HHMI Newsgroup Archives
To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com
From: Arutz-7 Editor <neteditor@israelnationalnews.com>
Subject: Arutz-7 News: Tuesday, June 26, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service
<http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com>
Tuesday, June 26, 2001 / Tammuz 5, 5761
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TODAY'S HEADLINES:
1. SHARON BRACING FOR BUSH-POWELL PRESSURE
2. LIKUD AGAINST REMOVING OUTPOSTS
3. SHARON TELLS JEWISH LEADERS ABOUT CONTINUING ATTACKS
4. OSLO "CRIMINALS" CALLED TO JUSTICE
5. LEFT-WING COMMENTATORS AGAINST OSLO, PEACE GROUPS
1. SHARON BRACING FOR BUSH-POWELL PRESSURE
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will meet with U.S. President George Bush this
evening. Expectations are that Bush will pressure him to begin
implementing the Mitchell Report even before the ceasefire takes
effect. Sources in the U.S. report that Bush will demand a unilateral
announcement of an Israeli settlement freeze in Judea and Samaria.
Sharon emphasized again last night that he will not conduct negotiations "under fire" with the PA, and said that he has made this clear to President Bush. American Jewish grassroots organizations are protesting the fact that the Bush-Powell pressure on Israel continues despite the continuation of Palestinian violence. The Virtual Israel Political Action Committee, for instance, providing a channel for written support for Israel (www.vipac.org), calls upon Bush to realize that this "is a poor policy for your administration to advocate, and is a prescription for more bloodshed... If Arafat's ally in Cuba, Fidel Castro, started shooting mortar shells, anti-tank grenades, and machinegun fire at Miami Beach or the Florida Keys, killing and wounding American citizens in the process, would you negotiate with Castro under fire?... Don't let any of your advisors pressure Prime Minister Sharon to negotiate with the PLO under fire, or to offer territorial rewards for the PLO's acts of terror. Rewarding terrorism is a dangerous game..."
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, however, appears to be welcoming American pressure regarding a settlement freeze. He said yesterday that essentially, "a freeze is already in effect. Actually, a freeze is only the third stage of the Mitchell plan - first comes a ceasefire, then a cooling-off period, then confidence-building measures, such as freezing settlements - such that there is nothing to even talk about regarding such a freeze until six weeks after it begins. But in practice, the coalition negotiations stipulate that there be no new settlements, and we also agreed that there would be no land-expropriations to expand existing settlements, and then we added a third thing, to which the government, Mr. Sharon, agreed, and that is that there be no new construction outside the built-up areas within the existing towns - such that in practice, there is a freeze on construction in Yesha..."
2. LIKUD AGAINST REMOVING OUTPOSTS
Likud Knesset members spent the morning visiting communities in Binyamin
(between Jerusalem and the Shomron) that have suffered terrorism casualties
in the past several months. The towns on the itinerary included Ofrah,
Shilo, Ateret, and N'vei Tzuf. Faction head MK Ze'ev Boim said that the
group's goal was to formulate a more up-to-date party policy regarding
Judea and Samaria.
Communications Minister Ruby Rivlin said that the Likud is against Defense Minister Ben-Eliezer's announcement, which he repeated today, that he plans to remove 15 outposts from alongside Yesha highways: "I don't know which government Fuad [Ben-Eliezer] is in, but in my government, it's almost certain that there will be a majority against dismantling these outposts, which were built based on bitter experience of people traveling on the highways of Israel being butchered. This is not an ideological issue; they are there only to maintain security, such that it is inconceivable that an Israeli government would act to remove them."
Public Security Minister Uzi Landau said today that Defense Minister Ben-Eliezer was not authorized to make a decision to evacuate the outposts, and that the issue would be discussed in the next Cabinet meeting: "After the entire country was taught a difficult lesson from the withdrawal/retreat from Lebanon, and then the same from Joseph's Tomb - two events that breathed new life into the terrorists around us - I hope that we will not make the same mistake again. Every further retreat by us simply throws fuel onto the fire of terrorism around us..."
Yesha Council sources say that not only do the outposts not present a security danger, but they actually grant extra security to the travelers on the roads. Most of the outposts are in fact manned or guarded by soldiers.
3. SHARON TELLS JEWISH LEADERS ABOUT CONTINUING ATTACKS
The ceasefire does not exist, Prime Minister Sharon told Jewish leaders in
New York last night, citing yesterday's shooting at Jewish homes in Hevron
as an example. The Prime Minister expressed his hope that the
international community would begin seeing Arafat not as the head of a
future state but as a terrorist gang leader. Calling for aliyah
(immigration to Israel), he said, "Another million Jews in Israel in the
coming decade will change the situation from one extreme to the other."
4. OSLO "CRIMINALS" CALLED TO JUSTICE
The Women in Green organization demonstrated outside the Foreign Ministry
this morning, demanding a legal inquiry into the Oslo process and its
results. They held signs reading, "Oslo Criminals to Justice," and called
for a trial specifically for Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. "This is the
beginning of our campaign against Shimon Peres," leader Nadia Matar cried
out. "How can the Sharon government fight against terrorism when Shimon
Peres, one of the driving forces behind Oslo, is a member of the
government? Instead of being Foreign Minister, he must be made to stand
trial for his Oslo crimes. How can Margalit Har-Shefi be put in prison
because she "should have" known what Yigal Amir was planning, when Shimon
Peres not only knew what Arafat was planning but he even gave him tens of
thousands of guns..."
Not far away, a former IDF Intelligence Officer and Arab Affairs advisor, Micha Maimon, continues his sit-in outside the Knesset, demanding a public investigation into the Oslo process and how it led to war instead of peace. He told Arutz-7 today,
"I'm not necessarily calling for criminal trials, but rather for an objective and public investigation, just as the Agranat Commission investigated what came to be known as the 'debacle' of the Yom Kippur War. I know that I and my colleagues in Military Intelligence passed much information that stood in stark contrast to what the Oslo architects actually did, such that there was no justification for their actions..." Maimon noted that Moti Ashkenazi, whose post-war protests sparked the mass demonstrations that ultimately led to the formation of the Agranat Commission and the resignation of the Golda Meir government, has promised his support for the current campaign.
5. LEFT-WING COMMENTATORS AGAINST OSLO, PEACE GROUPS
Prominent Israeli commentator Ehud Ya'ari has gone on record to the effect
that not only is Arafat responsible for the warfare against Israel, but
that the Oslo process itself must be considered a failure. "What is
amazing," writes Ya'ari in the latest issue of The Jerusalem Report, "is
that Israelis have reached a general consensus about Arafat, but not about
the process that brought him into our neighborhood... [T]he 60-70 percent
majority that supported Oslo is still not ready to subject that process to
a reassessment in the same way that it has reconsidered the attitude to
Arafat...
"[This] inherent contradiction... raises a serious danger: Any further dealings with Arafat will remain within the general outline of Oslo. It will mean yielding other bits of territory - like Chaim Ramon's suggestion of a 10% third redeployment and/or ... evacuating the settlements of Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip. Peres probably has this kind of approach in his saddlebag as he presses the Americans to present Sharon with a written proposal, backed up by wide international support, for the implementation of the Mitchell Report. Proceeding along such a track would be an evasion of extracting any lessons from the mistake Israel originally made by bringing Arafat in.
"... The sobering-up about Arafat must be coupled with the conclusion that Oslo was a bold experiment with positive goals but, expectedly, a failure. Tremendous value could be gained from a public recognition of that fact, particularly by the Israeli left, which has shown itself ready to engage in open soul-searching when it comes to Arafat. Only by revisiting Oslo will the way open up for new, more effective formulas."
In Ha'aretz today, Ari Shavit writes the following:
"It will be difficult to forget this silence. For several months now, on almost a daily basis, Israeli citizens who live beyond the Green Line are being murdered by the historic allies of the Israeli peace movement, yet that movement is silent. Here and there its members might mumble a word or two expressing their condolences. Here and there they might make a weak-kneed appeal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. However, essentially, they are silent. In the deepest sense, they are silent. They see their allies shooting at point-blank range at Israelis and yet they are silent.
"Nor is it just the Israeli peace movement that is silent. Silence is also being observed by Israeli human rights groups... For years, Israeli human rights groups have reported - and they are to be commended for having done so - every act of injustice committed at every Israeli roadblock in the territories. Yet these same human rights groups have not seen fit to publish even one comprehensive report on the blood-soaked closure that has been imposed for the past nine months on the residents of some 150 Israeli communities.
"...Nor is it just the Israeli human rights groups that are silent. Silence is also being observed by Israeli intellectuals and by the majority of the columnists in the nation's newspapers... Silence is being observed by those who have spoken here for an entire generation of the principle of universal justice without understanding that universal justice today requires all decent human beings to stand up for those who are being shot at, to stand up for them without asking questions or getting into philosophical arguments. To stand up without hesitation in order to protest the attempt being made right before the eyes of all Israelis to conduct a violent ethnic cleansing process on the West Bank... However, what is most disturbing is that this silence... is somehow linked to the fact that it is their secret political dream to see the Settler Other simply evaporate. To get up one morning and to discover that the hated Settler Other has quite simply vanished... [T]his massive silence not only arouses moral disgust, it is also destructive from the political standpoint..."
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To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com
From: Arutz-7 Editor <neteditor@israelnationalnews.com>
Subject: Arutz-7 News: Wednesday, June 27, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service
<http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com>
Wednesday, June 27, 2001 / Tammuz 6, 5761
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TODAY'S HEADLINES:
1. SHARON TO BUSH: VIOLENCE MUST BE STOPPED, NOT REDUCED
2. DIFFERENCES WERE EXAGGERATED
3. BEN-ELIEZER BACKS DOWN ON PLANS TO REMOVE OUTPOSTS
4. DEEP EUROPEAN UNION INVOLVEMENT IN ISRAELI POLITICS
1. SHARON TO BUSH: VIOLENCE MUST BE STOPPED, NOT REDUCED
While media around the world are reporting on the "disagreements"
between Prime Minister Sharon and President Bush, both sides are
attempting to downplay their significance. A senior White House aide
said that there are no substantive differences between the leaders.
Sharon himself told Israeli reporters that he and Bush agree on most
issues, and that the meeting was held in a friendly atmosphere, but
that it is better that the differences should be laid on the table.
The disagreements center around the question of whether the
Palestinian violence must stop totally or only "significantly."
Speaking with reporters before their meeting, Bush insisted that
progress has been made towards stopping violence, while Sharon said
that there must be absolutely no Arab terrorism or incitement.
Before the meeting, Bush emphasized the progress made in stopping the violence and the need to begin "at some stage" implementing the Mitchell Report. Sharon, however, emphasized the continuing Palestinian violence and Israel's insistence on a complete end to terrorism and incitement. Bush said, "Both sides will understand when the level of violence will be reduced to a level at which it will be possible to proceed," while Sharon said, "Israel's position is that we can conduct negotiations only when there is a complete stop to terrorism, incitement, and violence. Just last week five of our people were killed, which is proportional to 250 or even 300 Americans. We can have no compromise with terrorism." Bush responded, "We understand the pressures that the Prime Minister faces, we condemn violence and death, but we believe that there has been progress?"
2. DIFFERENCES WERE EXAGGERATED
Arutz-7's Ariel Kahane spoke today with Zalman Shoval, advisor to
Prime Minister Sharon and former Israeli Ambassador to US, who said:
"Those who spoke of an unprecedented disagreement last night between Sharon and Bush, exaggerated. It's clear that the Americans have a different approach than we do regarding a total ceasefire, 100% efforts [on the part of the PA to stop terrorism], etc. Our officials have not glossed over these differences, but we must keep the proper proportions: In the past, there were much greater differences between Israeli Prime Ministers and American presidents. It's surprising that the current administration has adopted [former US Secretary of State] Albright's phrase of '100% efforts' by the PA, but in any event we know that there have not been such efforts - since the Americans now agree that Arafat is in total charge, such that 100% effort would mean at least 90% success in stopping the violence."
Shoval said that the Americans have not already demanded a settlement freeze in Yesha, "and I believe that Foreign Minister Peres erred when he said that the freeze is already in effect. Bush himself said that this is a step-by-step process, and [Secretary of State] Powell, too, has said that first comes security, then peace - not like our left-wingers at home who say that peace IS security."
Housing Minister Natan Sharansky also spoke with Arutz-7 today about the reports of an American-Israeli fissure last night:
"The reporters in Israel sought to find drama and even tragedy, but I don't think that there were any major disagreements between Bush and Sharon. But even if there were, I would like to emphasize that as long as we remain firm in our stances, the Americans will accept our opinion. We know what's good for us better than they do... We have a nice and friendly relationship with the Americans. The only time that there could be a problem is when they think that we are going to give in and then we don't give in, or when we say that we will not give in and then we do give in, leading to situations such as when Dennis Ross said that Israel has no red lines, only pink ones... If we feel that we cannot give in on even one clause in the Tenet Agreement because it is dangerous, then we must remain firm on this and not worry [that it might upset the Americans]."
3. BEN-ELIEZER BACKS DOWN ON PLANS TO REMOVE OUTPOSTS
Prime Minister Sharon has asked Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
to hold off on his plans to dismantle 16 new outposts throughout Judea
and Samaria and wait for a Cabinet debate on the matter. Ben-Eliezer
had boasted two days ago that he would remove the outposts, saying he
could not allow the residents to "endanger their lives...", but today
he said the matter had been "blown out of proportion" and that it was
actually the army's idea in the first place. However, Israel Radio
reported that a senior army officer said that the entire matter of the
outposts could have been concluded quietly without Ben-Eliezer's
announcement; many correspondents have surmised aloud that the Defense
Minister's intention was to enhance his candidacy for the post of
Labor Party head.
Arutz-7 correspondent Haggai Huberman reports, "It's not true that it was the army's idea [to evacuate the outposts]; the army was actually surprised. No one in the army, according to the checks I made, even knew which 15 outposts are talked about; there are many different lists, but none of them are of 15. I wouldn't say that the army is excited about the outposts, but it is not felt that they are a burden or the like. In general, there has always been good cooperation between the people running the outposts and the army in the area. The Yesha leaders met two weeks ago with Central Command officers, after Ben-Eliezer told them that whatever they would agree would be OK with him, and they agreed on the way in which the outposts would continue to operate. They also agreed about the removal or relocation of a few of them that were only temporary in the first place; in some of them, the army will take over..."
An older brother of the outposts - two-year-old Elonei Shilo, located two kilometers northwest of Karnei Shomron - has recently received a permit to build a synagogue. In addition, a higher-education institute is planned to open this fall. Twelve families currently live there, and at least three more are on their way. For further information, see <www.geocities.com/elonei>.
4. DEEP EUROPEAN UNION INVOLVEMENT IN ISRAELI POLITICS
MK Benny Elon disclosed additional details yesterday of the European
Union's financial intervention in Israel's electoral affairs. It was
learned last week that the EU had given to the Four Mothers, Peace
Now, and other left-wing groups, and now Elon reveals that the list is
much longer: "This is unbelievable. There is a whole network that
looked for the weak links in Israeli society, and then started
bankrolling them. They began with a woman named Tzviya Greenfeld,
whose job was to take hareidi women and try to get them to move left
in their politics. Then MK Roman Bronfman would take care of the
Russian immigrants and try to get them to vote for the left. And so
on and so forth, official nations - not some private millionaire -
were directly involved in Israeli politics."
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To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com
From: Arutz-7 Editor <neteditor@israelnationalnews.com>
Subject: Arutz-7 News: Thursday, June 28, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service
<http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com>
Thursday, June 28, 2001 / Tammuz 7, 5761
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TODAY'S HEADLINES:
1. POWELL CALLS FOR INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS
2. ZOA REPORT: PA VIOLENCE UP SINCE CEASE-FIRE BEGAN
3. LABOR MK ATTEMPTS TO DEFEND PARTY POSITION
4. TAKE BACK ARAFAT'S PRIZE!
1. POWELL CALLS FOR INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met today with Arafat in
Ramallah, after a meeting with President Moshe Katzav this morning.
The American demanded that the PLO leader take stronger measures to
"stabilize the ceasefire," and said that Israeli declarations
condemning Arafat are "damaging and unnecessary." Taking a position
diametrically opposed to that of Israel, Powell said, "I think that if
we reach the confidence-building measures stage, we will need
international observers to come to the flashpoints to give us an
independent view of the situation."
On the other hand, Powell has made it clear over the past two days that Prime Minister Sharon and the Israeli government will be those who will determine when the violence has stopped. "This process is a package," Powell said, "and we have to end the violence, at least for a number of days, before we open the package..." Next on Powell's schedule is a meeting with Sharon later today, upon the latter's return from his trip to the U.S. and Great Britain.
Secretary Powell met earlier this morning in the Foreign Ministry with Minister Shimon Peres. Peres took an "independent" stance of his Prime Minister before the meeting when he said that the new Yesha outposts must be dismantled (see article 5 below). Peres is scheduled to meet with Arafat during a gathering of socialist leaders in Lisbon two days from now; Sharon recently forbade a meeting between the two, but later agreed that they could meet if he was informed beforehand.
Yesha Council leaders demonstrated outside the Foreign Ministry today with oil barrels, dramatizing the connection between U.S. pressure on Israel and the Americans' anxiety not to antagonize the oil-producing countries.
2. ZOA REPORT: PA VIOLENCE UP SINCE CEASE-FIRE BEGAN
Contrary to statements by U.S. President Bush and Secretary of State
Powell that Palestinian violence against Israelis has been decreasing,
there was actually a 39% increase in the number of attacks during the
25 days after Arafat declared his "cease-fire" compared to the 25 days
beforehand. So reports the Zionist Organization of America, based on
a just-completed analysis of the violence of this period. The ZOA
found that there had been 266 terrorist attacks against Israelis
between June 2, when Arafat announced his "cease-fire," and June 26,
when Bush stated that "there has been progress" in reducing the
violence. In contrast, there were only 191 such attacks during the 25
days beforehand. The number of murder victims did decline, however;
eight people were murdered in the latter period, compared to 17
beforehand. [The Dolphinarium slaughter occurred on the night of June
1, and is not included in these statistics.]
3. LABOR MK ATTEMPTS TO DEFEND PARTY POSITION
The Labor Party appears to be readying for the upcoming political
fight regarding the small new Yesha outposts. Defense Minister
Ben-Eliezer said earlier this week that he plans to dismantle them -
"by force, if dialogue does not work" - but Prime Minister Sharon
instructed him not to take action until the Cabinet discusses it.
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said today that the army is already
spread much too thin, "so what do we need 15 extra points of
contention for?" Labor MK Ophir Pines said that his party should quit
the national unity government if the outposts are not removed.
Arutz-7's Haggai Segal spoke today with Labor faction head MK Effie
Oshaya on this issue:
HS: The Bedouin have established illegal "outposts" on area equivalent in size to all of Tel Aviv. So the few little hilltops in Yesha are what's bothering you?
EO: I know all the settlements and the extent that they have, thank G-d, reached. The State of Israel today has reached, in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, an amount of settlements that, in our view, is a millstone around the neck of peace. We are against illegal construction in all areas...
HS: ... You say that the settlements are a millstone, but I believe it was your party that proved, in Camp David last year, that the true obstacle to peace is not the settlements, but the "right of return" [of Arab refugees] and Jerusalem [when Arafat turned down an offer of 95% of Judea and Samaria and the dismantling of most of the Yesha communities]...
EO: Yes, but it's all one big package. Today, there is the Mitchell Report, which the Prime Minister himself says that he accepts totally, and which calls for a total settlement freeze - so how can we establish new ones or new outposts?
HS: Implementation of the Mitchell Report has not yet begun because the Palestinians are not stopping their violence, so they deserve to be rewarded for this?
EO: No, they don't deserve a prize, but we also don't deserve to have another obstacle. Look, we entered a national unity government during a time of national trouble, and both the Likud and we made compromises. I don't see any reason to keep these outposts in place, aside from that of protest, which may be justified, but not to keep them there for a long time. They contribute nothing to security --
HS: Some of these outposts were established exactly where attacks had occurred, and in their merit, further attacks are prevented.
EO: Look, Haggai, these outposts require army soldiers to protect them, and residential communities never helped in the security effort. In the Yom Kippur War, the first thing that happened was that these towns were evacuated...
HS: OK, here we're not talking about a total war, but just the prevention of local attacks. I want to ask you -
EO: Why is it that civilians - to whom, truly, my heart goes out and for whom I want the best security means but unfortunately they are not getting - but why do they have to be the ones to maintain the security of the State of Israel? This is why we have the Israel Defense Forces --
HS: Look, they feel somewhat abandoned, MK Oshaya, and the facts speak for themselves --
EO: Yes, I agree that they feel a little abandoned, because I remember during the Gulf War, the whole country was forced to wear those silly masks which did nothing but cost a fortune, while today the residents of Yesha travel around without protection, and are forced to scramble for themselves to acquire bulletproof vests and the like. The State should be doing this for them. But at the same time, I don't think that they have to establish pirate outposts, even if their protest is painful and just.
HS: Don't you think, MK Oshaya, that your party has been waging a lost battle? For decades already you have been fighting against the settlements, and not only have they not been evacuated, they have even grown?
EO: Let's not distort history: We're the ones [under whose government] the settlements were established, so it can't be said that we have been fighting against them for decades.
HS: Well, since 1975 approximately. In any event, that's a question for history to decide. MK Effie Oshaya, head of the Labor Knesset faction, thank you.
EO: A good day to you.
4. TAKE BACK ARAFAT'S PRIZE!
As Arafat's war against Israel continues and recognition of his role
in the terrorism increases - - even former President Bill Clinton
blames him for the failure of his peace initiatives (Newsweek reports
that Clinton said last week that he told Arafat, "I'm a colossal
failure, and you made me one") - various people are channeling their
frustrations at the PA Chairman in different ways. One up-and-coming
campaign aims to strip Arafat of his Nobel Peace Prize. In keeping
with the times, a website has been built (www.deprizearafat.com), and
newspaper articles have been written. For instance, Joshua Hasten
writes today in WorldNetDaily.com that when Alfred Nobel set aside a
fund for an annual Peace Prize, his intention was to recognize those
who "shall have done the best work for fraternity between nations, for
the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and
promotion of peace congresses." Hasten then lists some of Arafat's
"accomplishments," such as being linked to the murder of 11 Israeli
Olympic athletes during the 1972 Munich games, the bombing of the
United States Marines barracks in Beirut in 1983 that killed 241
people, the murder of U.S. Ambassador to Sudan, Cleo Noel, in 1973,
and more. "To reestablish the Nobel Peace Prize as the most
distinguished, honorable, and most celebrated award on the planet,"
Hasten concludes, "it's time to take back [Arafat's]."
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