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To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com From: Arutz-7 Editor <feedback@israelnationalnews.com> Subject: Arutz-7 News Brief: Friday, Sept. 21, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com> Friday, Sept. 21, 2001 / Tishrei 4, 5762 ------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S HEADLINES: 1. U.S. PRESSES, BUT PERES AND ARAFAT WILL NOT MEET 2. SHARON: "ARAFAT IS OUR BIN LADEN" 3. "CEASEFIRE" BROKEN LAST NIGHT, RE-STARTED THIS MORNING 4. CHENEY WANTS TO GO AFTER HIZBULLAH 5. PALESTINIANS SUPPORT STRIKES AGAINST U.S. TARGETS
***As we go to press: Arabs of the Palestinian Authority violated the "ceasefire" this afternoon by throwing at least three firebombs at IDF soldiers in Hevron and Rachel's Tomb.
1. U.S. PRESSES, BUT PERES AND ARAFAT WILL NOT MEET Israel's security cabinet decided last night, despite strong American pressure, not to allow Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to meet with Yasser Arafat. However, at the same time it kept the door slightly ajar by continuing the policy of military restraint. IDF soldiers are now forbidden to open fire at terrorists unless immediate danger is apparent.
Peres, who sorely wishes to meet with Arafat, acknowledged that the U.S. wants the meeting, "in order that the Arab world not think that the American war against terrorism is one against Arabs." Speaking on Israel Radio this morning, Peres claimed, "The Americans are not asking us to give up territory or our right to self-defense, but merely that we should sit with Arafat." Labor party ministers Vilnai, Itzik, Cohen, and Sneh said that Israel should adhere to American wishes on this matter.
However, most of the security cabinet ministers were against a Peres-Arafat meeting. They were bolstered by IDF Intelligence Chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Malka, who told them that Arafat has absolutely no intention of changing his policies and that his ceasefire order this week is merely a tactical ploy. The ministers were told that Arafat has "done nothing but talk, and his underlings understand that, except for blowing themselves up in suicide attacks within pre-1967 Israel, they can do whatever they want."
Minister Shlomo Benizri (Shas) asked Malka to present the army's position regarding a Peres-Arafat meeting, but Sharon did not allow him to answer. Benizri said that a meeting now with Arafat would again grant him legitimacy "just when he is already on the ropes," and other ministers agreed. Even Peres' request to Arafat to arrest the murderers of Sarit Amrani yesterday went unanswered. Although Peres said that Arafat assured him the murderer would be arrested, Israeli security has learned that the PA released the murderer after arresting him briefly for a "conversation." Amrani, mother of three children between the ages of two months and four years, was murdered yesterday morning outside Tekoa in eastern Gush Etzion, and her husband Shai was seriously wounded.
It is still possible, however, according to Israeli diplomatic sources quoted in Ha'aretz, that Peres and Arafat will meet tomorrow night, depending on the "security situation." Translated, this means that if the 48-hour ceasefire that Prime Minister Sharon demanded five days ago holds for at least 36 hours [Palestinian sources announced that the ceasefire began this morning], this will be sufficient. Other Israeli news sources reported that the meeting had been postponed "indefinitely."
2. SHARON: "ARAFAT IS OUR BIN LADEN" Arutz-7's Yosef Zalmanson asked Yesha leader Yaakov "Ketzaleh" Katz today why he feels that Israel should not, as Peres said, "accede, just this once, to the American request to meet with Arafat." Ketzaleh answered,
"Just as Bush will not agree to meet with Bin Laden, so too we must not meet with Arafat. Public opinion polls published recently by Israel's most popular newspapers show that 80-90% of the public believe that what Bin Laden is to the United States, Arafat is to Israel and the Jewish people. Not for naught has Prime Minister Sharon said repeatedly that 'Arafat is our Bin Laden.' [ed. note: Sharon told the Knesset this past Sunday, "Arafat chose a strategy of terrorism and established a coalition of terrorism. Terrorist actions against Israeli citizens are no different from Bin-Laden's terrorism against American citizens. It was Arafat who, dozens of years ago, legitimized the hijacking of planes. It was Palestinian terrorist organizations that began to dispatch suicide-terrorists. All extremist movements have receive redoubled legitimacy from Arafat since the murder of the Israeli athletes at Munich, and the murders of children at Avivim and Ma'alot."]
"Therefore," Ketzaleh continued, "we must fight Arafat the same way the U.S. wants to fight Bin Laden. The Jewish people, together with the Christian majority in the United States, are against all forms of pressure by the Bush Administration on Israel to agree that we should continue to be killed, as one woman was yesterday, as a result of passivity towards Arafat. Sharon himself said that we will give all help to the United States, except for that which will hurt our security."
Q. "Is there no room for compromise?"
Ketzaleh: "Every compromise invites more terrorism. The United States allowed the terrorists to take advantage of their democracy by allowing them free entry from Saudi Arabia and other countries, by not checking up sufficiently on where their monies came from or were going, etc. - and were rewarded with these cataclysmic terrorist attacks. It is not ethical for the Bush administration to press us to do anything that could lead to continued terrorism within Israel."
Q. "Peres warns that Bush and Powell will meet with Arafat and include him in the worldwide coalition, 'but if I don't meet with him then we will not be included.' What is your response?"
Ketzaleh: "If he does meet with Arafat, then it will make it that much easier for Bush to meet with Arafat and include him in the coalition. What we have to do is continue to pressure them not to meet with Arafat, who is responsible for the same type of terrorism that they are trying to fight... The fact is that Peres has always been warning us that we have to give in, etc. and it is exactly this approach of his that has led not only to Oslo and all its tragedies, but even to the terrible World Trade Center attack."
3. "CEASEFIRE" BROKEN LAST NIGHT, RE-STARTED THIS MORNING Palestinian sources now say that the ceasefire with Israel took effect early this morning, and that since then there has been total quiet throughout Judea and Samaria. Arafat had originally announced the ceasefire a few days ago. Last night, there was heavy Arab fire against the IDF's Tarmit outpost in Gaza, as well as a roadside bomb near Brachah in the Shomron. Six Israeli soldiers were wounded by Palestinian fire in Gaza yesterday afternoon.
The Yesha Council reacted gravely to the army's new restrictive open-fire orders today, warning that the new restrictions in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza are liable to cost even more Israeli lives. The new orders forbid opening fire unless there is clear mortal danger. Similarly, entry into Palestinian Authority-controlled territory (Area A) is now forbidden. The Council calls upon Prime Minister Sharon to "stop the obsessive chase after Arafat, the Middle East's Bin Laden."
4. CHENEY WANTS TO GO AFTER HIZBULLAH Despite the position of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is responsible for the force being exerted on Israel to meet with Arafat, there are those in the Bush Administration who are in favor of a more militant position. Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon officials favor expanding the American military option, and want to add Hizbullah in Lebanon and even Iraq to the list of military targets. So reported the Israeli daily Yediot Acharonot today.
5. PALESTINIANS SUPPORT STRIKES AGAINST U.S. TARGETS Palestinian Media Watch recently re-published a poll commissioned ten months ago that shows the extent of Palestinian support for a terrorist strike against the United States. PMW <pmw@netvision.net.il> reports that the spontaneous Palestinian celebrations after the horrific attacks in the United States were in fact "genuine expressions of the deep hatred of America that has been promoted by Palestinian Authority leadership for years." The poll shows that 73% of Palestinians support military action against American targets in the region, and that among academics, those who supported such attacks reached the rate of 77%. The poll was reported in the official PA newspaper Al Hayat Al Jadida on Nov. 11, 2000.
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To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com From: Arutz-7 Editor<feedback@israelnationalnews.com> Subject: Arutz-7 News: Sunday, Sept. 23, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com> Sunday, Sept. 23, 2001 / Tishrei 6, 5762 ------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S HEADLINES: 1. PERES-ARAFAT MEETING PUSHED OFF AGAIN 2. SHARON EXPLAINS 3. PERES WANTS OUT 4. WSJ: U.S. SHOULD NOT SHUN ISRAEL 5. ZOA: CHENEY IS RIGHT
1. PERES-ARAFAT MEETING PUSHED OFF AGAIN Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced at the start of today's Cabinet meeting that Foreign Minister Shimon Peres would not meet with Yasser Arafat today. Sharon told the ministers that it is impossible to hold the meeting while the violence and mortars continue, and after the PA released the murderer of Sarit Amrani this past Thursday.
The announcement followed last night's and this morning's news reports that Sharon and Peres had agreed yesterday that the meeting would probably take place this afternoon. Several national-camp government ministers met with Prime Minister Sharon this morning, where they apparently applied strong political pressure to call off the meeting. National Infrastructures Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in an interview with Voice of Israel Radio, refused to say whether his party - National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu - would quit the coalition in the event of a Peres-Arafat meeting. He explained why he opposes the meeting:
"85% of the Israeli public [according to a Channel 2 poll of last night] is against the meeting; there is a clear majority within the government, against this meeting. But what is most critical is that all the security organs say firmly that Arafat is continuing with terrorism and has not changed his plans. The murderer of the young mother from Nokdim was in the custody of the PA - and they released him; just last night three mortar shells exploded in a Gush Katif community. This is not terrorism?." When asked if he would quit the coalition, Lieberman said, "I hope it is Peres who quits and not us. More important right now than a national unity coalition with Peres is the security of Israel's citizens... It doesn't matter if there are 48 hours of quiet now; what matters is that he has not changed his basic position that terrorism against Israel is legitimate."
Housing Minister Natan Sharansky told Arutz-7 this morning that as far as he knows, there has been no concrete American pressure to hold the Peres-Arafat meeting, "although it's true that the White House is interested in maintaining quiet here in our region. This does not mean, however, that we must let Israeli citizens serve as live flesh for Palestinian terrorism merely to ensure that there be quiet."
Shas party leader Minister Eli Yeshai is firmly against the meeting as well, and although Peres tried to explain to him that the meeting is important because the Americans want it, Yeshai was not convinced.
2. SHARON EXPLAINS Prime Minister Sharon, speaking with Fox News today, reminded the world that Yasser Arafat is a terrorist, and explained that there had been 88 acts of Palestinian violence against Israelis in the past five days. Sharon noted that these included the murder of a young mother, "whose three-month-old baby refuses to be comforted or to drink from a bottle, and cries only for her mother."
The Prime Minister said that Arafat had personally given the orders for the murder of two U.S. diplomats and one from Belgium in 1973. Sharon said again that he would approve a meeting between Peres and Arafat if there were 48 hours of quiet, but said that meanwhile there are emergency warnings of impending suicide terrorist attacks in Israel.
3. PERES WANTS OUT Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, still reeling from the perceived blow dealt him by Prime Minister Sharon and the decision to forbid a meeting with Arafat, is said to be thinking of resigning. This afternoon he expressed his wish to go "on vacation," but Labor party ministers asked for an urgent meeting with Sharon to discuss the threat, and asked Peres to hold off on his decision until afterwards. The meeting will take place tomorrow at noon.
Political analysts say that there are only slim chances that Labor as a whole will quit the coalition, since popular support for the party is at an all-time low. Several Labor ministers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that they see no reason to resign from the government. Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, who may yet become the leader of the Labor Party following the disputed internal elections three weeks ago, criticized Sharon for insisting on 48 hours of quiet before allowing a Peres-Arafat meeting.
4. WSJ: U.S. SHOULD NOT SHUN ISRAEL "Fair-Weather Friends? America shunned Israel during the Gulf War. That would be an even bigger mistake this time." These words crown an article by Wall Street Journal contributing editor Seth Lipsky, published September 19, 2001. Excerpts thereof:
"The worst moment in America's relations with Israel came... when Saddam Hussein began launching Scud missiles at the Jewish state. Wanting to scramble its fighter aircraft and other forces to attack what Scud positions it could find, Israel sought from the Pentagon the aircraft codes known as IFF, which means "Identify Friend or Foe." The Pentagon refused. President Bush the elder refused to intervene...
"Forty-one years later, as the Scuds arced into Tel Aviv, the idea that America would ask Israel to stand down in the fight to destroy the enemies she shared with America seemed bizarre and even dangerous. President Bush persisted, not wanting to offend the Arab members of the Gulf War coalition... There were those who suggested that he ought to make a willingness to fight alongside Israel a price of joining the coalition. Instead, Mr. Bush held out to Israel the hope that from the victory of the gulf coalition would come the talks that would finally bring peace between Israel and its Arab enemies.
"The end result, though not the direct result, was the disaster of Oslo, the folly of which finally became clear even to its boosters with the terrorist war the Palestinian Arabs launched against Israel in the wake of Camp David II...
"The knowledge of this history is no doubt the reason why, in recent days, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been resisting the pressure from the State Department that it stand down from its defense during the attacks by the Palestinian Arabs so as to aid in the forming of a coalition between America and Israel's Arab enemies in the war against Osama bid Laden... But it would not be surprising to see the issue re-emerge as a defining question as to how deeply the current President Bush understands the nature of the war he is entering...
"No doubt President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell abhor racism as much as any other leaders. But when the price of joining in a conference against it became the isolation and denigration of Israel, it walked out. That has to give hope that should the price of the antiterrorism coalition become the exclusion of the very countries that are most closely allied with our values, the administration will hear the inner voice of conscience and find another way to fight the war."
4. ZOA: CHENEY IS RIGHT The Zionist Organization of America strongly supports U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's position that the forthcoming U.S. action against terrorists should include strikes against the Hizbullah terrorist group and Iraq. A ZOA press release provides a list of evidence linking Bin Laden and Hizbullah, and notes that Hizbullah is on the official U.S. government list of terrorist groups. Hizbullah, according to the ZOA, has carried out numerous attacks on Americans, including:
* the car-bomb attack killed 241 Americans, and 29 others, at the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon on Oct. 23, 1983;
* the bombing of the U.S. embassy annex in Beirut on September 20, 1984, killing 20 people;
* the car-bomb attack that killed 16 people at the U.S. embassy in Beirut on April 18, 1983;
* and the June 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, during which the hijackers murdered a passenger, U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem.
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To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com From: Arutz-7 Editor <feedback@israelnationalnews.com> Subject: Arutz-7 News: Monday, Sept. 24, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com> Monday, Sept. 24, 2001 / Tishrei 7, 5762 ------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S HEADLINES: 1. PERES AND ARAFAT WILL MEET, AFTER ALL 2. PRIME MINISTER SHARON WILLING TO GRANT ARABS PALESTINIAN STATE 3. SNEH: BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY "STABBED ISRAEL IN THE BACK" 4. OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF ISRAELIS AGAINST PERES-ARAFAT MEET
1. PERES AND ARAFAT WILL MEET, AFTER ALL Despite the murder of yet another Jewish woman this morning, and despite the fact that some 4/5 of the Israeli public is against a Peres-Arafat meeting, and despite the fact that MK Tzvi Hendel notes that "there is no American pressure, except for that exerted by Colin Powell, on Israel to hold such a meeting" - it now appears that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has allowed Foreign Minister Peres to meet with PLO terrorist chief Yasser Arafat tomorrow evening. The two announced that the meeting would take place "in the near future and at the appropriate time." It appears that the two wish the meeting to take place before the Wednesday night-Thursday holiday of Yom Kippur. Some reports, however, say that the meeting will take place immediately after Yom Kippur.
Although Sharon reacted to today's murder with the shrewd observation that "There is no ceasefire," and although he has been insisting on 48 hours of total quiet before allowing Peres to meet with Arafat, he apparently was cowed by Peres' threats to "go on vacation" and veiled threats of American disapproval. In a private talk this morning, the two agreed that Peres would meet with Arafat tomorrow in Gaza. Arafat, for his part, has said that he will be glad to meet with Peres at any time, in the knowledge that such a meeting would grant him legitimacy as a peacemaker as the world gets set to battle terrorism.
2. PRIME MINISTER SHARON WILLING TO GRANT ARABS PALESTINIAN STATE Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stated last night, in an address to the Teachers Union, that Israel is willing to grant the Palestinians an independent state. "Neither the Turks nor the British nor the Jordanians nor the Egyptians" offered to create a Palestinian State, said the Prime Minister. Israel is willing to do so, he said, if the Palestinians prove that they can enforce peace in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Sharon said that PLO leader Yasser Arafat has made a serious effort to reduce the warfare: "He even went to Rafiach to bring quiet to that area - something he has never done before." [Ed. note: A Channel Two news report directly from the nearby IDF's Tarmit outpost, where at least 20 grenades were hurled at the soldiers, indicated that Arafat had not been particularly successful.]
The Yesha Council reacted to the Prime Minister's comments by saying that "only a blind and callous leader" would offer the Palestinians an independent state, "as the territory already in their control has become a hotbed of terrorism and a base for suicide bombers." Minister of Tourism Rehavam Ze'evi stated that the proposal is in contradiction to the coalition agreement, and that such a radical proposal was never brought to the ministerial cabinet for approval.
3. SNEH: BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY "STABBED ISRAEL IN THE BACK" Much like his French counterpart last week, the British Foreign Secretary painted Israel as a catalyst of terror rather than one of its main victims.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said yesterday, on the eve of an unprecedented visit to Iran, that international terrorism is fed by the "fury in the Moslem world over the suffering of the Palestinian Arabs." Straw is due to arrive today in Iran, with the apparent intention of getting that Moslem state to join the international coalition against terrorism. The Foreign Secretary will stop in Israel on Tuesday.
Transportation Minister Ephraim Sneh, in an angry reply to Straw's comments, said that they portray Israel as a cause of terrorism rather than a victim of it. An exasperated Sneh repeatedly called such comments on the eve of the British Foreign Secretary's trip to Iran "a stab in the back to Israel." Iran is known to be one of the chief sponsors of international terrorism through the Hizbullah and other organizations.
4. OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF ISRAELIS AGAINST PERES-ARAFAT MEET Several polls taken over the past few days show that an overwhelming majority of Israelis do not support a meeting between Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO leader Yasser Arafat. A Channel Two poll reported on last night showed that 85% of those polled objected to such a meeting. Similarly a self-selected poll on the Israeli MSN website indicated that more than 76% of 7000 respondents voted against the meeting.
Irrespective of Israeli public sentiment in the matter, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said that calling off the meeting, as happened yesterday, could lead to an increase in terrorist attacks. Media reports indicated that the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in an attempt to pressure him to allow the Peres-Arafat meeting. According to Knesset Member Tzvi Hendel (National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu), "the only person in the Bush Administration pushing for a meeting between Peres and Arafat is Colin Powell. There is no American pressure for a meeting." The Prime Minister's Office also has denied that there is any American pressure. Shimon Peres, on the other hand, has publicly taken the opposite tack.
According to MK Hendel, "There never was such a high level of sympathy for the State of Israel in Congress and in the American media as there is today. Whoever says that there is American pressure is lying." Hendel believes that the meeting would only cause tremendous damage to Israel and prevent it from acting to dismantle the Palestinian Authority. "We all know that the overwhelming majority is against Peres. Even at the Labor Party meeting today everyone criticized him," said Hendel.
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