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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (26295)	4/21/2002 3:23:10 AM
From: BigBull	Respond to of 281500

Re. NYT report on Jenin: Nice to see the NYT sticking to the 4w's of reporting - mostly. Who, what, where, and when. ;o} I found it interesting that Jenin was mainly an IDF reservist fight. Bet that got noticed at more than a few Arab HQ's. At least 1,000 Israeli soldiers joined in the attack, mostly reservists, supported by specialized units. Israeli officials and Palestinians in the camp estimated that the soldiers were battling about 200 Palestinian gunmen, representing all Palestinian factions. Members of the Islamic groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad fought alongside members of the Palestinian security forces, with whom they had sometimes clashed in the past.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (26295)	4/21/2002 8:17:35 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Respond to of 281500

In the beginning, Palestinian fighters thought that the Israeli troops would do little more than push into one area and then depart, as they had done twice before this year. This doesn't seem to correspond to what I've been reading in Le Figaro (though I'm citing from the paper copy I receive, with several days delay.) There, the reporting has seemed more balanced lately, with quotations from Palestinians that show both sides to the invasion - both the civilian tragedies as well as what the fighters were up to. In particular, one woman whose apartment was demolished said that the fighters were well prepared for the Israelis and fully expected them. She mentioned how they fabricated thousands of bombs and systematically booby-trapped roads, doors, walls, windows. She even mentioned the amusing detail about "everyone stocked up on extra cell phone batteries". She herself claimed not to be involved in any of this, her background showed (like a surprisingly high percentage of Palestinians I've seen quoted) a fairly high level of education, with a degree in English. I have to believe that the "brigades" or whatever they were knew what they were doing, even though they may not quite have expected Tsahal to follow through as fully as they did. A picture is becoming clearer of what an out and out battle it really was, right in the midst of civilians unfortunately.