arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Israel's right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday he was willing to call a snap election if his main coalition partner, the centre-left Labour Party, pressed on with a threatened rebellion over funding to Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories.

As Sharon and Labour's leader, Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, faced a test of nerves ahead of Wednesday's budget vote in parliament, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat appeared to have warded off a similar showdown with his own legislature, as Israel hindered deputies from assembling in Ramallah.

Against the backdrop of political tremors on both sides, the two-year conflict claimed yet another victim, as Israeli troops gunned down a Palestinian teenager in the reoccupied West Bank, whom the army accused of trying to plant of a bomb.

"If we are forced into elections by irresponsible behaviour or for internal political reasons, we are ready, we will win and Likud will continue to lead the country," Sharon told deputies from his Likud Party.

The crisis has been brought on by the worst economic slump in Israel's history, provoked by a global downturn in hi-tech industries and the cost of fighting the Intifada.

Labour has bridled at the fact that Jewish settlements — considered illegal by the international community and the main cause of friction in the Intifada — are not facing the same cuts as other sectors in Sharon's 2003 austerity budget.

Labour's central committee on Sunday gave deputies a mandate to vote against the budget at its first reading in parliament on Wednesday, after Sharon said he would sack any minister who refused to back the belt-tightening measures.

The collapse of the 18-month-old coalition would precipitate elections within 90 days, some nine months before they are due, and throw both Sharon and Ben-Eliezer into battles to retain their parties' leadership.

Sharon could however opt to form a far narrower coalition in which the far-right would hold much greater sway.

Sharon, a long-time backer of the settlement movement, also said that a call to freeze settlement activity was a sticking point in a US-backed road map for peace designed to find a way out of the bloody conflict that has cost more than 2,600 lives.

The former general had given the plan a cool reception when it was presented last week by US special envoy William Burns.

But he told the parliamentary foreign affairs and defence committee he accepted the plan in principle, although he balked at a total freeze which would not allow for the settlements' "natural demographic growth".

Some of the settlements are small towns with up to 20,000 inhabitants, used as dormitory suburbs for occupied Jerusalem by workers enjoying tax-breaks.

Others are unauthorised primitive camps consisting of a few caravans built on hilltops by armed hardliners who use force to resist attempts by the security forces to dismantle them.

Burns brought the plan here for Israeli and Palestinian reactions last week, receiving a cool response from both sides, especially from the Palestinians who resented his refusal to meet their leader Yasser Arafat.

Washington backs Israeli demands for Arafat to be dropped for failing to curb attacks by resistance groups seeking to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

The "roadmap" demands the dismantling of illegal outposts, a settlement freeze and an end to military operations in Palestinian autonomous areas, which in the West Bank have been almost entirely reoccupied by Israeli forces since June.

On the other hand, the Palestinians are meant to name a prime minister, streamline their security forces into a single manageable body, and resume security cooperation with the Jewish state, Israeli media say.

Complying with all the measures would lead to the creation of a de facto Palestinian state — but without final borders — by next year, with the shape of the state to be finally thrashed out by 2005.

Israeli officials close to Sharon have expressed concern at the speed of the timetable and claim Israel would be forced into what they described as tough "concessions" while the Palestinians could try to renege on their side of the bargain.

Meanwhile in Ramallah, Arafat appeared to have headed off a revolt by the Palestinian parliament, dominated by his own Fatah party.

In last-minute talks with Fateh, Arafat managed to secure the faction's backing for his new cabinet, after its MPs forced the abandonment of a previous line-up last month.

But the actual vote in parliament was delayed until Tuesday morning after Israel denied 13 MPs permission to travel to Ramallah because of alleged involvement in anti-occupation activities.

29.10.02

21:07   Faire passer un message

Olivier ayant toujours du mal à accéder à un cybercafé, il a appelé pour que je mette cette petite brève:

Cet après midi, arrestation de 4 membres du Croissant Rouge, directement dans une ambulance. Olivier était dedans, mais il n'a pas été inquiété. Ils ont été libérés 6 heures après. D'après les soldats israéliens, l'objectif de cette arrestation était de "faire passer un message".

Les ambulances sont pratiquement le seul moyen de se déplacer un tant soit peu dans la ville. Elles transportent quelques fois du personnel de l'hôpital ou des gens qui en ont expressément besoin. C'était peut-être un avertissement de mettre fin à ces petits "à côtés".

Paul
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on a déjà vu des ambulances du croissant rouge transporter des armes et meme des bombes!!! (voir les déclarations de la croix rouge à ce sujet)
l'utilisation d'ambulance et contre tout les droits élémentaires

One of the many distortions of current news in this article is that the US and Israel demand that Arafat be dropped because he refuses to "curb attacks by resistance groups seeking to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands". (This could be published in any good government-censored newspaper in Syria, Saudi Arabia or Iran.)

Arafat, the Palestinian Authority, most Palestinian religious leaders and Palestinian TV publically encourage people to become "shaheed" ("martyrs"), the propaganda term for "suicide bombers" (sometimes appealing specifically to young teenagers). The Palestinian Authority afterwards rewards their families with 5000$. (Saudi Arabia and Iraq add up to 30000$ to that.)

Killing an Israeli soldier in the West Bank or Gaza is indeed "resistance" and is a "normal" act of war. Blowing oneself up in a café in Tel-Aviv, killing and wounding dozens of people, is outright murder. It is not acceptable in any way, also not according to Islam which prohibits suicide and the murder of civilians (esp. if it's for money!).

Arafat and PA propaganda have been promoting that kind of crimes and that is why he's disqualified or suspicious in the eyes of many leaders around the world (incl. the Arab World). He has also been of extreme disservice to the Palestinian people itself and has a lot of Jewish, Christian and Muslim blood on his hands. He is not able to talk coherently in any language and he is never willing to delegate power to people under him. He is a good, charismatic military/guerilla leader but a very poor politician and head of state. That is why he needs to be replaced for the sake of everybody who doesn't plan to commit suicide in the near future.

You write :"Killing an Israeli soldier in the West Bank or Gaza is indeed "resistance" and is a "normal" act of war. Blowing oneself up in a café in Tel-Aviv, killing and wounding dozens of people, is outright murder. "
Two points:
1/ when you have only a stone or a bomb, how do you kill a trained soldier equipped with modern arms?
2/ As a matter of fact, killing civilians is outright murder. Tell it to the IDF, who destroys houses without minding if people are inside or not, who shoot missiles in an unarmed crowd from an apache helicopter, etc..

Arafat has responsibility in this war, but Sharon is a lot more guilty. If Arafat must go, Sharon (and his extremist clique) must go at the same time. But that's not really in the plans any of the world leaders.

One last thing: the Sharon gouvernement is ready to collpase. It seems that Sharon has chances to be reelected. One of his first declarations about that is that he will have the Army chief of staff as defense minister. The guy who openly approves the deportation of Arafat, and the liquidations that the IDF carries out in Palestine. Those guys are also murderers, and should be kicked out.
CU
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