Subject: PA Preparing for War against Israel
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 00:16:57 +0000
To: "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>

 

From:          ICEJ News <meid@icej.org.il>
Subject:       ICEJ NEWS FEB 4

ICEJ NEWS SERVICE FROM JERUSALEM

News and comment on Middle East affairs, compiled by journalists at the
International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, publishers of the Middle East
Digest.

TIME MAGAZINE SPECIAL REPORT: GETTING READY FOR WAR
February 2, 1998

With the peace process stalled, Yasser Arafat has developed a plan to
battle the Israeli army

Palestinian security officials had a plan. Contemplating a new
confrontation with the Israeli military, they took an inventory of all the
tractors and bulldozers in the West Bank. Then they devised a system for
appropriating the machinery to dig ditches and build other obstacles to
slow an Israeli advance. But how to test the scheme? In mid-January an
opportunity was literally heaven-sent. When a rare blizzard blanketed the
West Bank with snow, Palestinian authorities quickly seized the earthmovers
under the pretence of clearing the roads. In fact, the action was a drill
for war.

The visit to the region this week by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
has focused the spotlight on diplomacy for the moment. But with the peace
process stalled, military commanders will get no rest. The Israeli army has
long plotted and rehearsed its options in the Palestinian territories;
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's forces are now rushing to catch up.

According to a senior Palestinian security official, Arafat's contingency
plan calls for the escalation of stone and Molotov cocktail attacks by
civilians on Israeli troops still stationed within and just outside
Palestinian cities. The idea would be to provoke the Israelis into
re-entering urban areas now under Palestinian control, where they would
come under fire not only from Arafat's official forces but also from
illegally armed Palestinians. The result would be high casualties on both
sides. Arafat, according to the security official, believes a large death
toll would force the US to step in to stop the bloodletting and,
presumably, impose a diplomatic solution that would give the Palestinians
greater autonomy.

In any future fight, the forces of the Palestinian Authority will be better
equipped than they were for their four-day mini-war with Israel in
September 1996. In that encounter they had only the small arms permitted
them under the peace accords. Since then they have been smuggling in
larger, forbidden weapons including, Palestinian officials say, mortars,
antitank missiles and even, according to one source, a score of Katyusha
rockets with a range of 12 miles. Authorities in Israel assume that several
armour-piercing heavy machine guns recently stolen from Israeli army stores
are in Palestinian hands. According to Israeli intelligence, the
Palestinians have developed a formal war room that is mobile and headed by
Brigadier General Haj Ismail, overall military commander of the West Bank.
The Israelis also report that the Palestinians, anticipating future
casualties, have expanded trauma units and morgues.

Arafat, in Israel's estimation, regards the war option only as a desperate
last resort in case diplomacy fails altogether. Still, Israel has developed
and simulated multiple plans for battling the Palestinians anew, including
one code-named "Field of Thorns", which calls for the retaking of the West
Bank cities. Both sides know two things in advance of another fight: Israel
will win it, and it will be horribly painful. "It'll be much bigger than
last September," says an Israeli commander. "Much crueller, much bloodier,
much more complicated."
 
By Lisa Beyer/Nablus. With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Nablus and Aharon
Klein/Jerusalem 

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Compiled and written by Stan Goodenough
(c) 1998 ICEJ/Middle East Digest

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Middle East Digest
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