[CTRL] Fwd: ALL SIDES NOW COMMITTED TO ESCALATION
So be sure not to hurt the corn, the oil, and the wineand above all the oil. And if they dare attack arab nations in attempt to take oil would do well to consider all those oil fields are wired nd ready to blow.So how would they like them apples God gave that oil to Ishmael...and made him a great nation - and where there is oil, you find water which is more precious, than the oil. ___ __ / |/ / /___/ / /_ //M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S / /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East /_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\http://www.MiddleEast.Org News, Information, Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups, and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know! * * * * * * * IF YOU DON'T GET MER, YOU JUST DON'T GET IT! To receive MER regularly email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ALL SIDES NOW COMMITTED TO ESCALATION MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 2/06: Now the real craziness begins. The Palestinians are committed to heating things up to demonstrate their resolve and their capabilities. The Israelis are committed to "stopping the violence" which means clamping the boot down on the Palestinians even more harshly -- and even Shimon Peres has already announced he is eager to join a Sharon "national unity" government. The Americans are tied to the Israelis for good or bad; their military forces are on alert and military supplies, including Patriot missiles, are already flowing into Israel under various covers. And the Arabs remain too weak, divided, and co-opted to do anything serious; fearing more than loathing Israel. It's all a powderkeg waiting for ignition; and the two articles that follow help set the stage for whatever is now to come: FEAR SPURS VOTERS INTO ARMS OF SHARON Palestinian threats help to seal the prime minister's expected political doom [The Guardian - Suzanne Goldberg in Jerusalem, Tuesday February 6]: Palestinian militants said last night that they were poised to attack targets in Israel on the eve of today's election, which is expected to make Ariel Sharon the country's next prime minister. The warning came as Israeli soldiers tried to tighten their grip on the West Bank and Gaza Strip before the "day of rage" which leaders of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement say marks the start of an intensification of the four-month uprising. The army fired rocket-propelled grenades into the Palestinian refugee camp of Rafah, on the border between Gaza and Egypt, after an Israeli soldier on his way to vote in the early ballot staged for the army was killed by a bullet fired from the camp. Israel also shut down the Palestinian airport in Gaza and the Rafah crossing to Egypt. Police reinforcements were moved to the northern towns in Galilee, where a call for Israeli Arabs to boycott the election could lead to clashes. With yesterday's opinion polls showing him leading the incumbent prime minister, Ehud Barak, by as much as 22 points, Mr Sharon could be stepping into a ready-made confrontation. Yesterday he was challenged not only by the Fatah militias, which have led the protests in the West Bank and Gaza, but also by the militant group Islamic Jihad, which has claimed responsibility for at least two car bombings in Israel in the past four months. "Our operations will continue and increase. We will carry out powerful blows against the criminal entity within the coming few days," Islamic Jihad said in a statement delivered before yesterday's funeral of a bomber who was shot dead trying to scale the fence sealing off Gaza. "No barriers, wire fences, or security measures will prevent us from carrying out painful strikes against the enemy." In the West Bank city of Ramallah, meanwhile, an important Fatah leader declared that the Palestinians would give no quarter to Mr Sharon. Hussein Sheikh, who commands Fatah's militiamen in the West Bank, said: "The next days and weeks are going to be hard, and the area will witness an escalation in the field. "We have declared a general state of emergency and we have orders to escalate the intifada." Mr Barak spent the final moments of his campaign yesterday warning Israelis that the former general Sharon could lead them into a war. "The Middle East is a powder keg," he wrote in the Yediot Ahronoth, Israel's best-selling paper. "We are being called to decide whether to give the match to extremists, people who are too extreme for Israel. We are being called to decide whether between us and peace lies another bloody war." But Israelis seemed to be in no mood to listen. After four months of bloodshed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, people have lost faith not only in Mr Barak but in the entire seven years of negotiations started by the assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, according to research published yesterday by the
[CTRL] [Fwd: ALL SIDES NOW COMMITTED TO ESCALATION]
-Caveat Lector- Original Message Subject: ALL SIDES NOW COMMITTED TO ESCALATION Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 09:29:24 -0600 (CST) From: MER [EMAIL PROTECTED] Organization: MiD-EasT RealitieS To: undisclosed-recipients:; ___ __ / |/ / /___/ / /_ //M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S / /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East /_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\http://www.MiddleEast.Org News, Information, Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups, and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know! * * * * * * * IF YOU DON'T GET MER, YOU JUST DON'T GET IT! To receive MER regularly email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ALL SIDES NOW COMMITTED TO ESCALATION MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 2/06: Now the real craziness begins. The Palestinians are committed to heating things up to demonstrate their resolve and their capabilities. The Israelis are committed to "stopping the violence" which means clamping the boot down on the Palestinians even more harshly -- and even Shimon Peres has already announced he is eager to join a Sharon "national unity" government. The Americans are tied to the Israelis for good or bad; their military forces are on alert and military supplies, including Patriot missiles, are already flowing into Israel under various covers. And the Arabs remain too weak, divided, and co-opted to do anything serious; fearing more than loathing Israel. It's all a powderkeg waiting for ignition; and the two articles that follow help set the stage for whatever is now to come: FEAR SPURS VOTERS INTO ARMS OF SHARON Palestinian threats help to seal the prime minister's expected political doom [The Guardian - Suzanne Goldberg in Jerusalem, Tuesday February 6]: Palestinian militants said last night that they were poised to attack targets in Israel on the eve of today's election, which is expected to make Ariel Sharon the country's next prime minister. The warning came as Israeli soldiers tried to tighten their grip on the West Bank and Gaza Strip before the "day of rage" which leaders of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement say marks the start of an intensification of the four-month uprising. The army fired rocket-propelled grenades into the Palestinian refugee camp of Rafah, on the border between Gaza and Egypt, after an Israeli soldier on his way to vote in the early ballot staged for the army was killed by a bullet fired from the camp. Israel also shut down the Palestinian airport in Gaza and the Rafah crossing to Egypt. Police reinforcements were moved to the northern towns in Galilee, where a call for Israeli Arabs to boycott the election could lead to clashes. With yesterday's opinion polls showing him leading the incumbent prime minister, Ehud Barak, by as much as 22 points, Mr Sharon could be stepping into a ready-made confrontation. Yesterday he was challenged not only by the Fatah militias, which have led the protests in the West Bank and Gaza, but also by the militant group Islamic Jihad, which has claimed responsibility for at least two car bombings in Israel in the past four months. "Our operations will continue and increase. We will carry out powerful blows against the criminal entity within the coming few days," Islamic Jihad said in a statement delivered before yesterday's funeral of a bomber who was shot dead trying to scale the fence sealing off Gaza. "No barriers, wire fences, or security measures will prevent us from carrying out painful strikes against the enemy." In the West Bank city of Ramallah, meanwhile, an important Fatah leader declared that the Palestinians would give no quarter to Mr Sharon. Hussein Sheikh, who commands Fatah's militiamen in the West Bank, said: "The next days and weeks are going to be hard, and the area will witness an escalation in the field. "We have declared a general state of emergency and we have orders to escalate the intifada." Mr Barak spent the final moments of his campaign yesterday warning Israelis that the former general Sharon could lead them into a war. "The Middle East is a powder keg," he wrote in the Yediot Ahronoth, Israel's best-selling paper. "We are being called to decide whether to give the match to extremists, people who are too extreme for Israel. We are being called to decide whether between us and peace lies another bloody war." But Israelis seemed to be in no mood to listen. After four months of bloodshed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, people have lost faith not only in Mr Barak but in the entire seven years of negotiations started by the assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, according to research published yesterday by the Israel Democracy Institute. An opinion survey carried out last month found that only 22% of Israelis believed that a peace deal with the Palestinians would end nearly 53 years of