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Palestinians Mark Catastrophe Of Israel's Creation
RAMALLAH, West Bank, May 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The anniversary of the Palestinian "catastrophe" of their forced exile caused by Israel's birth half a century ago descended into deadly bloodletting Tuesday as both sides exchanged recriminations over the spiraling violence in the region.
After one of the deadliest days in the territories in weeks, thousands joined mass street protests across the West Bank and Gaza Strip for Al-Nakba, or the "catastrophe", recalling bitterly the hundreds of thousands who lost their homes when Israel was founded in May 1948.
Four Palestinians were killed, including a Hamas bodyguard firing mortars against Israeli territory, one Jewish settler was shot dead, and more than 100 Palestinians were injured in violent clashes that shook the Occupied Territories, bringing the death toll from the uprising to 536.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat delivered a feisty speech to mark the Nakba, laying out his demands for peace after seven months of raging conflict with Israel, which he accused of using the "law of the jungle" against Palestinians.
"The road to peace is very clear," Arafat said in his first speech to the Palestinian people since the Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation erupted last September.
"The Israeli army must fully withdraw its army and settlers from Palestinian and Arab lands to the borders of 1967, and the refugee problem and other resolutions of international legitimacy must be resolved," said Arafat, who was absent for the day in Egypt, holding talks with President Hosni Mubarak.
His pre-recorded address was broadcast shortly after Palestinians observed a three-minute silence during rallies for the Nakba, also commemorated in neighboring Arab states and by members of Israel's one million strong Arab community, comprising Palestinians who remained after 1948.
More than 3.7 million Palestinian refugees live in camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and neighboring Arab states, and their fate has been one of the core sticking points in the now-moribund peace process.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said it was up to the Palestinians to end the violence and allow a return to the negotiating table.
"The minute the Intifada, the violence and the terror stops, nobody will see a drop of blood, everyone will see the light of the day and the quiet of the night," Peres said in an interview with BBC television.
But on the ground, Israeli forces killed a bodyguard of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as he was firing mortar bombs at Israel. Another Palestinian was killed in confrontations in the Gaza Strip and two in the West Bank town of Ramallah, while another 120 were shot and injured.
In the West Bank, a woman settler from the Rimonim settlement in the Jordan valley was shot dead by Palestinian gunmen.
The attack was claimed by the Brigades of the Martyrs of al-Aqsa, an armed branch of Arafat's Fatah and immediately blamed by Sharon on the Palestinian Authority.
The resistance movement Hamas had called Monday on Palestinians to pursue the fight against Israel, arguing that, "the enemy only understands the language of violence."
Tension soared following the killings of seven Palestinians, five of them policemen in controversial circumstances, on Monday, with some of the sharpest Israeli offensives into Palestinian areas since the uprising began, prompting a warning from Arafat that Israel would pay a heavy price.
The Israeli army came under heavy fire over the killing of the five Palestinian policemen, with the Israeli press describing it as a "cold-blooded" attack against men who were not involved in "terror", while an Israeli official admitted the army may have blundered.
Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh said he wanted "explanations" about the attack.
Four of the policemen were being buried in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, along with another two Palestinians killed by the army on Monday.
Sharon, who took office two months ago vowing to crack down on the uprising, has stepped up Israeli operations against the Palestinians with dozens of strikes and illegal incursions into Palestinian-ruled land.
His ultra-nationalist Public Security Minister Uzi Landau said the army "is hitting [the Palestinian Authority] harder lately, but less than what is needed."
Meanwhile, both Israel and the Palestinians on Tuesday delivered their formal responses to the report by the U.S.-led Mitchell commission into the causes of the violence.
Palestinian number two Mahmud Abbas is due later Tuesday to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has given a cautious nod toward the report and an Egyptian-Jordanian initiative aimed at ending the violence and reviving peace talks.
On Monday, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan endorsed a call for a freeze on Israeli settlement building contained in the report by the panel headed by the former U.S. senator and Northern Ireland peace process mediator George Mitchell.
In a statement through his spokesman, Annan described the report as "a fair and balanced analysis of the causes of the present crisis."
Israel has said it will approve the report "in principle" but rejects key elements, including its call for a halt to Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories and criticism of its "excessive" use of force against unarmed demonstrators.
Earlier Tuesday, Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian international cooperation minister, called on U.S. President George W. Bush to formally endorse the Mitchell report.
"Nothing would bolster the peacemakers more than to hear President Bush formally endorse the Mitchell report," Shaath said in an open letter published in the Washington Post Tuesday.
He said the report "offers a reasonable way back to the negotiating table," and said Bush should "recommit the United States to the principles of the Madrid summit, convened by his father a decade ago," to re-launch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Meanwhile, Abbas, who is also to confer with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice Tuesday, is the highest-ranking Palestinian official to visit Washington since Bush moved into the White House on January 20th.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer however said Bush had no plan to meet with Abbas.
Washington has yet to invite Arafat, who had been a frequent visitor to the White House under Bill Clinton's administration.
Powell has hailed the Mitchell report, saying without elaborating that it could "give us a launch pad to start a new initiative."
The Palestinian cabinet has warmly welcomed the report although it lacks a call for an international observer force in the Palestinian territories, a primary Palestinian demand of the commission.
Meanwhile, Powell on Tuesday defended the need to maintain U.S. aid levels to the Palestinians and Egypt, in the face of sharp U.S. congressional criticism.
"Should we view our assistance package to that area as an entitlement?" demanded Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations committee, expressing his frustration with the region's stalled peace process.
"Because as you look at the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization] and as you look at our good friend, Egypt, and the behavior in the last few years, it's hard for me to see how either one of them in any kind of visible way have tried to move the process in the right direction."
Powell, noting he believed the situation in the region was "very delicate," defended the Bush administration's request for aid money.
"I believe that these are not entitlements ... it remains in our national interest to fund these activities and these accounts for these countries," he said.
McConnell also asked Powell to explain a request for $75 million "for the West Bank and Gaza Strip when no end in violence seems to be in sight."
"Yasser Arafat walked away from the best deal the Palestinians will likely ever see. I'm not sure there's anything more the Israelis could have offered than they did late last year," McConnell said.
Concerning Egypt, he continued, "government-sponsored newspapers praise Adolf Hitler and incite violence against Jews in Israel. I'm wondering if this kind of behavior warrants a request of two billion dollars."
Powell suggested a cutback in U.S. contributions would negatively impact the region, struggling under waves of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, and Egypt's contribution to the peace process.
"It's in our national interest to see that Israel, a democratic nation in the region, remains strong economically and militarily," he said.
"And it has been long U.S. policy, long-term U.S. policy which I think still makes sense, to ensure that Egypt is provided with assistance, both economic assistance and military assistance," he said.
"And I would not support cutting or reducing the funds at this time that we normally provide to these nations."
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