| Posted by fluffy ® , Sep 11,2003,13:51 | MetroBlab |
Arafat defiant as Israel threatens his expulsion
11/09/2003 - 17:38:37
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=79811182&p=798yy888
Yasser Arafat remained defiant in his West Bank headquarters today as the Israeli security Cabinet debated expelling him, with one minister suggesting he should be killed.
�No one can kick me out,� the Palestinian leader said at his Ramallah compound.
Asked if he would leave of his own accord, he said, �definitely not.�
Seeking a dramatic response to the latest Hamas suicide bombings, Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom said a majority of his colleagues support the expulsion idea.
However, the United States continues to oppose expulsion, and it was unclear whether Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will override his Cabinet, despite growing public pressure in Israel for drastic action.
Eight of the 11 members of the security Cabinet are in favour of expulsion and two are opposed, Israel TV said. Sharon has not made his view public.
Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz went even further � saying expelling Arafat was the least Israel should do, and that killing him should be considered.
The Israeli military has begun making preparations for Arafat�s possible expulsion, said a security official.
Overnight, Israeli troops took over two buildings � the Palestinian Culture Ministry and an uninhabited structure � near Arafat�s headquarters.
The ministers were also weighing other possible responses to Tuesday�s twin suicide bombings that killed 15 Israelis.
One proposal is to tighten Arafat�s isolation in Ramallah by keeping out visitors and cutting off phones, and another idea is to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, where the Hamas leadership is based.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Sharon might not put the expulsion to a vote because the United States is not expected to approve such a far-reaching decision.
�We are in a situation in which US approval for this, in case we asked for it, would be almost impossible to obtain,� Shalom said. �I think there are some situations in which we have to make decisions ... that are completely cut off from outside influence.�
In the West Bank, the designated Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, decided today to form a full government, rather than an emergency Cabinet of eight ministers he had initially envisioned.
Qureia made the decision after a stormy meeting of PLO officials, leaders of the ruling Fatah party and legislators, many of whom opposed the idea of a crisis Cabinet.
The Palestinian leadership also decided to form a national security council, headed by Arafat, that would oversee all branches of the security forces.
The council would technically satisfy a demand by Israel and the United States that control over security be under one authority. However, Israeli government spokesman Zalman Shoval said the step meant nothing as long as Arafat is involved in decisions on security.
| Posted by jfm ® , Sep 11,2003,14:07 | MetroBlab |
But right now, the Palestinian people as a whole have no incentive to separate themselves from the fanatics, because they are living miserable lives under a brutal military occupation that keeps "accidentally" killing civilians (I don't think you can really can it an accident when you keep firing missiles into residential areas -- it's not accidental so much as just not giving a shit who else you kill as long as you get the guy you're aiming for, which half the time they don't anyway). Instead, there's a natural tendency to think the terrorists are the only ones fighting back.
There's no excuse for the way the Israelis have treated the Palestinians, any more than there's any excuse for Palestinians slaughtering Israelis. Everyone knows the only possible solution is to guarantee the Palestinians not just their own territory but also a chance at actual economic and educational opportunity. But to get there, you're going to have to start to marginalize the bombers (you can't insist the bombers stop as a pre-condition, because that gives all the power to the bombers to set the terms of the fight). And to convince most Palestinians to marginalize the fanatics, you're going to have to make them believe that this time things are different and their lives will really get better. They've been told that before, and instead they got Ariel Sharon and tanks knocking down their houses.
And once again, of course, the Bush administration is drastically out of its depth. Say what you want about Clinton's foreign policy, and it was plenty shaky, but he really cared personally about what happened in Israel and he tried like hell to make it work -- and during his whole 8 years as president, there weren't as many people killed there as there have been since 2000.