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13 Tammuz 5761 - July 4, 2001 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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NEWS
Cease-Fire Under Fire
by M. Plaut and Yated Ne'eman Staff

All of the interested parties in the Middle East seem to be positioning themselves for events following a breakdown in the cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Israeli politicians and spokesmen from all Israeli parties insisted that there had never been a Palestinian cease- fire. For example, asked whether the cease-fire was still in effect, deputy defense minister Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, a member of the Labor party known for dovish views, told Israel Radio: "The situation today can be described in every possible way, but not as a cease-fire."

Residents of the territories were calling for more decisive steps against terror, and there was strong pressure from the Right to attack more extensively.

Palestinian terror groups began saying in public that the cease-fire is over after Israel killed three Palestinian terrorists in a rocket attack. Arafat protested the killings as "a crime."

UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen appealed for restraint from both sides, but said the nearly three-week- old cease-fire seems unlikely to hold.

The United States condemned the Israeli "targeted killings" but said that the Palestinians had not done "enough" to stop the terror. We think the Palestinians have not done enough to fight terror and to end the violence," Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said in Washington. "We also want to make clear that we remain opposed to Israel's policy of targeted killings." Boucher also added, "In light of the violence, the first day of the projected seven days of calm had not yet arrived."

In response to Boucher's statement, Shaul Mofaz, IDF Chief of Staff who was in the U.S. for a series of speeches and meetings, said, "Everyone who brings up the issue of the right of self-defense has to ask what they would do if their country was exposed to 5,600 acts of terrorism. Our actions are very carefully considered."

Mofaz cut short his visit to the U.S. by several days because of the situation in Israel, a further indication that Israel is planning a shift in policy.

Though each said something different due to the nature of the specific interest he or she represented, the common underlying feeling seems to be that the cease-fire is not working and the area is waiting for the next major stage to being, whatever that may be.

Israeli prime minister Sharon noted on Monday that Israel had considered an all-out attack on the Palestinian Authority. He did not make clear what the objective of such an attack would be. Presumably if the cease-fire is declared officially halted that plan may be put into operation.

The U.S. seems to be striving for some balance to maintain the confidence of both sides. Thus it finds something on both sides to criticize at each opportunity. Though in many ways it has understood Israeli demands by not meeting with Arafat and by insisting on serious efforts to halt terrorism on the part of the PA, it has also not approved a special aid package of $800 million originally promised to Israel by President Clinton when Israel withdrew from Lebanon more than a year ago.

Pressured by the US, Israeli and Palestinian security officials met Monday night in Tel Aviv in the presence of a CIA official to discuss ways of implementing the cease-fire and bringing an end to the violence.

Nonetheless, hours earlier, an Israeli was murdered as he shopped in the marketplace situated on the Green Line between two Israeli and Palestinian-controlled Arab towns. Aharon Abidian, 41, a mashgiach kashrut, was shot repeatedly at point-blank range, 50 meters from an army roadblock.

The assailant fled eastward, and the Fatah Tanzim later claimed responsibility for Abidian's murder. Police called on Israelis to refrain from entering Palestinian-controlled areas.

"There is no real desire by the Palestinians to halt the attacks. This reality requires a reassessment by the State of Israel," Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told the Russian Foreign Ministry's visiting special emissary to the Middle East, Andre Vdobin.

Ben-Eliezer noted that since Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat declared the beginning of the seven-day cease- fire, attacks have increased in intensity. "We don't have any other choice but to do a reassessment," Ben-Eliezer said.

Elsewhere in the West Bank and Gaza there was an increase in Palestinian shooting attacks on Israeli civilian and military targets.

Bombs planted in the cars of two Yehud residents exploded in the town center Monday causing no serious casualties or damage, but raising concern over what seems to be a new terrorist tactic.

The cars had been parked in residential areas -- one of them outside a kindergarten. Nine people had to be treated for shock after the blasts, which set fire to the vehicles and damaged other cars and the windows of nearby homes. Eschewing their standard practice of rigging up stolen Israeli cars, the terrorists apparently chose unremarkable vehicles, broke into them, and planted the bombs.

News agencies reported that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine had issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attacks, saying they were in retaliation for the killing of five Palestinians by the IDF in the course of Sunday.

Minister of Science, Culture and Sports Matan Vilnai and member of the security cabinet, dismissed US criticism of the assumed Israeli policy of assassinations against Palestinian terrorists, saying, "I'm not sure the US really understands the rules of this game."

"It's difficult [for the US] to comprehend the fine points when you're not in the middle of the events, . . . I'd like to see how the US would respond to a car rolling through the streets of Manhattan loaded with explosives. I know what they would do. I am familiar with the Americans," Vilnai said.

Israeli security sources said that Mohammed Bisharat, the main target of the helicopter attack and an Islamic Jihad activist, had planned to send a squad of seven suicide bombers to carry out attacks inside the Green Line. The sources added that they had asked the Palestinian Authority to arrest Bisharat, but they refused, and therefore the attack was necessary in order to prevent mass killings, which were expected to be carried out imminently.

Bisharat is believed to be responsible for sending two suicide bombers to Hadera on May 25, as well as for a number of bombs in Netanya, Samaria and the Jordan Valley.

 

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