Very political incorrect, but interesting article...

[sassa]

Don't forget the war crimes!

In the past week we have seen an unusual number of political overtures all ostensibly designed to contain the spiral of violence and resume peace talks

By Osama El-Sherif

March 13, 2002, 02:52 PM

AMMAN

- Important as the latest UN Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be, it merely reflects the good intentions of the world body and falls short of providing mechanisms to stop Israel’s war crimes in the territory it occupies. In fact, in the past week we have seen an unusual number of political overtures all ostensibly designed to contain the spiral of violence and resume peace talks. Even Ariel Sharon has joined the parade by lifting a ban on President Arafat’s movements and dropping long-standing demands, only to follow this by sending his tanks to ravage the city of Ramallah and adjoining refugee camps one day later.

Within a week the US position evolved dramatically from complete indifference, if not complicity in the murders in the occupied territories, to positive and active engagement that underlines the need to stop the violence and resume negotiations with the aim of creating a Palestinian state. It’s all going very well on the political front except for one snag. Israeli generals are yet to be told about the good news. On the ground the situation is hellish for millions of Palestinians under occupation, which UN General Secretary Kofi Annan has thankfully, albeit belatedly, dubbed as “illegal.”

There seems to be no connection between what the politicians are saying and what the Israeli army is carrying out in camps and cities in Gaza and the West Bank. It is ironic that while the US refers to a Palestinian state and peace negotiations, Israeli tanks and planes are having a field day obliterating the last trace of the Palestinian Authority and leaving the fragile infrastructure of the future Palestinian state in total ruin. The irony could be farcical if it was not accentuated by the gruesome death and injury of hundreds of defenseless civilian population. Amid all the recent talk about peace, the killing and rampage have reached cataclysmic levels. Sharon and his generals have succeeded in feeding Oslo and its offspring to the piers. In his mad and ill-fated mission to subjugate the Palestinian leadership, Sharon has pitted Palestinians and Israelis against each other in an orgy of killing and suffering. But more importantly he has committed inexcusable crimes against humanity.

The horrific reenactment of Israeli occupation of Palestinian towns and camps accompanied by mass arrests of Palestinian youths, execution of suspected activists, sporadic bombing and demolition of houses, deliberate gunning down of doctors and medical workers, and more recently shooting journalists among other atrocities, is the only solid reality that the Palestinians know today. This “occupation plus more” situation can only be compared in its magnitude and severity to the worst crimes against humanity that had occurred in the past 100 years.

It is not enough to end the violence and restore negotiations. It is not enough to reach an equitable peace agreement that gives the Palestinians their full, inalienable and legitimate rights in accordance with UN resolutions, international laws and conventions. What is needed now and urgently is a full and independent investigation into Israel’s dismal and bloody record as an occupying power before final reconciliation is reached. To award the Israelis normalization in return for ending their occupation is not only insolent but also a crime in itself.

Israel is not above the law and its killing of defenseless people with full rights under the Geneva Conventions cannot be side-stepped or compromised in return for its willingness to sit at the negotiation table to dictate its conditions. These are true war crimes perpetrated in cold blood, before witnesses, and under the direct and unambiguous authority and knowledge of Israel’s political leadership, which includes every member of Sharon’s sinister cabinet.

The United States should be thinking about the long-term consequences of its complacency and collusion with Israel as it carries out its butchery. Nothing can justify the raping of Palestinian towns, camps and villages. To defend Israel’s aggression by describing it as an act of self-defense is a sick joke that can only be uttered by a dunce, or does an illegal occupying power suddenly has rights? Or are the Palestinians now held accountable for the security and safety of their jailers?

Washington is a full accomplice in Israel’s state-sponsored terrorism, which has spared no one. As Israel demands the arrest of those responsible for suicide bombing and attacks against its civilians, we too demand that those who orchestrated the death of over 1300 Palestinians, including women and children, be brought to justice. The threshold to peace and co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians has suddenly been raised to an unapproachable level and no talk about cease-fire and a future Palestinian state will wash away Israel’s war crimes in Palestine.

© March 2002 Arabia Online Ltd. All rights reserved

[tribal]

israeli sponsored terrorism? this article reeks of one sided ignorance. so the daily palst terror attacks inside israel have nothing to do with any of this? what a load of shit. it reminds me of how tragically comical the situation has become. the arabs are talking of sharon's hypocrisy of sending the army into the terror-hives while talking about a cease fire, while arafat is a hero, the man who speaks out against terror yet sends his 'al aksa' killers to do the dirty work. fuck em all, im sick of both of them.

[sassa]

Originally posted by tribal

israeli sponsored terrorism? this article reeks of one sided ignorance. so the daily palst terror attacks inside israel have nothing to do with any of this? what a load of shit.

That's why I said it was very politically incorrect...despite the one-sided factor, it brings some good points to light...

[sassa]

Sharon pulls an unpleasant surprise on U.S.

Invasion of Ramallah damages relationship formed with Washington

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Mark Matthews

Sun National Staff

Originally published March 15, 2002

WASHINGTON - With a military offensive that some liken to his invasion of Lebanon 20 years ago, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel crossed a red line with the United States this week, drawing an unusual rebuke from President Bush and undermining a relationship that Sharon had carefully cultivated.

Because of its timing and the number of Palestinian casualties it produced, Israel's onslaught upon the West Bank town of Ramallah on Monday, with scores of tanks and thousands of troops, created a thicket of diplomatic problems for the United States.

Sharon has pledged not to present the United States with unpleasant surprises. But that's exactly what happened this week, according to U.S. officials.

After Bush decided hastily to send Anthony C. Zinni back to the region to try brokering a cease-fire, the Israeli army mounted its biggest military operation in the West Bank and Gaza since it captured the territories during the Six Day War of 1967.

The operation fueled suspicion among Palestinians that the United States gave Israel a "green light" to complete the incursions into refugee camps and roundups of young men that had begun this month. The Bush administration denies this. But the suspicions are bound to cloud the Zinni mission and make his job of trying to be a neutral broker tougher.

"We sent Kurtzer and Schlicher to both sides to underscore that this was not a green light and to say, 'We expect you to be taking steps to be making Zinni's job easier,' " a U.S. official said, referring to the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel C. Kurtzer, and the consul general in Jerusalem, Ronald Schlicher.

The Israeli offensive produced another problem. It came just as Vice President Dick Cheney was beginning an 11-nation Middle East tour with the delicate mission of explaining why President Bush is determined to topple the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

Many in the Arab world say that Sharon poses a more perilous threat to regional stability than does the Iraqi dictator, despite memories of Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

A day after Bush declared that Israel's actions were "not helpful," the administration kept up pressure on Sharon yesterday, calling for Israel to pull all its forces from areas that are supposed to be under full Palestinian control.

Since Bush launched the war on terror after the Sept. 11 attacks, Sharon has worked to build on the two nations' shared vulnerability to terror to form a close bond with the American president.

In recent months, his effort seemed to work. The White House, echoing demands by Sharon, abandoned balanced attempts to forge a cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians and heaped pressure on Yasser Arafat to crack down on Palestinian terrorists.

Israeli officials say Bush and Sharon reached an understanding that Israel would not try to remove or kill Arafat or destroy the Palestinian Authority.

The tensions between the United States and Israel recall 1982, when Sharon, as Israel's defense minister, launched an invasion of Lebanon that went beyond what American officials, or Israel's prime minister, had been led to expect, according to several historical accounts. Israeli troops moved into Beirut in a campaign to drive Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization out of the country, inflicting heavy civilian casualties.

Israeli observers have noted similarities between the two operations: "Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is orchestrating these operations in a manner reminiscent of his past during the siege of Beirut," the liberal newspaper Haaretz said this week.

The Israeli offensive undercut a Cheney diplomatic mission that Israel has every reason to want to succeed. The administration has adopted a stance close to Israel's on strategic threats to the region. Iran and Iraq, two of the three nations that Bush dubbed an "axis of evil," are seen by Israel as threats to its existence, and Sharon's government backs Bush's intention to confront Hussein. But the Israeli prime minister's desire to align himself with Bush clashed with domestic political pressures to achieve a military solution to the conflict with the Palestinians.

"Sharon made a strategic effort to work closely with the Americans and keep them informed of Israeli concerns and try to align policy in a way that would take the U.S. into consideration," said Jess Hordes, who heads the Washington office of the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League. "That continues to be a primary objective."

But, Hordes said, Sharon faced "significant domestic pressure to find an answer for the terrorism that is affecting every Israeli."

Yossi Alpher, an Israeli strategic analyst, says that parallels with 1982 are overdrawn. But Sharon did learn a powerful lesson from his bitter experience in that war, which led to his being ousted as defense minister and tagged with indirect responsibility for massacres at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Beirut.

"Sharon has conscientiously applied a lesson from Lebanon: Keep a broad consensus," Alpher said. "When he sees he is losing the consensus, he backs off."

This has happened in recent days, with his governing coalition fracturing and criticism coming from Washington, Alpher said. Sharon's response was to begin pulling troops out of Ramallah.

Copyright © 2002, The Baltimore Sun

[malone]

Why do these people continue to harp on about Sharon, as if the man single-handedly created all the problems of the middle east? Look, if Sharon is the demon that the Arab world wish to portray him as, then why the hell did they facilitate his coming to power?

Firstly, through the renewed violence, which was more likely to favor likud, which they could not be unaware of; and secondly by the call from Arafat and other Arab leaders for Israeli Arabs to bycott the Israeli elections, which they duly did. Therefore, if Sharon is a monster, as they Arabs insist he is, then I suppose they themselves would be Dr. Frankenstein. As to the article posted by sassa, what a load of palaver. The by-line and date line say it all. Talk about propaganda!!