Posted on 04/04/2004 10:00:52 PM PDT by Polycarp IV
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| Apr. 4, 2004. 07:19 PM |
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BY STEVE WEIZMAN In an interview set for broadcast Monday by Israeli radio, Sharon also said for the first time that under his plan to leave the Gaza Strip, evacuated Jewish settlements would not be destroyed. Sharon said that three years ago he promised President George W. Bush that Israel would not harm Arafat, but since then circumstances had changed. "Arafat was (then) given red carpet treatment everywhere in the world. Today it is clear to the United States and to everyone just who Arafat is," Sharon said. Israel and the United States are boycotting Arafat, charging that he is responsible for Palestinian violence. On March 22, Israel assassinated Sheik Ahmed Yassin, founder and leader of the violent Islamic Hamas movement, and officials said Israeli forces would mete out similar treatment to others involved in the organization or execution of attacks on Israel. Asked by the army radio interviewer if that meant Arafat and Hezbollah's Sheik Hassan Nasrallah were targets, Sharon replied, "Whoever aims to kill Jews, whoever sends murderers to kill Jews, is marked for death." Israel accuses Arafat of not only ignoring violent groups operating from territory under his control, but also actively encouraging attacks against Israelis. Nasrallah said earlier this week that his Lebanese militant group would help Hamas avenge Yassin's death. Hezbollah and Israel fought a bloody 18-year guerrilla war in south Lebanon before Israel's withdrawal in 2000, and the two are still bitter enemies. Sharon said he had not sought American approval for any strike against Arafat or Nasrallah. "I didn't ask permission from anyone," he said. "I want to emphasize again that anyone who kills Jews because they are Jews is marked for death." Hamas has claimed responsibility for suicide bomb attacks that have killed hundreds of Israelis during more than three years of conflict. Sharon made similar threats in other interviews ahead of the Jewish Passover holiday, which starts at sundown Monday. In the army radio broadcast, he also said Israel would not demolish buildings left behind in Jewish settlements to be vacated in a proposed withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. He said that Israel intended to get the property evaluated by international organizations and had already raised the issue with the World Bank. When Israel pulled out of the Sinai Desert in 1982 under terms of its peace accord with Egypt it destroyed the Jewish settlements there. Sharon was defence minister at the time. With peace moves frozen, Sharon has proposed a unilateral Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip and a much smaller withdrawal in the West Bank. He has said that the moves are needed to fend off hostile international initiatives and reduce friction with the Palestinians. |
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Arafat is not immune if terror continues
There are no plans to kill Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat "tomorrow," but if his support for terror continues, he is not immune, a senior diplomatic official said. He was responding to criticism of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's threat that – following the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin – Arafat may be next.
Sharon, in interviews with the Hebrew press that will be published in full on Monday and are part of his campaign to garner support in the Likud for his disengagement plan, hinted that both Arafat and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah should be concerned about their safety.
Asked by Ha'aretz whether Arafat and Nasrallah are targets for assassination, Sharon said: "I wouldn't suggest that either of them feel immune... Anyone who kills a Jew or harms an Israeli citizen or sends people to kill Jews is a marked man. Period."
To Ma'ariv, he said that Arafat does not have an "insurance policy... today, everyone knows Arafat is the obstacle [blocking] any progress. As long as he is around and making trouble, Abu Ala [PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei] cannot move one Palestinian policeman from one side of the street to the other."
Arafat shrugged off the threats, telling reporters in Ramallah: "I don't care about it. I am caring for my people, for our children, for our women, for our students."
Sharon s statement evoked responses from Washington to Moscow to Amman.
US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told reporters that, "Our position on such questions – the exile or assassination of Yasser Arafat – is very well known. We are opposed and we have made that very clear to the government of Israel."
In Moscow,, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told Russian journalists that threats against Arafat are "inadmissible."
"Blood is being shed in sacred places for both the Muslims and the Jews, first of all in Jerusalem, which is arousing great regret," Yakovenko said in a statement. Against this background, Israel's statements conveying direct threats to Arafat, the legitimately elected and recognized leader of the Palestinian people, are inadmissible." "Russia is consistently campaigning against the practice of out-of- court punishment, which goes against the norms of international law and is undermining efforts to break the vicious circle of violence and to start a constructive dialogue between the conflicting parties," said Yakovenko.
Jordanian officials, meanwhile, also warned against targeting Arafat. "These persistent threats only increase tension and escalate violence in the Palestinian territories and do not serve peace," government spokesman Asma Khodr told AFP.
The cabinet, following two attacks on September 10 that killed 15 people, one at Caf Hillel in Jerusalem and another at a bus stop outside of Tzrifin,, decided in vague language to "remove" Arafat, but left the timing open.
"The best thing for Israel right now," according to a senior diplomatic official, "is for Arafat to continue to be isolated and penned up in his headquarters in Ramallah."
Sharon's threat, as well as others issued earlier last week by Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya alon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, are part of the psychological warfare against Palestinian terrorist leaders.
These threats have a "psychological effect," the official said, ensuring that the leadership devotes much of its energy to personal security concerns – making it all the more difficult to plan and execute attacks against Israelis.
Regarding the international criticism, heard every time Israel publicly discusses Arafat s fate, the officials said everyone is paying lip service, but no one will be sorry one day if by an invisible hand Arafat disappears."
The official said that with the Likud referendum on the disengagement plan looming large, everything must be seen within the prism of domestic politics.
Sharon is slated to leave for the US on April 12, immediately after Pessah, meet in Washington with President George W. Bush on April 14, and return on April 16.
Work is still taking place on the expected letter the US will give Sharon backing the disengagement plan. The letter is also widely expected to include language making it clear that the US does not expect Israel to eventually retreat to the pre 1967 lines, and calling on Palestinian refugees to be re-settled in a future Palestinian state, and not in Israel.
During negotiations over the letter, mention has been made of a letter by former president Gerald Ford to then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1975. In that letter the US gave certain assurances to Israel regarding the Golan when the first Rabin administration executed a controversial withdrawal from the Sinai mountain passes during the second Egyptian-Israeli disengagement accord.
Ford wrote: The US will support the position that an overall settlement with Syria in the framework of a peace agreement must assure Israel's security from attack from the Golan Heights. The US further supports the position that a just and lasting peace, which remains our objective, must be acceptable to both sides. The US has not developed a final position on the borders. Should it do so it will give great weight to Israel's position that any peace agreement with Syria must be predicated on Israel remaining on the Golan Heights. Sharon, during his string of interviews, said that by next Pessah Israel will be in the height of our disengagement from the Gaza Strip. He also said that in parallel Israel would evacuate four settlements in northern Samaria – Homesh, Sa-Nur, Ganim, and Kadim.
Sharon said he has ordered an immediate halt to all construction and development in Gaza settlements in anticipation of a unilateral pullout. He told Yediot Ahronot that after the withdrawal Israel would consider cutting off water and electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip if attacks against Israelis continue.
Sharon also told Haaretz that once Israel completes its West Bank security fence, Palestinians living illegally in Israel would be expelled. He said there are tens of thousands of them in Israeli Arab villages.
AP contributed to this report
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1080979165728&p=1078027574121
| Rank | Location | Receipts | Donors/Avg | Freepers/Avg | Monthlies | |||
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| 48 | Panama | 25.00 |
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There are no plans to kill Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat "tomorrow," but if his support for terror continues, he is not immune, a senior diplomatic official said. He was responding to criticism of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's threat that – following the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin – Arafat may be next.
I suspect this is a warning to Arafat, but that the death sentence has not yet been issued.
 Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) smiles at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, April 3, 2004. Arafat said on Saturday he was unmoved by a veiled threat from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) to assassinate him. Arafat says 'I don't care for it. I am caring for my people, for our children, for our women, for our students.' REUETRS/Loay Abu Haykel |
 Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) prays next to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in Gaza City, December 2000. Palestinian leader Arafat led the condemnation of Israel's killing of Hamas founder Yassin as tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets of the occupied territories.(AFP/PPO/File) |
Holy Week fears at Vatican
Vatican City, April 1 (UPI) -- As Pope John Paul II prepares to preside at all Holy Week celebrations, there are terror fears at the Vatican, Italian and Catholic publications report.
According to Adnkronos News Service, the CIA urged the pontiff to wear a bulletproof vest at his public appearances next week and on Easter Sunday. The pope has always refused to do this.
However, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told reporters, "There is absolutely no cause for alarm."
Still, "American and European security analysts agree that the Vatican could be a terrorist target," writes CWNews.com, a Catholic online service. They also agree that the danger of a terrorist attack will be particularly high on Easter Sunday.
The pope's opposition to the war in Iraq and against Israel's treatment of Palestinians may not matter to someone under the sway of "the uncontrollable madness of terrorism," said Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
This is the world's longest standing, most well known terrorist. And everyone allows him to continue to do what terrorists do?
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