TERRORIST STATES TAKE ACTION AGAINST CIVILIAN POPULATIONS
Terrorist actions against the civilian populations by governments
in Israel, the Israel-occupied areas, Jordan and Egypt have
intensified following the meeting of terrorist states in Sharm
el-Sheikh last week, under the aegis of U.S. imperialism.
According to news agencies, "Israeli Prime Minister Shimon
Peres confirmed Tuesday that Israel is preparing to deport a group
of Palestinian(s)" under the hoax that they are "extremists. The
list of extremists to be expelled 'would become known once it goes
through the military check and the legal check... Whatever we shall
do shall be within the framework of the Israeli law or the law that
exists in the (occupied) territories.' Israel Radio said Tuesday
the government plans to deport dozens of activists, all of them
male, including some relatives....Peres said the Israeli army would
not carry out military actions in Lebanon while the news media were
out in full force on the border but added that Israel would
maintain its presence in its self-proclaimed security zone and
respond to attacks against it."
Another report confirms that the Israeli army is to destroy
another seven homes of Palestinian "extremists." It is also
reported that, "An Israeli committee backed a plan on Tuesday to
put up a Jewish neighbourhood for 6,500 families in the Arab half
of Jerusalem, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman said. Israel's
leftist Peace Now group said that if Interior Minister Haim Ramon
went ahead and approved the project, it could be 'endless trouble'
and a step that 'would seriously harm the peace process.' Israel
captured Arab East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East
war and has built thousands of homes for Israelis on the occupied
land. The spokeswoman said the ministry's Jerusalem district
planning committee had approved the plan in principle to build the
neighbourhood at Har Homa - a hill of pine forests near the Arab
village of Sur Bahir in East Jerusalem. Israeli Housing Minister
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has said that construction would begin
sometime in early 1996. Palestinians dispute his figure that 80
percent of the land belonged to Jews and was bought in the 1940s.
Late last year, leftist members of Jerusalem's city council called
on Israel to reconsider the plan to build the neighbourhood on the
184-hectare (455-acre) plot, saying the project could cause a
crisis with Arab peace partners. In May last year, Israel bowed to
international pressure and froze an order to confiscate 53 hectares
(131 acres) of Palestinian-owned land in East Jerusalem intended
for Jewish housing and a police station."
Besides the Israeli state terrorism, "the Jordanian police
have arrested more than a dozen people suspected of being Muslim
extremists plotting to destabilize the country, officials said
Tuesday. The arrests came less than a week after an international
summit against terrorism in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm
el-Sheikh, at which Jordan vowed to crack down on extremists. Theeb
Abdallah, an Islamic Action Front member of the National Assembly
and chairman of its public freedoms committee, said about 20 men
were arrested. 'We know of 20 men who have been arrested throughout
this week for suspicion of belonging to illegal organizations, but
five of them were released today,' Abdallah said." According to
"Fawzi Tuema, chairman of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs
Committee, (the) Prime Minister Abdul Karim al-Kabariti told the
panel Tuesday that there have been 36 attempts to 'destabilize
national security'" in the last six months. Using this as a
pretext, "He assured the committee that the government would not
allow such militant activities" and openly declared that "when
these laws are violated (by the Jordanian government), it is not a
violation of public freedoms or Jordan's democratic principles." In
other words, the Jordanian government is committed to carrying out
state terrorism against all those who may not subscribe to their
views on the internal and international situation.
Police in Egypt also "arrested 13 suspected Muslim extremists
in central and northern Egypt in connection with acts of violence
and plots to kill senior officials, security authorities said
Tuesday." This news agency candidly admitted that "nearly 1,000
people have been killed and many more wounded" on account of state
terrorism and many many more have been imprisoned in Egypt since
1992 alone.
These acts of state terrorism in Israel, in the occupied
territories, Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere are not only condoned by
the self-styled champions and fighters against "terrorism" and
"extremism," but these activities and states are financed and armed
by them. U.S. imperialist chieftain Bill Clinton pledged 100
million dollars to the Israeli state for its state-organized
terrorism against the civilian population. The states of Jordan and
Egypt are also continually rewarded in various ways for their
actions against the civilian populations.
Considering the volatile situation in the region, it is most
urgent that all acts of state terrorism be resolutely opposed and
the U.S. imperialists and others must not be permitted to meddle in
the affairs of the people there. At the same time, all injustices
against the Palestinian people must be undone and all people
irrespective of their background must be encouraged to work
together to create a new situation in which they can defend each
others interests and establish their own rule guaranteeing peace,
prosperity and security for all.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
