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Israel Calls For Swift Revenge Against Arafat
JERUSALEM, July 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israel's security cabinet met Tuesday to decide the fate of a U.S.-sponsored ceasefire with the Palestinians that officials from both sides acknowledge is less fact than fiction on the ground.
The meeting was called after an Israeli settler was killed in the West Bank, prompting hard-liners in the cabinet to call for swift revenge against Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
According to western figures, the death toll has now risen above 625 people since Al-Aqsa Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation began late September.
Rightist Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said there was no official statement after the meeting, but army radio said the cabinet apparently decided to keep to a policy of "active self-defense" rather than pursue full-scale retaliatory attacks, AFP French News Agency reported.
"We will continue to prevent attack attempts aimed not only at settlers but also Israelis in the heart of their cities," Finance Minister Silvan Shalom told public radio, warning Israel could start taking steps to topple Arafat by force.
The "active" policy, based on targeted attacks on suspected Palestinian resistance activists, like the helicopter raid on the West Bank Sunday which killed three Palestinians, has been sharply criticized even by Israel's closest ally, the United States, news agencies reported.
"We think the Palestinians have not done enough to fight terror and to end the violence," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday. "We also want to make clear that we remain opposed to Israel's policy of targeted killings."
In its cabinet security meeting June 21, Israel had given the army the green light to resume targeted attacks on Palestinian resistance activists, in what could be the beginning of the end for a barely surviving Middle East ceasefire.
Israeli occupation forces have killed more than 28 Palestinian resistance activists in assassination attempts since the Al-Aqsa Intifada or uprising.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, increasingly seen as a solo voice for moderation in the government, warned he could step down if his colleagues did not stop trying to undermine Arafat's leadership.
But he also said a total breakdown of the ceasefire would lead to more victims and bloodshed on both sides.
Meanwhile, Arafat in Cairo accused the Jewish state of trying to "crush" the Palestinians as the two sides veered further away from the June 13 truce accord, which has failed to stop 24 more people being killed since then.
"The (Israeli) goal is to crush the Palestinians militarily," Arafat told reporters in Cairo after talks with Arab League Secretary General, Amr Mussa, following separate meetings Monday with Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz.
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