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

To: frankw1900 who wrote (58473)	11/23/2002 9:15:47 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

UPI hears: - For the anti-Iraq war crowd in Washington the danger is not just the war itself but its unintended consequences. A case in point is the possibility that Israel may launch strikes against "selected targets" in Syria and against Hezbollah. A senior Israeli source conceded that Israel could take action against Damascus because of the regime's continued support for Palestinian extremist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant Islamists, forced the Israelis to pull out of South Lebanon, and Israelis fear that it could use the war to pick up where it left off and cross into northern Israel. The Israelis insist they don't want a second front; they already have their hands full in the West Bank. But a pre-emptive strike against Hezbollah is always a possibility, especially before the Israeli elections. Former CIA chief of Arab operations, Bob Baer, predicts that in the event of a U.S. war with Iraq, Israel "will look for quick advantage against Syria" and "will need to do it under the cover" of the larger U.S. operation against Iraq. He added: "It's important for the Israeli agenda to do something about Hezbollah, even if it means dismembering Syria." A State Dept. official told UPI that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had "made very clear" to Deputy Defense Security Paul Wolfowitz that they are strongly opposed to Israel entering the war. But Judith Yaphe, former CIA analyst and Middle East expert at National Defense University, said that Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has made clear "he can't stay out and he won't stay out (of the war)." -0- The suicide bomb in the Jerusalem bus on Thursday that killed 11 Israelis and the Hamas bomber is likely has increased talk of expelling Yasser Arafat in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's hawkish cabinet, a well-informed Israeli source says. He says Sharon, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, and Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are "just looking for an excuse to get rid of Arafat" and send him into exile. And now there is no opposing voice from Labor members of the coalition such as Shimon Peres. Only last week, Hamas and Fatah met in Cairo to discuss halting suicide bombings against Israeli civilians in order to regain the support of world opinion and instead confine their efforts to Israeli military targets. But Gal Luft, an Israeli intelligence specialist said, "There are probably too many Palestinian "free agents" roaming about for any "policy of restraint" on terror to have a chance to take hold. One former Israeli military source told United Press International that the Nov. 15 attack by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Hebron in which 12 Israelis, including nine soldiers and three well-trained settlers were killed was a "perfectly planned military ambush," and an act of guerilla warfare rather than terrorism.