-Caveat Lector-
Copyright 2000 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 12-Oct-0* ***
Title: POLITICS-ISRAEL: Israelis Think Peace Process Is Dead
By Ben Lynfield
JERUSALEM, Oct 12 (IPS) -The killing of two Israeli soldiers in
Ramallah Thursday by a mob of Palestinians, and Israel's attack on
Palestinian Authority targets in the West Bank town, is
accentuating the crisis gripping the beleaguered Israeli peace
camp as Israeli-Palestinian fighting escalates.
Hours after the killings, black smoke was billowing from
central Ramallah after Israeli helicopters attacked in a major
escalation that recalled Israel's tactics during its 1982 invasion
of Lebanon.
Peace Now, the leading peace movement in Israel, denounced the
killing of the soldiers as a "heinous crime." It said it had no
immediate statement on the Israeli helicopter attacks.
"Nothing but a full condemnation by the Palestinian Authority
will salvage any trust of the Israeli public in the peace
process," said Didi Remez, a Peace Now spokesman.
Peace Now however, had not denounced the use of exaggerated
Israeli military means against the Palestinians during the latest
round of violence, which started on September 28.
The Israeli peace camp had staked its political credibility on
the continuation of a partnership with Palestinian leader, Yasser
Arafat, to build on the 1993 Oslo self-rule agreement and
transform it into a full-fledged peace treaty.
But that approach seems to be going up in smoke after the
killings of the soldiers by the mob. In the charged, insular, anti-
Arafat climate inside Israel, the peace camp is being portrayed as
having been naive and misguided.
While much of the world has viewed the Palestinians as those
suffering the most in the conflict, Israelis view the Palestinians
as aggressors who are perpetuating the violence in order to extort
gains in world opinion and at the negotiating table.
Liberals, often attacked during the best of times, are now
clearly on the defensive and even sound as if they are apologising
for advocating peace with the Palestinians.
Zehava Galon, chairperson of the left-wing Meretz faction in
the Knesset, took issue yesterday with mounting calls for a
"national emergency government" that would include the hard-line
Likud party and its leader, Ariel Sharon, saying that would spell
the end of the peace process.
"We are among those who believe that we have a very, very
problematic partner but we have no other choice," she said.
"Yasser Arafat must make every effort to calm the territories.
We won't accept such behaviour. We won't accept harming our
soldiers or civilians."
But the killing of the Israeli soldiers comes after 15 days of
violence during which 97 people died, 90 of them Palestinians.
Another 2,000 people were injured.
The clashes that were triggered by the visit of Sharon to a
compound housing the third holiest mosque in Islam, The Noble
Sanctuary, which is known to Jews as the Temple Mount.
The soldiers in Ramallah were killed after Palestinian police
stopped them at a checkpoint and took them to a police station
downtown, according to the Israeli army.
A mob surrounded the building and attacked them. It was not
immediately clear whether the police had sought to protect the
soldiers or had allowed the attackers to gain access to them. The
soldiers had erred while en route to an assignment in the Ramallah
area, Israeli state run radio said.
The Palestinian Authority termed the incident "regrettable" but
said it was a result of Israel's escalation of the fighting,
including the use of helicopters and tanks. The PA said the
soldiers were part of an undercover unit that was on a mission
inside Ramallah.
It was the most lethal incident for Israelis since the violence
started on Sept 28 and it stunned the country, which had hitherto
been fighting a virtually casualty free war with the Palestinians,
who were armed mainly with stones and Kalashnikovs.
Palestinian proponents of dialogue with Israelis are also
despairing, saying they are disappointed the Israeli peace
movement has largely kept silent about the army's shooting
practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which have drawn
criticism from Amnesty International for fatal shootings of
demonstrators and others when their lives were not in danger.
The army says the soldiers shoot only to defend their lives.
One of the victims of the Israeli shootings was a 12 year old
boy, Mohammad al Dura, who was sheltering from the shooting with
his father when he was killed by an Israeli sniper.
Communications Minister Binyamin, Ben-Eliezer, told reporters
Thursday that the Oslo process that launched Palestinian self-rule
in 1993 was "gone".
"I believe this process no longer exists. Arafat is continuing
along the path of confrontations and violence. We have a very
strong [military] establishment to give a response. This is a new
situation and we must prepare for a conflict, possibly a
protracted one."
Gideon Ezra, a legislator for the right-wing Likud party, said
the violence had vindicated its hard-line stance against the Oslo
process.
"We always knew Arafat was a terrorist, a killer of Jews
everywhere," said Ezra, former deputy chief of the Shin Bet
intelligence agency. "He is not a partner. The army should take
off the gloves. Any Palestinian holding weapons is a threat."
In Beit Sahour, a Palestinian town south of Jerusalem, Elias
Rashmawi, the founder of a 12 year old dialogue group with
Israelis, said that Israeli peace groups "seem to be in a conflict
between their beliefs and whether to support their government. I
hate to think that these groups aren't thinking of what is
happening on our side." (END/IPS/bl/sm/00)
Origin: Harare/POLITICS-ISRAEL/
----
[c] 2000, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
All rights reserved
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