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Israel Tells Palestinians No More Pullbacks
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| All Palestinians are branded terrorists by Israel. |
JERUSALEM, Aug 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A top Israeli commander told the Palestinians Friday there will be no more army withdrawals from reoccupied Palestinian areas until Palestinian security forces get tough with resistance activists.
Israel's General Moshe Kaplinsky, commander of occupation forces in the West Bank, told his Palestinian counterpart General Haj Ismail that there would be "no change to anything on the security side at this stage," reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"A change on the ground depends on the long-term security situation and on Palestinian actions against terrorism," the statement said. Israel regards the Palestinian resistance against its occupation forces as “terrorism”.
The meeting was convened to discuss the next steps in the "Gaza and Bethlehem first" plan, including the possibility of a withdrawal from Hebron.
Kaplinski and Ismail agreed that they would continue to meet at regular intervals to discuss further humanitarian concessions to the Palestinians, according to Israeli daily Ha’aretz.
Israeli Army Radio claimed that Israeli security services had information about attacks that were under preparation by Islamic Jihad, whose armed wing had not yet been dismantled in Hebron, where Israel was to stage the next phase of its pullback.
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| An Israeli settler in Hebron. |
For his part, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's advisor Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP the meeting with the Israeli side to discuss expanding the Israeli pullback had brought "no progress".
"The Israeli side refused to respect the engagements it had undertaken under the plans dubbed 'Gaza-Bethlehem First' and that should have resulted in a withdrawal from Hebron," he said.
However, senior officers in the Israel Defense Forces oppose an Israeli withdrawal from Hebron, discussed by the political echelon as a possible next step in the "Gaza first" plan for gradual withdrawals from Palestinian territory, according to Ha’aretz.
Israeli army sources objected that the plan strengthens the status of Arafat, thereby undermining the efforts Israel made over the last several months to weaken him. "Since Bethlehem was transferred to the Palestinians, it has become clear to everyone that Arafat was behind the negotiations with Israel and gave the orders," said one officer. "This process is returning the color to Arafat's cheeks," the paper added.
The same sources said, the declarations about Israel's intentions to withdraw from additional cities in the West Bank raised Palestinian expectations, while Israel has yet to receive any tangible benefits in return.
The redeployment from areas of the West Bank reoccupied since mid-June is designed as a confidence-building measure to alleviate conditions for the territory's population.
The Israeli pullback kicked off Monday night with a withdrawal from Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem.
However, the plan for a staged withdrawal was rejected by Palestinian resistance factions, who say it undermines their armed struggle against the Israeli occupation.
Hebron is a large city south of Bethlehem where some 600 hard line Jewish settlers live in enclaves amidst 120,000 Palestinians, under heavy guard from the Israeli occupation army.
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