a funeral. This time it was for Wafa Idris, the first woman suicide bomber of the uprising. By then the intifada had been utterly transformed by increments of ever increasing violence. The stone-throwing boys - the focus of the first months of the intifada, who were shot down by Israeli soldiers in their scores - had been replaced by gunmen in their late teens and early twenties from the militias. Their place had been taken in turn by the police and security officers of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Suicide bombings, at first occasional and sporadic over the summer months, became more frequent. In response, Israeli tanks and armoured carriers raided the cities of the West Bank and Gaza in increasingly large numbers. The violence got worse. What had started as a violent negotiation over a stalled peace process, by late last year had taken on a dangerous new meaning for both sides. The issue now is who can inflict the greatest pain. And at stake, say the hardliners in each camp, is the very existence of their peoples in the Promised Land. It is a view that has been articulated most forcefully on the Israeli side by those like the dove-turned-hawk historian Benny Morris who now believes that Arafat is determined to claw back not just the West Bank but all of the state of Israel. On the Palestinian side a similar distrust was evident. Sharon, Palestinians believed, was bent on dismantling the Palestinian Authority at any cost and fracturing its leadership to leave in its place an archipelago of Palestinian cities, locally administered, but without any functions of a real or putative state. But if there was a turning point that made the Israeli assault of the last few days inevitable, then what was it? That turning point, Sharon and his aides have insisted, came on Wednesday with the suicide bombing of a Passover seder meal at a hotel in Netanya that left 22 Israelis dead. It was an act of shocking brutality calculated to cause the maximum outrage. But it has been one 'turning point' in many. And one atrocity in many committed by both sides. Israel's Housing Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Natan Sharansky told me last autumn that the moment of truth had really come on 1 June last year with the suicide bombing of a queue for the Pacha nightclub at Tel Aviv's dolphinarium, when 22 young Israelis were killed. Then Sharon and his cabinet had come to a critical decision. In their long deliberations they ordered the Israeli Defence Forces to draw up a plan to dismantle the security apparatus of the Palestinian Authority. It was a plan for a war against the Authority that would strip Arafat of all his power and leave him utterly isolated. Under United States pressure, that plan was put on hold. But with each exchange of attacks - with each assassination by the Israelis of alleged terrorists and each retaliation by Palestinian bombers and gunmen - the pressure on Sharon to act on it became more pressing. But the key to the increasing ferocity of the last few weeks is to be found in the weakness of both Sharon and Arafat. It has been the strange conundrum of this unfolding crisis over 18 months that, as both sides have talked and acted ever tougher, both leaders have been personally weakened by their ever hardening positions, prey to the extremists. Arafat's position has been subtly eroded by the months of intifada that have given renewed power and strength to those radical Palestinian organisations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad that Arafat himself has felt most threatened by and tried for so long to suppress. For Sharon too, the problems have become equally pressing. Faced with a collapse in confidence in the ability of the 74-year-old former general to deliver on his election pledge to bring security, Sharon has at each turn opted for more extreme retaliation. And hovering in the wings is the figure of Sharon's great rival Binyamin Netanyahu, now openly advocating the expulsion of Arafat and the reconquest of the West Bank and Gaza to force a separation of Israelis and Palestinians. These dangerous weaknesses are a recipe for a deepening disaster. guardian.co.uk

To: Mephisto who wrote (3497)	3/31/2002 12:57:22 AM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

There will be repercussions for weeks! Pat

To: Mephisto who wrote (3497)	3/31/2002 1:12:05 AM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Israeli Forces Overrun Arafat's HQ Sat Mar 30,12:55 AM ET By HADEEL WAHDAN, Associated Press Writer RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Israeli troops backed by tanks swarmed into Yasser Arafat's headquarters Friday, punching holes in walls and fighting room to room as the Palestinian leader huddled in a windowless office and made frantic appeals to world leaders by cell phone. Early Saturday morning, Israeli tanks also rumbled into a Palestinian town adjoining biblical Bethlehem where Christians are observing Easter weekend, but did not enter Bethlehem itself, Palestinians said. Five Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed as Israeli forces took over the West Bank city of Ramallah and Arafat's sprawling compound, where 25 Palestinians were wounded and 60 detained. In a Palestinian attack in Jerusalem, an 18-year-old woman blew herself up at the entrance of a supermarket, killing herself and two Israelis. The Al-Aqsa Brigades, a militia close to Arafat's Fatah (news - web sites) movement, said it sent the bomber. The Ramallah operation was described by Israeli officials as the first stage of a much larger assault aimed at destroying the "terrorist infrastructure" that Israelis blame for the hundreds of deaths they have suffered in 18 months of relentless violence. More than a thousand Palestinians also have died. Israel said it had no plans to kill Arafat but wanted to isolate him. He scoffed at the assurance. "They were shelling us continuously in the last 24 hours," Arafat said in a telephone interview with CNN, during which machine-gun fire could be heard in the background. "They are using all the American weapons against us," he added. The United States supplies Israel with the bulk of its military hardware. Throughout the day, Israeli tanks shelled buildings in the compound and soldiers entered buildings and traded fire with Palestinians. By nightfall, Arafat was trapped in his three-story office building, which was plunged into darkness when soldiers cut off electricity and destroyed a generator. The boxed in leader followed events on television, giving phone interviews to TV channels and speaking by cell phone to more than a dozen world leaders. Arafat pleaded for immediate help, but was not given real promises, one of his aides said. In New York, the U.N. Security Council convened an emergency session Friday to consider the upsurge in violence. An Arab group demanded in a resolution a Mideast cease-fire and that Israel withdraw troops from Palestinian cities, including Ramallah. Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) held a half hour conversation with Arafat during which he delivered a stern message to curtail terrorism, U.S. officials said. The Palestinians said Arafat also spoke several other leaders, including U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites), Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites), Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Arab League leader Amr Moussa, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and the heads of various African nations. A submachine gun placed on the table in front of him, Arafat was defiant. "They want me under arrest or in exile or dead, but I am telling them, I prefer to be martyred," he said in a telephone interview with Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television channel. "May God make us martyrs." In yet another interview, with Jordanian state-run television, Arafat described Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) as "bloodthirsty" and bent on "blowing up" a collective Arab peace initiative endorsed Thursday. He added that the United States "could have ordered him (Sharon) to end the attacks. Why are they quiet despite all that is taking place?" In Washington, Powell said Sharon had told the United States that Arafat would not be harmed. Powell urged the Israeli prime minister to use restraint and consider the consequences of escalation. But he added: "Let's be clear about what brought it all to a halt - terrorism." During the Security Council meeting, Deputy U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham warned that Arafat should not be harmed. "Chairman Arafat is the leader of the Palestinian people. His leadership is now, and will be, central to any meaningful effort to restore calm," Cunningham said. Despite the violence, U.S. truce envoy Anthony Zinni continued his mission, meeting with Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Friday and speaking to Arafat by phone. Erekat said Israel's "endgame is to kill Arafat," an accusation that Sharon spokesman Ranaan Gissin dismissed as "nonsense." The latest escalation began with a suicide bombing Wednesday in an Israeli hotel banquet hall that killed 22 diners during a Passover Seder, the ritual meal at the start of the weeklong Jewish holiday. It was followed by attacks on two Jewish settlements Thursday and Friday that killed six Israelis. On Friday morning, after an all-night session, Sharon's Cabinet declared Arafat an "enemy" and said the Palestinian leader would be completely isolated. Israel began calling up reserve soldiers, and the mobilization was expected to reach 20,000 troops, the largest in a decade. Hours later, Israeli troops and two dozen tanks swarmed into Arafat's walled compound - an area the size of a city block with a jumble of several interconnected buildings, surrounded by a high wall with three gates. Israeli troops know every inch of Arafat's three story-office building - it was the Israeli military headquarters in Ramallah until Israel withdrew from the city in 1995. The bottom floor has guard rooms, the middle floor houses Arafat's office, dining room and sleeping quarters, and the top has more offices. In Friday's assault, heavy tank and gunfire hit the building's first and third floors, Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said - the first time Israel directly targeted the building. Israeli snipers took positions on rooftops, and tanks shelled the intelligence headquarters in the complex. Israeli troops broke into structures adjacent to Arafat's offices and punched holes in walls, moving room to room toward his building. At one point, they broke through a wall into the office building itself and traded fire with Palestinians through the hole, the Palestinians said. But the military said its soldiers did not enter the building. Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Eitan, commander of Israeli troops in the West Bank, said troops were in control of the whole compound except Arafat's offices. He said large amounts of weapons were found and about 60 people were detained. Abed Rabbo told CNN those detained were unarmed, mostly secretaries and drivers. Palestinian security officials in the West Bank town of Beit Jala, which borders Bethlehem, said an Israeli armored column entered early Saturday morning but did not immediately move on to Bethlehem itself. An army statement said troops took up positions in Beit Jala after Palestinians there shot at the nearby Jewish neighborhood of Gilo, which lies in a disputed part of Jerusalem claimed by both sides. The military said shots were also fired at Israeli troops driving on a road in a valley below Beit Jala. The statement said soldiers also entered Palestinian territory near the West Bank town of Nablus and arrested a suspected militant from the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Earlier this month, the Israeli military carried out an extensive operation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites), sending 20,000 soldiers into towns, villages and refugee camps in a hunt for Palestinian militants. That operation was the biggest since Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Zinni, the U.S. envoy, had reported some progress toward a cease-fire this week. Israel had accepted Zinni's timetable for implementing a truce with some reservations, while the Palestinians sought more clarifications. Thursday evening, with Israeli retaliation for the Passover bombing already imminent, Arafat said he was ready to immediately implement the U.S. truce plan without conditions. But he stopped short of formally declaring a cease-fire. Sharon later said Israel had sought a cease-fire but only received "terrorism, terrorism and more terrorism." story.news.yahoo.com