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Sharon
signals no policy shift
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, June 15 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - In a move
that is likely to complicate peace missions by a U.S. envoy, an
Egyptian political and security delegation and tasks promised by
Palestinian Premier Mahmud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
insisted Sunday, June 15, that the Jewish state will continue its
controversial policy of assassinations.
Sharon
said that Israel will continue to take ‘pre-emptive actions’ to
curb Palestinian bombings, as a senior U.S. envoy began the task of
implementing an international "roadmap" for peace.
The
contradicting developments come only hours after Israeli and
Palestinian officials were reportedly near agreement on an Israeli
withdrawal from parts of the Gaza Strip, and also as an Egyptian
political and security delegation arrived Sunday in the Gaza Strip to
revive inter-factional talks and obtain a ceasefire to attacks on
Israel.
While
the roadmap calls on Israel to freeze its settlement activities and
stop assassinations of Palestinian resistance activists, Israeli
troops shot dead a Palestinian fighter Sunday in the northern Gaza
Strip town of Beit Hanun.
Also,
four new Jewish settlement outposts have been set up in the West Bank
and the demolition of three outposts under a U.S.-backed peace plan
has been delayed, the Peace Now movement and settlers said Sunday.
Sharon
Defiant
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Hours
after Wolf arrived, Israel killed another Palestinian activist
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"Israel
will continue to act against targets identified as human bombs, and
unless the Palestinians decide to destroy the infrastructure of
terrorist organizations, Israel will take care of it," he told a
weekly cabinet meeting, public radio reported.
The
radio did not specify if Sharon was referring to “Hamas activists or
political leaders of the group such as Abdul
Aziz al-Rantissi,
who survived an Israeli assassination bid Tuesday, June 10, in which
three Palestinians died.
Seven
Israeli helicopter strikes on the Gaza Strip since May 10 have left 27
people dead, including several civilians as well as six members of
Hamas, which has carried out scores of anti-Israeli suicide bombings,
the latest being an attack on a Jerusalem bus that killed 17 people on
Wednesday.
Sharon’s
hawkish stance drew criticism from world countries and even at home.
According to a poll published Friday, June 13, two-thirds
of Israelis want a halt to Israel's practice of "targeted killings" of
Palestinian activists, which escalated in recent days, and also
Israeli press blasted Sharon over ‘the same policy’.
U.S.
Envoy In Israel
In
another sign of contradiction that has become almost an identical
pattern of Sharon’s government, Israeli and Palestinian officials
were reportedly near agreement on an Israeli withdrawal from parts of
the Gaza Strip as a senior U.S. envoy began the task of implementing
an international "roadmap" for peace.
Veteran
diplomat John Wolf arrived late Saturday, June 14, amid stepped-up
U.S. pressure on both sides to end one of the worst cycles of
bloodshed in the 32-month-old conflict and advance on the peace plan
championed by President George W. Bush.
The
radio also said that Wolf, heading a 12-member U.S. team, began his
work as peace monitor late Saturday by conferring with Avi Dichter,
head of Israel's domestic intelligence service Shin Beth.
He
was to meet Sharon, Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom, Defense Minister
Shaul Mofaz and military and security service officials Monday.
Palestinian sources said he would also have talks with Palestinian
officials.
Wolf,
who has little Middle East experience, was named by Bush to oversee
implementation of the plan that provides for a series of
confidence-building measures ahead of the creation of a Palestinian
state in 2005.
Israeli
army radio said the military was preparing Sunday to pull out of the
northern Gaza Strip following talks late Saturday on handing over
security responsibility to the Palestinians.
The
report said General Amos Gilad, coordinator of Israeli activities in
the Palestinian occupied territories, offered the move in return for a
Palestinian pledge to prevent resistance activists from launching
anti-Israeli attacks from the evacuated areas.
The
radio said that senior Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan
agreed to the deal but also asked that the army quit one of the West
Bank cities it has reoccupied for the past year.
The
report did not say when the military might pull out of the northern
Gaza Strip.
Dahlan
was expected to demand a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza
Strip and the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem, and an end to the
assassination of Palestinian activists and military incursions into
Palestinian areas.
The
Israelis, for their part, would ask Dahlan to submit "a detailed
plan to combat terrorism" and would present him with a list of
Palestinian activists wanted by Israel, Israeli public radio said.
Egyptians
Weigh In
In
Cairo, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Sunday that his country
is making every effort to stop an upsurge in Palestinian-Israeli
violence but without "imposing a decision on anyone,"
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"Egypt
is deploying maximum efforts to give a push to the roadmap and end the
violence, without imposing a decision on anyone," Mubarak said in
a statement carried by the state-run Middle East News Agency.
"Our
task is to help reduce the tension so that the parties can sit at the
negotiating table," the Egyptian president said.
However,
he stressed that a return to the negotiating table would not happen
only "because of American or Egyptian or Saudi efforts" and
that it was necessary for "Israel to make efforts".
Egypt,
a traditional mediator since becoming the first Arab country to make
peace with Israel, has been undertaking intensive efforts to convince
Palestinian resistance organizations to observe a truce in their
anti-Israeli attacks.
Within
that context, an Egyptian political and security delegation arrived in
the Gaza Strip to revive inter-factional talks and obtain a ceasefire
to attacks on Israel, Palestinian officials said.
The
delegation is led by General Mustapha Buheeri, an aide to Egyptian
intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who has been leading efforts for a
resumption of the Palestinian national dialogue.
Islamic
Jihad leader Mohammed al-Hindi told AFP that Buheeri would kick off
bilateral talks with his movement, Hamas and the mainstream Fatah
Sunday.
A
meeting of the National and Islamic Forces, an umbrella group of all
Palestinian factions, is expected to be held Monday.
On
Saturday, June 14, Palestinian resistance groups
shrugged off an Israeli proposal of a three-day truce whereby Israel
would stop its assassination policy while the factions would halt
anti-Israel attacks.
They
agreed that any security solution to the problem would not work simply
because the crux of the conflict is the Israeli occupation of the
Palestinian territories.
New
Settlement Outposts Set Up
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Rogue
outposts still come to being over Palestinian lands
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Despite
all political moves aimed at stopping the bloodshed and reviving the
so-called roadmap for peace plan, four new Jewish settlement outposts
have been set up in the West Bank and the demolition of three outposts
under the U.S.-backed peace plan has been delayed, according to the
Peace Now movement and settlers Sunday.
"We
spotted four new rogue settlements which didn't exist a week ago
during an over flight of the West Bank Friday," a Peace Now
spokesman said, reported AFP.
He
said the new outposts were made up solely of caravans parked on
hilltops near the established Jewish settlements of Kohav Ha Shahar,
Rehelim, Ofra and Eilon Moreh.
Settlers,
meanwhile, announced the creation Saturday of another new outpost near
Neve Tzuf settlement close to the Palestinian town of Ramallah. It was
set up a day after Palestinians shot and wounded two Israeli women in
the area.
"We
decided to create this outpost to prove terrorism does not pay,"
a Neve Tsuf settler, Tamar Amar, told Israeli public radio.
But
Israeli police moved in force Sunday and dismantled the outpost set up
in defiance of the roadmap, which the settlers oppose. Settlers said
the operation passed without incident.
The
dismantling of three inhabited rogue outposts that was to have been
carried out last Tuesday under the peace roadmap has been put on hold
after settlers lodged an appeal in Israel's supreme court, settlers
said.
On
June 10, Israel's deputy defense minister, Zeev Boim, announced the
army had dismantled nine out of the 15 outposts initially singled out
for demolition under the Israeli commitment to the roadmap.
But
settlers quickly re-established Amona, one of the nine torn down
during the night of June 9.
Sharon
pledged at a U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian summit in Jordan on June 4 to
dismantle rogue outposts under the roadmap which calls for a freeze in
settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
The
peace plan calls in the initial stages for the dismantling of outposts
set up since Sharon took office in March 2001. Peace Now estimates
they number more than 60.
