 |
Contents:
Why does the US Nurture the
Creation of an Islamic Terror State For the past three months, I have asked the US government a fundamental question which has generated no response from the US government, despite numerous requests from the US press offices at the US embassy in Tel Aviv, the US consulate in Jerusalem, the White House Press Office, the press office of the National Security Council, and the press office of the US State Department. That question remains: What is the reaction of the US to the finalized version of the new Palestinian State Constitution? Our news agency obtained the ratified Arabic version of the Palestinian State Constitution from the Vatican and obtained verification as to its authenticity from Nabil Shaath, the PA foreign minister who chaired the committee that authored that constitution. The PA State constitution, whose Arabic and English versions appear on the home page of our web site, www.israelbehindthenews.com, fosters a Teheran-style state based on Islamic law, devoid of religious freedom, human rights and civil liberties, while legislating the Palestinian refugee "right of return" to all Arab villages lost in 1948. Meanwhile, that PA constitution places authority in the hands of its president, not in its prime minister. The current president of the PA is Yassir Arafat, whom the US administration has declared persona non grata. All this occurs at a time when the US considers massive aid to the nascent Palestinian Arab entity, which would mean that the US would aids and abet the genesis of a totalitarian Islamic state…
"Our Children Have No Legs-and
He's Going Free?" Tehila Cohen, 11, both of whose legs were severed in the attack on the bus in Kfar Darom, heard last night about the release of the man who allegedly perpetrated the attack in which she and her siblings were wounded. "That takes a lot of nerve, to release a murderer. Even if he didn't kill with his own hands, its enough that he helped murder Israelis. I feel anger in my heart at the people who released him, and ask in my name and in the name of all children that he be put back in jail." Tehila's parents, Noga and Ofir Cohen, whose three children were wounded severely in the terror attack on the bus in Kfar Darom, said last night: "It is inconceivable that a process called 'the political process' should blind the eyes of Mofaz and Sharon so much that they do unethical things like release the people responsible for the murder of Israelis and the fact that our children have no legs." The Cohens intended to appeal to the High Court of Justice against the release of Abu Mutlak, but said: "Before we could say Jack Robinson, he was already in Gaza. This whole process stinks more than a little. In the end, the army retracted its allegations against Abu Mutlak. On the one hand, we're talking with the Palestinians about peace. Not even a full day has gone by and there are more terror attacks in Kfar Darom. They fire rockets and mortar shells at us, and the army can't respond. Not even a day later, and we hear that the suspect who was arrested by the army and was charged, together with Dahlan, with responsibility for the terror attack in which our children were wounded, has gone free." The attack on the bus, the severe results of which shocked the country, occurred on November 20, 2000. At 7:30 a.m., an explosion shook the homes of Kfar Darom. A bus taking the settlement's children to school was hit by a roadside bomb that had been planted by terrorists. Two passengers on the bus were killed in the explosion and nine were wounded, including five children. Among the wounded children were the Cohen siblings, Orit, Tehila and Yisrael, whose legs were severed in the attack.
Palestinian Authority Security
Services Offer Positions to Fateh Terrorists
[MENL] Palestinian sources said at least one PA security chief relayed an offer to provide a job to any Fatah militant who pledges to surrender his weapon and abandon the war against Israel. The offer also includes a cash incentive. So far, the offer has been relayed by General Intelligence chief Col. Tawfiq Tirawi. Tirawi, who heads the GI in the West Bank, is wanted by Israel for allegedly directing attacks against Israeli civilians. At the same time, Tirawi has begun to cooperate with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and is relaying information to Israeli intelligence. The sources said the PA's offer seeks to focus on insurgents in the Fatah-dominated Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. The brigade began as an umbrella group for all Palestinian factions but is now regarded as the military wing of the ruling Fatah movement, led by PA Chairman Yasser Arafat. Note: The above is not the full item. This service contains only a small portion of the information produced daily by Middle East Newsline. For a subscription to the full service, please contact Middle East Newsline at: editor@menewsline.com for further details. This piece ran on July 4, 2003
Smadar Haran: 24 years have elapsed since the terrible day when Smadar Kaiser-Haran's husband and daughter were abducted and murdered by terrorists. 24 years of unrelenting pain. Smadar cannot bear the thought that one of the terrorists who murdered her loved ones will be granted his freedom as part of a release of Palestinian prisoners. "I am surprised and shocked at the request to release him, too," Smadar told Yedioth Ahronoth last night. On April 22, 1979, four Palestinian terrorists arrived at the Nahariya coast from Lebanon, after infiltrating by sea. The four entered a residential building in the city, and broke into the Haran family's apartment. They took 28-year old Danny Haran and his four-year old daughter Einat with them as hostages. Smadar Haran remained at home, holding her two-year old daughter Yael in her arms. The two hid in the attic throughout the affair. The anxious mother, who was afraid that the terrorists would hear her daughter shouting and crying, blocked the child's mouth with her hand. However, this caused a terrible tragedy: The baby choked to death in the mother's arms. In the meantime, the terrorists escaped with Danny and his daughter towards the sea, intending to return to Lebanon. Police forces and soldiers pursued them, and during the exchange of fire a police officer, Sgt. Eliyahu Shahar, was killed, as were several terrorists. However, when the soldiers reached the coast they learned that Danny and Einat had also been murdered. The terrorist Samir Kuntar was apprehended and sentenced to life imprisonment. Smadar Haran, who has since remarried and raised a new family, hopes that he will stay behind bars until his dying day: "I don't believe that the terrorist will be released now, and I don't believe that the Israeli government will accept this request, after it promised not to release terrorists with blood on their hands." This piece ran on July 3, 2003 in Yediot Aharonot
How Palestinian Arab
Organizations Currently Compete With Each Other to Take Credit
for Terror Attacks Two weeks ago, on the eve of the 18th of Sivan, the child Noam Leibowitz was murdered in a shooting attack on the Trans-Israel Highway. Her brother and grandfather were injured in the terror attack. The terrorists, as may be recalled, managed to break through thick bars in a water duct, which was built into the lower section of the wall in order to prevent flooding in the rainy season. They sliced through the bars with pneumatic cutters, advanced about ten meters into the water duct, shot, murdered,and escaped back to Kalkilya. The mode of operation demonstrated that the terror attack had been preceded by careful preparation. The terrorists probably knew that there was no warning system beyond the wall. The nearby outpost was not manned. There were no electronic measures at the site. The next day, two terror organizations, the El-Aksa Martyrs Brigades and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,Ahmed Jibril's organization, issued a joint statement taking responsibility for the terror attack. The wording of the statement should be noted, as published by the France Press agency in Beirut: "A joint cell attacked a convoy of settler cars yesterday with light arms . . . (the family, it may be recalled, was a resident of Yemin Orde in the Carmel hills H.H.). One of the cars was directly hit, and those inside it were killed and wounded. The convoy of cars was on the road leading to the settlement of Kochav Yair, near the settlement of Eyal located on the Palestinian lands occupied since 1948, near the city of Kalkilya." In another report that appeared on the same day in the mouthpiece of the Palestinian Authority, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, it was written that "the occupation forces imposed a curfew on the city of Kalkilya, after Israel Radio announced that a settler was killed and two were wounded following shots at an Israeli convoy traveling on the road known as the Trans-Israel Highway, northwest of Kalkilya, near the settlement of Kochav Yair." […] This piece ran in haTzofeh on July 3rd, 2003
ISM Solidarity Group a Front
for Attacks Days before a British suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt in Mike's Place, a bar in suburban Tel Aviv, the bomber and an associate took tea with members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian group that promotes non-violent resistance to Israeli occupation. ISM immediately disassociated itself from the bombers (one escaped), saying the pair merely tagged along with a group of new arrivals to the region, but Israeli security services quickly began to clamp down on foreign supporters of the Palestinian cause. One Israeli journalist who has studied foreign supporters of the Palestinian cause says Israeli security is "panicking",coming to realize rather late in the game how serious [these groups] can be. David Bedein, bureau chief of the Israel Resource News Agency, said ISM's denials of links to Palestinian violence are hypocritical, since they have explicitly endorsed the Palestinian right to "armed struggle"and actively assist in Palestinian violence. "They have crossed all red lines by openly embracing and endorsing the armed struggle", he said. Speaking in a telephone interview from Israel, Bedein said that while ISM says its goal is to mitigate Israeli violence, in reality it serves as "a front to support the [Palestinian] armed struggle", like the unarmed support units in an army whose efforts make the military wing effective. Last month, Israeli security forces raided ISM offices in Beit Sahour and the foreign affairs ministry issued a statement that said: ISM members take an active part in illegal and violent actions against Israel Defence Force [IDF] soldiers. At times, their activity in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip is under the auspices of Palestinian terrorist organizations. Bedein, who has interviewed several ISM activists in the region, said the group's North American operations ought to be investigated by local law enforcement, since ISM spokespeople openly call for the overthrow of Israel, a country with which Canada and the United States have friendly relations. Canada is home to an active, if tiny, ISM branch in British Columbia that is pushing to indict Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon for war crimes, he said. The ISM-Canada Web site claims other support groups can be found in Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg. (Calls to the ISM's Vancouver office and e-mail to its national office were not returned.) Later this month, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) will present the ISM with the 2003 Rachel Corrie Award, named after an ISM volunteer who was killed earlier this year in what the Israeli army has described as an accident, at the PRRC's annual convention at the University of Toronto June 20-22. Though the ISM's orientation is left-wing, "its rank and file tend be naive follower type people, like in a cult",Bedein said. "They are not evil, not lefties, just hangers on who want to do a good thing for the world. Then you have a few people at the top manipulating it". ISM Canada's Web site, www.ISMCanada.org, states the ISM is "Palestinian-led" and "trains observers from around the world and co-ordinates their activities within the Occupied Palestinian Territories". Its principal activities revolve around human rights observation and documentation of abuses, direct intervention to mitigate the brutality of Israel's illegal 35-year occupation, as well as practical everyday actions and work in Palestinian urban and rural communities. Bedein, however, said ISM spokesperson Raphael Cohen, a British Jew, told him the ISM opposes "the Zionist presence in Palestine". "Group members have also reported Israeli troop movements to armed Palestinian units", Bedein said, and they intervene at checkpoints to facilitate the transit of Palestinians who may be terrorists. As well, they have prevented Israel from monitoring and closing tunnels used to smuggle arms into Gaza from Egypt. That's where Corrie was killed. The ISM Web site said Corrie was in clear view, trying to prevent a bulldozer from destroying a doctor's home, but Bedein said he spoke to the doctor, who told him the bulldozer did not threaten his residence. Bedein said his investigation indicate Corrie was seated on a mound of earth, out of view of the bulldozer operator, when she was killed, contrary to the ISM's assertions. This piece ran in the Canadian Jewish News on June 19th, 2003
Unanswered Letter to Ambassador
Dr. Dan Kurtzer: July 2nd, 2003
The Hon. Dr. Dan Kurtzer Dear Dr. Kurtzer, For the past three months, I have asked the US government a fundamental question which has generated no response from the US government, despite numerous requests from the US press offices at the US embassy in Tel Aviv, the US consulate in Jerusalem, the White House Press Office, the press office of the National Security Council, and the press office of the US State Department. That question remains: What is the reaction of the US to the finalized version of the new Palestinian State Constitution? Our news agency obtained the ratified Arabic version of the Palestinian State Constitution from the Vatican and obtained verification as to its authenticity from Nabil Shaath, the PA foreign minister who chaired the committee that authored that constitution. That committee's work was sponsored by the Ford Foundation, the EU and US AID. The PA State constitution, whose Arabic and English versions appear on the home page of our web site, www.israelbehindthenews.com, fosters a Teheran-style state based on Islamic law, devoid of religious freedom, human rights and civil liberties, while legislating the Palestinian refugee "right of return" to all Arab villages lost in 1948. That same PA constitution places authority in the hands of its president, not in its prime minister. The current president of the PA is Yassir Arafat, whom the US administration has declared persona non grata. At a time when the US is considers massive aid to the nascent Palestinian Arab entity, it would seem incumbent on you as the ambassador to Israel here to react to the new Palestinian State Constitution which is slated to guide that entity. It would seem inappropriate for the US to aid and abet the genesis of a totalitarian Islamic state… Sincerely Yours,
David Bedein
The Israel Resource Review is brought to you by
the Israel Resource, a media firm based at the Bet Agron Press Center in
Jerusalem, and the Gaza Media Center under the juristdiction of the Palestine
Authority. |
Printer
friendly version of this article