Posted on 10/17/2001 7:54:07 AM PDT by veronica
Israel cuts all contact with Palestine
ISRAEL has cut all contact with Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority after the assassination of ultranationalist tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi.
Mr Arafat has orderd a security crack down "All political contacts with the Palestinians are suspended until acts of terrorism cease," Israel Public Radio reported this afternoon.
Mr Arafat has ordered the arrest of those responsible for Mr Zeevi's death. The Palestinian National Authority has condemned the killing, saying it was committed to upholding the truce with Israel.
"President Arafat issued his instructions to all security services to look for this group that carried out the assassination and arrest them. He also instructed the security services to crack down on whoever violates the ceasefire with Israel," said a Palestinian security official.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that "everything has changed" after the killing. He has decided to rescind steps to ease a blockade on Palestinian areas and would take other unspecified measures in response to the killing, an Israeli political source said.
"From today everything has changed just as President Bush said after the 11th of September," Mr Sharon was quoted as telling senior security and cabinet officials.
Mr Sharon said that Mr Arafat bore full responsibility for the minister's assassination.
"I hold Arafat fully responsible, inasmuch as he set the terrorism in motion, even though he knew very well what the consequences would be," he told a special session of the Israeli parliament, convened to pay respect to Zeevi.
Israel began this week to ease travel restrictions on Palestinians and a blockade on the West Bank and Gaza Strip at the urging of America which had backed a fresh truce to end more than a year of fighting between the sides.
When you start hitting legitimately elected officials, you've crossed the line. I'd much rather be on the Israelis side of that line, than the Palestinian side.
Didn't one of them world war thingies start after a government official was assasinated back in the last century?World War I kicked off shortly after Serb partisan (early 1900's word for terrorist) Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Austria-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. One month later, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, kicking off a cascading series of treaty obligations. Germany declared war on Russia on August 1 and France on August 3. Great Britian then declared war on Germany on August 5.
You draw lines in funny places. Bombing innocent women and children, American tourists, etc. in pizza restaurants is just ok, but when you shoot a pol your out of bounds?!?!
I like that.
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