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Reuters. 24 September 2002. Sharon's plan to crush Hamas doomed, leader says. DAMASCUS -- A senior Hamas leader said on Tuesday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's threat to crush his Islamic militant organisation was doomed to failure. "It is not Sharon's first threat. What more can Sharon do than he has already done? His threats don't frighten our people," Hamas politburo head Khaled Meshaal told Reuters in an interview. Sharon threatened this week to strike Hamas in its main powerbase in the Gaza Strip after Israel's army put Palestinian President Yasser Arafat under siege at his West Bank offices. On Tuesday, Israeli troops raided two Gaza City suburbs, killing nine Palestinians and blowing up metal factories, several of which the army said made weapons for Hamas. "This (threat) reveals Sharon's impotence. Sharon and his predecessors have been trying to end the Intifada and resistance through their bloody and terrorist means but despite this they have failed," Meshaal said. "God willing these threats will not succeed. Nothing can stop the Intifada and the resistance except the end of the Israeli occupation." Meshaal, who survived a botched Israeli assassination attempt in Amman in 1997, said Hamas would not stop its suicide attacks because it saw no other means of ending the occupation he said began at Israel's founding 54 years ago. "The resistance, in all its forms including the martyrdom operations, is the only means that can force the Israeli enemy to withdraw because it is the only language that the occupation understands. We have no other option but resistance," he said. "The martyrdom attacks will continue until the withdrawal of the occupiers. This is our legitimate right as Palestinians," said Meshaal, adding that a decade of He said Palestinians were willing to blow themselves up because they had no sophisticated weapons which could challenge Israel's well-equipped army. "It is inconceivable to criticise the victims for blowing themselves up while the Zionist lasher is not criticised for using F-16 fighter jets and one-tonne bombs against civilian areas," he said. Meshaal also said the United States would pay a high price for its unwavering support of Israel against Palestinians and Arabs and cautioned Washington that any military adventure in Iraq would be costly. "America, through its bias and aggressive behaviour, will provoke a wave of what they call terrorism far greater than what exists now. But we in Hamas will stick to our policy of fighting the Zionist Israeli occupation in the occupied territories." On Iraq, Meshaal said a U.S. strike "will definitely generate an open-ended reaction in the Arab and Islamic world and will increase the nation's spite for the Americans." "Nobody can predict or foresee the consequences because the American provocations and impertinence have reached an unbearable level. America is behaving in a barbaric way." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ProletarianNews http://www.utopia2000.org --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bacIlu Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
