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ARAFAT FACES ULTIMATUM
DESPIRE WORLD OPINION, PALESTINIAN ISOLATED
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 11/02:
Political manuevering is intense. The German Chancellor ran to Gaza yesterday
to tell Arafat he would lose European support if he did not comply with Israeli
and American designs, that the Europeans would not support a Palestinian State
set up without Israel's approval, that the Americans were still calling the shots.
This is the same Germany of course that has in recent years provided Israel
with submarines which the Israelis are now feverishly working to convert to carry
nuclear weapons. Shimon Peres then followed to Gaza last night with another
"ultimatum" for Arafat, telling him this time that time really is running out
and Arafat himself could be jettisoned if he didn't do the job he was hired
to do - i.e., control his people, force them to comply with Israeli terms, and
set up an Israeli-inspired Palestinian Statelet everywhere controlled by the
Israelis... whatever bright packaging the whole "deal" could be wrapped up in.
The Clinton/Gore Administration is very much hoping things will quiet down
at least for a few days to get through the election. Gore still hopes to squeak
through, take over the White House, and continue to protect the secrets and legacy
of Clinton. The election timing also explains why American forces throughout
the Middle East region are on highest alert trying to prevent anything else from
happening before November 7th. And the image that there is still hope for some
kind of Israeli-Palestinian "deal", with Barak and Arafat coming to Washington
mid-month, is also one that well serves both Gore and Hillary in the days immediately
ahead.
These two articles help sum up major developments yesterday in Israel and
Palestine:
THREE ISRAELI SOLDIERS KILLED AS MORE BATTLES RAGE
By Phil Reeves
in Bethlehem
The Independent - 2 November 2000: The shadows were beginning to lengthen yesterday
when the percussion of heavy machine-gun fire began to bounce through the low
hills and valleys that surround Bethlehem.
This was not a routine exchange � the low-level fire-fight that happens every
day as Israelis and Palestinians try to resolve on the ground the issues they
could not settle round a negotiating table. Another kind of battle had begun,
not only here but across the occupied territories. By the end of the day three
Israeli soldiers and six Palestinians were dead.
There was a flash and plume of dust from a Palestinian marble factory that stands
above a grove of olive trees, as a missile slammed into its side. An Israeli
helicopter hung above the rooftops, west of the mosques and churches of central
Bethlehem, including the Church of the Nativity, built over the cave where Christ
is said to have been born. A few months ago thousands of Western pilgrims filed
in to kneel and kiss the holy spot. Now it is on the edge of a war; now the place
really needs the prayers.
The guns banged away � heavy machine-guns answered by automatic weapons, accompanied
every now and then by a deep slamming noise, which sounded like tanks firing.
It came from around the apartment blocks of Gilo, the Jewish settlement built
on occupied Arab land which the Israelis see as a neighbourhood of south Jerusalem.
It came from Beit Jala, the old Christian Palestinian village which tumbles down
the hillside opposite and where the Tanzim militia � mostly Muslims � appear
to have opened a front in their war with Israel.
And the gunfire came from el-Khadr, another Arab town on Bethlehem's western
edge. Perhaps this was where it all started yesterday. The Israelis said two
infantrymen were killed after being ambushed by Palestinian militias. Even beforehand
the army had an operation aimed at crushing the Palestinian gunmen. The next
stage will be worse. Israeli sources say paratroopers will flood into the zone
over the next week to suppress the uprising.
The third Israeli soldier was killed at a settlement near Jericho, prompting
the army to fire tank shells into the West Bank town. Eight soldiers have been
lost in the past five weeks � including two killed by a Palestinian mob in Ramallah.
The latest deaths are unlikely to go unpunished. The politically enfeebled Ehud
Barak, the Israeli Prime Minister, cannot afford to do otherwise.
The ferocity of yesterday's firefight suggested vengeance had begun. When we
were taken by a Palestinian on to the roof of a seven-storey building in Bethlehem
for a better view, an Israeli soldier appeared from an outpost below. He looked
up calmly, aimed and fired. The bullet singed past a few feet away. The Israelis
do not like people on rooftops, perhaps because they fear gunmen or spotters,
so they force them down.
This low-level war may be getting fewer headlines but it is getting nastier.
A bomb in west Jerusalem injured one person. It happened inside the 1967 Green
Line, in Israel itself.
Shimon Peres, the former Israeli prime minister, was due to leave last night
for a meeting with Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader. Mr Barak said that
the Nobel peace laureate would give Mr Arafat a clear message that he must immediately
end the violence. "Shimon Peres is going to Gaza and he will bring from here
our clear message to chairman Arafat that the violence cannot go on and it is
up to the Palestinian Authority to put an end to this violence."
Israel tells Hebronites to leave homes after day of heavy fighting
By JOSHUA BRILLIANT
JERUSALEM, Nov. 1 (UPI - 1 Nov) - Israel's secret inner cabinet late Wednesday
night decided on what the prime minister's office called "a series of
measures," following a day of intensive fighting that killed three Israeli
soldiers and at least four Palestinians.
The prime minister's office said it would reveal no more details. There
was no apparent immediate action, possibly because Barak was waiting for
former Prime Minister Shimon Peres to report on his meeting with Palestinian
Authority President Yasser Arafat in Gaza.
Peres and Arafat met for two and a half hours at Arafat's seaside villa
and Peres said they discussed "how to implement the Sharm e-Sheikh Summit
agreements in all their parts in order to put an end to violence."
Peres added the conversation will continue. His spokesman said that Peres
was driving to Jerusalem to brief Barak on the talks.
Meanwhile, Israeli colonels commanding the Ramallah and Hebron areas
advised their Palestinian counterparts to warn residents of two areas to
leave their homes.
The warning was issued to residents of the Abu Sneina neighborhood
overlooking Hebron, a site from which Palestinian gunmen fired into the
Jewish enclave in town.
A similar warning was issued to the residents of Bitunia, near Ramallah,
after the Ofer Camp came under fire.
Israel had attacked other targets in the West Bank after issuing such
threats and firing machine guns nearby as a last warning before hitting the
selected sites.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak said shortly before Peres' meeting with Arafat
that Peres was supposed to deliver a stern warning to the Palestinian leader
to stop the Palestinian violence, immediately.
Israel usually delivers powerful blows in days its loses are high and
Wednesday's casualties were the highest in one day since the riots began on
September 28.
The day's worst fighting occurred at el-Hader, near Solomon's Pools on the
road linking Bethlehem and Hebron.
Three Israeli soldiers were killed and at three other soldiers were
injured during Wednesday's violence.
An Israel radio reporter who accompanied the area's commander that morning
said the fighting began when Palestinian gunmen at el-Hader opened fire at
soldiers manning a roadblock and some lookout posts.
The Israelis came under fire from 10 points and one unit descended to a
valley to protect a road when it, too, was shot at.
An Israeli captain said his men came under massive fire, snipers opened
fire from another direction inflicting the heavy casualties.
The Palestinian fire prevented the Israelis from evacuating their injured.
Israel sent in tanks and helicopter gunships that kept firing to cover a
colonel who drove into the gun battle in an armored personnel carrier and
evacuated the soldiers.
The Palestinians said two of their people, including a policeman, were
killed and 17 were injured in the clashes. Over 160 people, mostly
Palestinians, have died during Mideast violence since Sept. 28.
Later soldiers and Palestinian gunmen exchanged heavy fire along a valley
separating the southern Jerusalem suburb of Giloh and the Palestinian
autonomous town of Beit Jallah.
The clashes, with occasional breaks, continued for some three and a half
hours with Israel using attack helicopters, anti-tank rockets, and heavy
machine guns.
Israeli police said the Palestinian fire damaged five apartments in Giloh
but there were no casualties there.
However, a reserve officer who has not been named was killed in another
shooting incident at Nahal Elisha, an army settlement near Jericho in the
Jordan Valley.
The Israelis retaliated the attack on Nahal Elisha by shooting at the
Jericho headquarters of the Palestinian General Intelligence, the army
spokesman said.
A statement Prime Minister Barak issued before the inner cabinet meeting
said he viewed "with grave concern the incidents that took place today, as
well as the escalation we have witnessed in recent days, which the
Government of Israel cannot accept."
Barak called upon the Palestinian Authority, "to immediately make an
intensive effort to bring an end to the violence, as a continuation of the
incitement, encouraging of the violence and futility may bring about very
difficult consequences, which the Palestinians will bear responsibility for,
and which will not be good for anyone."
In Gaza, Palestinians said at least 4 Palestinian teens were shot and
killed by Israeli soldiers during the second day of clashes near Karni.
In other diplomatic activity, Acting Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo
Ben-Ami was traveling to Washington for talks Wednesday with Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright and other officials.
Later this week, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat is to travel to
the United States for separate peace talks.
Arafat met Wednesday with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Gaza
City. Arafat called for more international intervention to stop the
violence. Schroeder said he supports an independent Palestinian state but
advised Arafat against unilateral action.
The Fatah-Uprising movement, a Damascus-based Palestinian opposition
group, said meanwhile that it has been carrying out military operations
against Israeli forces in the Palestinian territories under the name of so
far unknown "Omar al-Mokhtar Forces."
MiD-EasT RealitieS - www.MiddleEast.Org
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