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Palestinians Hope To Inflict New Lebanon On Israel
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| Palestinians bury their
martyrs, but bent on liberating their land |
OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, Feb. 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Palestinians hope to
repeat Israel's Lebanese withdrawal humiliation through adopting a new strategy
of effective resistance operations inside the occupied territories, coupled with
a growing movement in Israel for a total withdrawal, analysts said Wednesday.
Whether
such a strategy is effective or realistic is arguable, but Israelis have little
doubt that it is already being played out, less than two years after the Israeli
army pulled out of southern Lebanon in the face of constant resistance attacks.
“What
many predicted about the territories becoming more and more similar to Lebanon
has almost fully come true," Israeli editorialist Amnon Dankner wrote on
the Hebrew daily newspaper, Maariv.
"The
big change over the past few days is that the Palestinians, it seems, are now
conducting their war within the territories, against Israeli forces and against
settlements", he noted.
The
tactic was paying off, Dankner added. "Throughout the world, this type of
war is perceived differently, as more legitimate than the way in which suicide
bombings in cities is viewed."
The
attacks on soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are not an
entirely new tactic, but Palestinian resistance activists now seem to be
concentrating on these targets, killing a dozen in the past week.
On
the Palestinian side, the new strategy has been welcomed by prominent figures,
and gained the support of Palestinian masses as well.
"It's
a favorable thing," rights activist Mustapha Barghuti told Agence
France-Presse (AFP) Wednesday. "I think the Palestinians are finally
developing a strategy that combines concentrating on struggle against occupation
with strong work with the international community."
Barghuti
said he believed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "is witnessing a much
larger picture of the same process that happened in south Lebanon. He has to
withdraw from occupied territories."
The
Palestinian leadership said Wednesday in the face of a huge Israeli offensive
following the death of six occupation soldiers late Tuesday that it would fight
on until the last Israeli left the occupied territories.
One
Ramallah resident, Adil al-Zarigh, said that - despite the brutal Israeli
attacks that everybody was expecting - people are supportive of Tuesday's attack
on the Ayn Arik checkpoint, which is about 3 kilometers west of Ramallah,
reported BBC’s online news service.
"It
is the first or second time that Palestinians are doing the right thing -
attacking these checkpoints which have only been put there to humiliate the
population,” Zarigh added.
Meanwhile,
the Palestinians can also see the chance to drive a wedge into the Israeli
society, where peace activists are again on the march after months of relative
silence.
More importantly, the peace camp is now joined by reserve military officers who
say they will not serve in the occupied territories because of the Israeli
government's repression in defense of illegal Jewish settlements.
A
group of 1,000 high-ranking former army and intelligence officers is to launch a
campaign calling for a unilateral withdrawal from the territories, the
dismantling of 40 settlements and the immediate establishment of a Palestinian
state.
The
plan, which also calls for the start of negotiations with the Palestinians,
without the precondition that violence first be stopped, has sparked an intense
debate in Israel.
"They
gave us a lot of hope that eventually we can have peace, real peace,"
Barghuti said. "We're encouraged by it, because it means there are
reasonable people in Israel."
Sharon,
who as Defense Minister first sent Israeli troops into Lebanon in 1982 and
considers their withdrawal by his predecessor as prime minister a mistake, views
things differently.
"It's
different, you can't draw a parallel with Lebanon," his spokesman Raanan
Gissin said. "Lebanon was there (...) and we were here. (Now) we are here
and the war is here. The war is in our homes. Today, they attack a settlement,
tomorrow it's Tel Aviv, wherever they can get. It's an all-out war."
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