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To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com From: Arutz-7 Editor <feedback@israelnationalnews.com> Subject: Arutz-7 News: Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com> Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2001 / Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan 5762 ------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S HEADLINES: 1. MINISTER REHAVAM ZE'EVI ASSASSINATED BY PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS 2. THE MAN WHO LOVED ERETZ YISRAEL 3. ZE'EVI'S PARTY WON'T RESIGN FROM GOV'T - FOR NOW 4. REACTIONS 5. EXCERPTS FROM THE PRESS
1. MINISTER REHAVAM ZE'EVI ASSASSINATED BY PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS The death of Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi was announced at 10 AM this morning, after an unknown assailant in a Jerusalem hotel shot him in the head and neck. Many Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, upon hearing the news, broke out in celebration, just as they did after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organization took responsibility for the attack, as revenge for Israel's killing of PFLP head Abu Mustafa two months ago. The PFLP says that it plans more such vengeance killings. The PFLP has a long record of terror and murder both inside Israel and abroad, including the hijacking in September 1970 of four Western jetliners to Jordan, where they were blown up. The PFLP was responsible for about ten attacks this year, mostly car bombs in Jerusalem and elsewhere, in which about 30 Israelis were wounded. The Israeli government attempted to prevent future attacks by the PFLP by demanding that the Palestinian Authority arrest senior PFLP leaders - but the PA did not do so.
There were apparently no witnesses to the shooting, which took place on the 8th floor of the Jerusalem Hyatt Hotel. Ze'evi was found when Arutz-7 broadcaster Eshel Levine, who had arranged to interview him for his morning program, called the Minister's spokeswoman to say that Ze'evi could not be reached. When she too could not reach him, she called Mrs. Ze'evi in the hotel dining room, who went up to their room and found him in the hall lying in a pool of blood.
It is assumed that the crime was committed either by hotel workers or with their help. Several workers at the hotel are suspected of membership in the PFLP. It was noted that security at the hotel was not tight, and that it is easy to enter and leave the hotel from several directions. Mrs. Ze'evi later related that before he left the breakfast table this morning, he told her that an Arab man in the dining room "has not taken his eyes off me, and it's suspicious."
Jerusalem Police Chief Mickey Levy confirmed that the minister was not protected by bodyguards this morning. According to GSS guidelines, only the Prime Minister, Defense Minister, and one or two others are always guarded, while other government members are guarded intermittently according to intelligence recommendations. Ze'evi specifically generally objected to having bodyguards around. Despite the above, the GSS took full responsibility for failing to prevent the assassination.
Although he was clinically dead when he arrived at the hospital, the doctors worked for over two hours to resuscitate him.
The Jerusalem Magistrates Court issued a gag order on all details of the investigation into the assassination.
2. THE MAN WHO LOVED ERETZ YISRAEL Rehavam Amikam Ze'evi was born in Jerusalem in 1926; he was a sixth-generation Jerusalemite on his mother's side. He and his wife Yael, of Kibbutz Deganiah Bet, had five children, 19 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. His five children all had names with modern Jewish-historic significance: Yiftach Palmach, Sayar Binyamin, Massada, Tse'elah, and Aravah.
Ze'evi joined the Palmach, an elite unit of the Haganah forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, in 1944. Five months ago, he organized a "birthday party" for the Palmach, and said, "The Palmach was an army of barefooted, and happy soldiers who made do with little. Their weapons were few and their salaries were close to zero, but they never complained or moaned and instead carried their nation with high morale and a sense of mission. The Palmach was an army that looked for and suggested missions, and never said something was impossible. The Palmach was a fighting framework of morals and ethics, that made a covenant of "the cornstalks and the sword" with the settlement enterprise that viewed it as a Zionist and security value. The Palmach also engaged in intelligence missions and others on behalf of the Jewish nation. The Palmach was a school for the knowledge and love of the Land of Israel."
Ze'evi served in the IDF with its founding in 1948 in many positions, including heading the Central Command beginning in 1968. He retired from the army with the rank of Maj.-Gen, and was appointed to be Prime Minister Rabin's advisor on terrorism and intelligence in 1974. He also carried out many defense missions in various countries, and was elected to the Knesset in 1988 as head of the Moledet Party that he founded. He served as minister without portfolio in the Shamir government for about a year in the early 90's, and became Tourism Minister under the Sharon government.
Former President Weizman said today that although he and Ze'evi differed in their political outlooks, "he was a very good friend of mine ever since 1948, and he was my aide during the Six-Day War [when Weizman served as Chief of Operations of the General Staff]. There was no occasion on which we met that we didn't embrace each other. He was an outstanding general, well-organized and worked zealously to achieve his goals."
When asked about his lack of a bodyguard, Ze'evi would often say that he was his own bodyguard. Sometimes he answered, "All of Eretz Yisrael is mine, I will not accept any restrictions." When his name was included among the list of Israeli leaders slated for assassination by Arab terrorists, he said, "I see that I am in good company, with the Chief of Staff and others, and this makes me happy." Asked if he was scared, he said, "Me?! Do I look like someone who is scared?"
The name Gandhi was given him when, as a slim youth, he masqueraded one Purim with a long white toga and glasses, looking like the Indian leader Gandhi. He was known to always wear a dog tag with the names of the missing Israeli soldiers. He put on tefillin every day, saying that this connected him to Jewish tradition.
Rehavam Ze'evi was also a member of Board of Directors of the Eretz Yisrael Museum in Tel Aviv, edited many books published by the museum and the Defense Ministry, and graduated the USA Army Command & General Staff College. He was the 188th victim of what he often called the Oslo War.
3. ZE'EVI'S PARTY WON'T RESIGN FROM GOV'T - FOR NOW The National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu faction of the Knesset convened this morning, both to pay tribute to their leader Rehavam Ze'evi - many of the MKs and their aides were openly teary-eyed - and also to decide whether to rescind the party's decision of two days ago to resign from the coalition. In the end, it was decided to remain in the government until the end of the seven-day mourning period, and then to decide on future moves based on the government's policies.
MK Benny Elon, number two on Ze'evi's Moledet party list, read a chapter from what he called "the Book of Books, the book that Gandhi lived and that which gives us the right to live in this land." He began with verses from David's elegy for the slain King Saul - "How the mighty are fallen!" - and continued emotionally with today's weekly Psalm of the Day, Psalm 94: "O L-rd, G-d of vengeance; L-rd of vengeance, appear! Lift up Thyself, judge of the land, render to the arrogant their due. L-rd, how long shall the wicked triumph? ... They crush Thy people, they slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the orphans... Fools, when will you be wise?"
Minister Avigdor Lieberman spoke, and said that though he knew him only for the past two years, "he was an officer and a gentleman." Lieberman then continued, "Something has happened in Israel. Just like Sept. 11 changed the world, this murder has changed the situation here in Israel. We cannot continue as if nothing happened. This is not the time or place to go into the details of the changes that will be made." Later he said, "I am sorry that we only discovered each other so late."
Lieberman later said that some "very important decisions have already been made by the government today," but he would not elaborate. He himself participated in the security cabinet meeting, in place of his assassinated party colleague. The public aspects of the decisions included the return of the encirclement around Ramallah. It is suspected that the terrorists used the roads around Ramallah that had just been re-opened to enter Jerusalem and make their escape.
Prime Minister Sharon said shortly after hearing of the murder, "A new era has begun."
4. REACTIONS Housing Minister Natan Sharansky: "We have to fight an all-out war against terrorism, and stop this double game where a terrorist is our partner in talks."
MK Tzvi Hendel of the National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu party: "This assassination was a declaration of war on the most unambiguous level. If an Israeli government minister can be murdered in the capital city, we must liquidate and disperse the entire Palestinian Authority."
MK Benny Elon told Arutz-7 today,
"I would like to begin the same way Gandhi would always begin his weekly spot on Arutz-7: Shalom to the Jews. Ze'evi had a great part in founding the security of the State of Israel... I think all the listeners understand that those making war against Am Yisrael scored a victory today, but we will return fire with all our strength, just as Gandhi taught and fought all his life. He was a soldier who fought and was killed as a martyr. He will be missed, but we will continue his fight. We must remember that he did not rest for a moment, not for a moment, and I hope that his death will cause the Prime Minister to realize that there is no choice but to bring down the PA...
"This killing was not of an individual, but of a hero in Israel, a symbol of Israeli sovereignty, and a symbol of fear for our enemies. He was one of the few former army officers who remained a symbol of this strength... He believed that there will not be peace in this land until we make it clear to ourselves that this is our land and our home, and that *they* are the foreigners here [Ze'evi was an advocate of the transfer of Arabs out of Israel]. If we reach an agreement that they go to Jordan, or some other [such] agreement, then good, but if they begin a war with us, then the war will end as did the 1948 war - and we all know that that war brought a great demographic and geographic change, and I feel that his legacy is now more alive and more relevant than ever before."
Deputy Minister Yuli Edelstein (Yisrael B'Aliyah): I have no doubt that the Palestinians have crossed the red line, they have gone from threats to actions, and I hope that now the government will finally come to the right conclusions that were not reached after the Dolphinarium and Sbarro, and take very drastic moves against the Palestinian Authority...
President Moshe Katzav blamed Arafat for the assassination, and called it one of the gravest murders in the history of the State of Israel.
5. EXCERPTS FROM THE PRESS
"If 5,500 people had not been horribly murdered in America on September 11, would Tony Blair have invited Yasser Arafat to Downing Street? Why, in the midst of a war against terrorism, does the Prime Minister embrace the man who, more than any other, invented international terrorism? September 11 ought to have strengthened Israel's relationship with the West. Israel's enemies are our enemies. In such a common predicament, to demonstrate solidarity with Israel ought to have been an elementary duty. Instead, our governments have so far done the opposite. America and Britain have talked up the creation of an independent Palestinian state. The purpose of the 'peace process' is no longer to make peace, but to satisfy one party to the conflict..." - To Court Arafat is to Succour [Help] the Enemy of Our Ally Israel, by Daniel Johnson, the London Telegraph, Oct. 16, 2001
"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has famously labeled Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat as "our bin Laden." Actually, this is an exaggeration. Arafat is our Taliban. Though Arafat and the Taliban are obviously not cut from the same Muslim fundamentalist cloth, their relationship to terrorism is similar. The United States and Britain decided to start bombing the Taliban regime, because it was difficult for them to tell who controlled whom: Bin Laden or the Taliban...
"Arafat's relationship with Hamas and Islamic Jihad may be more complicated, but in the end no less intimate than that between the Taliban and bin Laden. Over the past year, Arafat and his supposed radical opponents engaged a tandem strategy of terror. Arafat's forces, such as Fatah-Tanzim and Force 17, would gun down Israelis on the roads in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, and controlled the manufacture and distribution of mortars that were fired on Israeli communities. Arafat's "opposition" would focus on suicide bombing in Israel proper. When Arafat decided it was in his interest to call a cease-fire, he would convince his "opposition" that suicide attacks were not in the Palestinian interest... In this respect, Arafat is worse than the Taliban: he does not just harbor and cooperate with terrorists - the organizations he leads engage in terrorism themselves.
"...British Prime Minister Tony Blair should know that the war against terrorism cannot be fought by continuing to allow the terrorist to play divide and conquer. Both Britain and the United States have been drifting toward a distinction between two types of terror: "global" terror directed at the West in general and "local" terror geared toward achieving more limited local aims. A take-no-prisoners war is being fought against the former, but the world's most prominent symbol of the latter - Yasser Arafat - is welcomed into 10 Downing Street...
"...In this respect, Sharon's retracted Czechoslovakia analogy was right on target. Appeasement is the attempt to address "little" grievances in the hope that the big grievance will go away. Appeasement has a bad name not just because it is wrong, but because it is not prudent - it does not work.
"...Any attempt to ingratiate the Arab world at the expense of Israel's security will reward terrorism on a global scale, leading to more terrorism against Israel, Arab regimes, and the United States. The war on terrorism will not withstand the bombing of one Taliban and the coddling of another." - Arafat is our Taliban, Jerusalem Post editorial, Oct. 16, 2001
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To: arutz-7@israelnationalnews.com, arutz-7b@israelnationalnews.com From: Arutz-7 Editor <feedback@israelnationalnews.com> Subject: Arutz-7 News: Thursday, Oct. 18, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com> Thursday, Oct. 18, 2001 / Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan 5762 ------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S HEADLINES: 1. MORE ON GANDHI 2. CABINET ISSUES OPEN ULTIMATUM TO ARAFAT
1. MORE ON GANDHI MK Eliezer Cheetah Cohen, a member of the Yisrael Beiteinu party that joined with Ze'evi's National Union party some months ago, told Arutz-7 today, "The reason why Ze'evi is considered extremist is very simple: He said the truth, and people don't like to hear the truth."
The National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu party decided three days ago to resign from the government because of its policy of restraint regarding PA-sponsored terrorism - but this decision was changed yesterday, following the assassination. Although the new decision is valid only for the seven-day mourning period, MK Cohen implied that the government's future moves would be such that would enable the party to remain in the coalition: "Israel of today is no longer the same. You will see this two days from now, and two weeks from now, and two months from now. Gandhi achieved much with his death; even the Americans announced that they were stopping..." [ed. note - a reference to a major foreign policy speech that was to have been delivered by US Secretary of State Colin Powell].
2. CABINET ISSUES OPEN ULTIMATUM TO ARAFAT The Cabinet convened for several hours last night, after which the following statement was released:
"The Government and people of Israel are shocked and outraged by the cold-blooded assassination of Minister Rehavam Ze'evi. The murder of a member of the Israeli Cabinet and Knesset crosses all red lines... The responsibility lies squarely with Arafat and the Palestinian Authority.
"In the interest of creating calm and advancing the cause of peace, and at the urging of our friends in the international community, we held meetings with Chairman Arafat, roadblocks were removed, and Israeli forces withdrew from Hevron. But the Palestinians only reciprocated with violence and murder. Many promises were made, but only little steps were taken to prevent terror.
"The time for words has ended, and the time for deeds has come. Israel demands the extradition of those responsible for today's assassination, and expects this to be carried out immediately. We also demand that the terrorist organizations operating in the Palestinian areas be outlawed, disarmed, and dismantled. Arafat must not shelter them any longer.
"Failure to meet these demands, which are grounded in signed agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, will leave us with no choice but to view the Palestinian Authority as an entity supporting and sponsoring terror, and to act accordingly."
Prime Minister Sharon was quoted as saying that he will breathe deeply, wait a few days, and if the murderers are not given over - he will strike out at Arafat. "That which was, will no longer be," he said.
Several ministers said today that they agree with Finance Minister Silvan Shalom's idea that Arafat must be "expelled from the region." At the meeting, Sharon suggested that Israel's demands from the PA include the turning over of all 108 wanted terrorists, or at least the ten who are considered "ticking time-bombs;" the Cabinet did not accept this idea. Various deadlines were suggested within which the PA must fulfill the demands, ranging from three to seven days, but at the end it was decided to leave it open and to convene again in the coming days.
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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, Oct. 19, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com> Friday, Oct. 19, 2001 / Cheshvan 2, 5762 ------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S HEADLINES: 1. "CONFUSED" MINISTERS TRY TO FIND A COMMON LINE 2. JANE'S: SHARON WILLING TO DISMANTLE GUSH KATIF
1. "CONFUSED" MINISTERS TRY TO FIND A COMMON LINE Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met last night with the members of a ministerial delegation due to leave shortly on an information campaign abroad. Some of them said afterwards, however, that they were "confused," and that Sharon and Peres were instructing them to take different approaches. The disagreement centers over whether Arafat is to be presented as Israel's Bin Laden or Taliban, as the Prime Minister wants, or as Israel's peace partner, as Peres insists. In attendance were Ministers Shimon Peres, Meridor, Danny, Landau, Rivlin, Vilnai, Sharansky, Livnat, Livni and Benizri - not all of whom will be taking part in the mission - as well as Jerusalem Mayor Olmert and Prof. Avishai Braverman. Analysts noted that Binyamin Netanyahu - by all accounts a master in the field of public relations and Ariel Sharon's top competitor for Likud party leadership - is apparently not being considered for inclusion in the information effort.
Sharon said that the assassination of Minister Ze'evi "crossed a red line and has created a new situation, which calls for a new modus operandi of the IDF and the security services." The message Sharon wishes to get across is that Arafat, "Israel's Bin-Laden and/or Taliban," is solely to blame for Palestinian terrorism. Foreign Minister Peres, however, objects to the equation between Arafat and Bin-Laden, and wants to emphasize that Israel still sees him as its peace partner. For instance, after Ze'evi's assassination, both Sharon and Defense Minister Ben-Eliezer blamed Arafat - but this was not the message emanating from the Foreign Ministry. One of the ministers said after last night's meeting, "It doesn't matter what we agree, the Foreign Ministry does what it wants."
2. JANE'S: SHARON WILLING TO DISMANTLE GUSH KATIF Prime Minister Ariel Sharon plans to present a program, during his visit to Washington and US President Bush next month, involving the withdrawal from Gaza and the evacuation and dismantlement of all the Jewish towns there. So reports the prestigious Jane's Foreign Report based on unnamed sources, who said that Sharon did not want to even entertain such a possibility until he learned that Bush plans to present a plan of his own.
The Foreign Report also claims that Sharon will agree to withdraw from parts of Judea and Samaria, and to a Palestinian state, in the framework of a phased plan that will last a number of years. The Prime Minister's Office responded to these reports by saying, "No diplomatic plan will be presented until the negotiations begin." The government has long claimed that there will not be negotiations until the violence stops.
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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, Oct. 21, 2001
Arutz Sheva News Service <http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com> Sunday, Oct. 21, 2001 / Cheshvan 4, 5762 ------------------------------------------------
TODAY'S HEADLINES: 1. "LARGEST GROUND OFFENSIVE SINCE WAR'S BEGINNING" 2. PERES ALL ALONE 3. UNITY ON THE RIGHT?
1. "LARGEST GROUND OFFENSIVE SINCE WAR'S BEGINNING" The activities of the last two days have been called the army's largest ground offensive since the beginning of the Rosh HaShanah Arab Assault. The army gave advance warning to the PA security agencies, in order not to drag those of them who are still "fence sitting" into the fighting; the 20 Palestinians who were killed in the fighting were engaged in private initiatives to ambush the Israeli forces. Tanks and infantry moved into the cities, with air cover from combat helicopters, and in some cases engineering units came in to destroy PA military buildings.
In Bethlehem, the forces reached the Paradise Hotel, a symbol of tourism in the city but which has of late become a PA military post; Arabs have used it to fire at Rachel's Tomb. In Kalkilye, the forces removed the Palestinian flag from atop the military headquarters and replaced it with an Israeli flag. Tanks entered Tul Karem from four directions, and came within 500 meters of the PA military headquarters there. Israeli flags were unfurled atop several buildings in Tul Karem.
Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Sha'ul Mofaz told the ministers that the weekend offensives had already bore fruit. He said that his forces had arrested a suicide terrorist on his way to perpetrate an attack, as well as four other terrorists, three of whom were of Hamas.
2. PERES ALL ALONE Foreign Minister Shimon Peres left late last night for the U.S., but not before being briefed on the extent of the IDF offensives. He was not happy with what we heard, and said that he hoped that there would be "something left here" when he returned. Earlier he explained on a television talk show that if Israel crumbles the Palestinian Authority, "there will be a bloodbath in the territories." Peres will meet with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and other officials. Sharon staffers said they hoped his message there would not conflict with the government line. At one point during today's Cabinet session, Sharon noted that the Peres-Arafat meetings brought terrorist attacks in their wake.
Peres staffers accused Prime Minister Sharon of "tricking" the Foreign Minister, but Sharon denied this, saying that the army's offensives in the PA areas were merely the implementation of the security cabinet's Wednesday night decisions against terrorism. Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer also said privately that he does not understand Peres. "The government does not have to approve every single tank or personnel carrier that enters Area A," Ben-Eliezer said. Even Minister Dalia Itzik, who generally comes to Peres' defense, said that the Prime Minister had convinced her that there was no deviation from the government decisions. "Sharon read off the decisions that were made last week, and asked if any minister could point out any discrepancies between them and the IDF actions," Itzik said, "and not one minister raised his hand. If they now come and tell journalists that there were such deviations, they are not worthy of being ministers." Itzik did say, however, that it was likely that Labor would leave the coalition within three months.
3. UNITY ON THE RIGHT? Preliminary talks are being held between the National Religious Party (NRP) and the National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu party regarding a possible merger. As NRP leader Rabbi Yitzchak Levy told Arutz-7 today, however, it depends on many factors - not least of which is whether the two parties are both on the same side of the government or not.
Rabbi Levy, whose daughter Ayelet HaShachar was the first female victim of the Rosh HaShanah Arab Assault - she was murdered in a carbomb blast in Jerusalem one year ago today, on the 4th of Cheshvan - said, "I am first of all in favor of maximum cooperation between our respective parties. However, we must wait a while and see how things develop. We certainly cannot join together if they are in the government while we are in the opposition." He said that under the current circumstances, he would recommend that the NUYB party stick with its original decision and leave the government:
"If the government has truly changed its approach, and is truly preparing to strike a real blow against Palestinian terrorism, then we would also be happy to join the government. But at present I can't say that I am convinced that the government has truly changed, because Peres' line is still strongly supported. If when Peres returns from the U.S. we see the tanks withdrawing and all the closures opening up and the situation reverts to the way it was a few days ago, then we have done nothing."
MK Tzvi Hendel (NUYB), a former member of the NRP, told Arutz-7 that he is very much in favor of the two parties joining together, "and I would even invite Yisrael B'Aliyah to join too. The larger our bloc is, the more efficiently we can act for Eretz Yisrael." MK Benny Elon, who is slated to take over the leadership of the National Union part of NUYB following the assassination of Minister Rehavam Ze'evi, said that he is also in favor, in principle, but that many aspects still need to be investigated.
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