Monday, October 09

Palestinian negotiator urges terrorism

Reuters News Agency

Jerusalem  Senior Palestinian negotiator Hassan Asfour said on Monday that Palestinians should target Jewish settlers in retribution for the killing of several Arab Israelis during 12 days of violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"The settlers are carrying out terrorist acts against the Palestinians, and Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Barak must be punished for unleashing the settlers," Mr. Asfour told Reuters. "The settlers must now be a target by every Palestinian in order to stop their terrorism and they must be uprooted from our Palestinian occupied lands."

At least 89 people, mostly Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, have been killed in 12 days of clashes in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab towns in northern Israel.

About 200,000 settlers living beside more than three million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to recent statistics.

Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the government on Monday to take "very aggressive" action against Palestinians who attack Israelis.

"At this moment what must be done is to give support to the government to act with a strong hand, a very aggressive hand and it will definitely enjoy the complete support ... of anyone who cares for the existence and future of Israel," Mr. Netanyahu told Israel's Channel One television.

"I say this as a former prime minister, that we have all the power to give a strong response and to simply put an end to this violence," Mr. Netanyahu said.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), October 10, 2000

Answers

Strife spreads throughout Israel

By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press TEL AVIV, Israel (October 9, 2000 11:22 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - In the worst civil fighting in recent years, Jews and Arabs attacked each other Monday in towns across Israel.

In Tel Aviv, Jews chanted "Death to the Arabs," burned tires and smashed the windows of Arab cars, prompting the mayor of the usually tranquil seaside metropolis to ask residents to stay indoors. Arabs in several northern Israeli towns threw stones at passing Israeli vehicles, damaging several, police said.

In a special televised message, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak appealed to Arabs and Jews to end the violence against one another.

"I call on all Israeli citizens to refrain from violence," Barak said. "To the Jewish citizens, refrain at all costs from injuring Arabs and their property. To Arab citizens, refrain from being led by an extreme minority that wants to bring down the portrait of life in this country."

"We are a nation that experienced much suffering as a minority throughout the world. Anyone who hurts a minority that lives among us, hurts the very core of our society," he said.

"This ugly cycle must end, it will leave scars that are not simple but it is within our power together to overcome them."

The night before, hundreds of Arabs and Jews had attacked each other with stones and fists in the streets of Nazareth, the town of Jesus' boyhood. Two Israeli Arabs were killed by rubber bullets fired by police.

As Barak spoke Monday night at the end of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, or holiest day of the Jewish calendar, hundreds of Jews in Tel Aviv suburbs took to the streets in anger.

Three Arab-owned apartments in a mixed neighborhood were set on fire. Tires burned in the streets and protesters chanted "Death to the Arabs." Police and Israeli camera crews were hit with bottles and stones.

Many Israeli Arabs have joined in the protests that have engulfed the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the past 12 days. Ten Israeli Arabs have been killed in clashes with police. The demonstrations have rattled Israeli Jews, who feel Israel's very survival could be threatened by an internal rebellion.

The capture of three Israeli soldiers by Lebanese guerrillas over the weekend also contributed to the atmosphere of mutual distrust.

Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai said he was having little success in arranging a meeting with Arab Israeli leaders from the neighborhood of Jaffa. "I am appealing to the residents of Tel Aviv to remain indoors," he said.

Tel Aviv, the secular and financial center of the country, has almost always been immune to the kind of ethnic violence experienced by those living in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

In the Jewish hilltop settlement of Maale Adumim, outside of Jerusalem, thousands of residents threw stones at passing Arab cars down below. The town's mayor released a statement apologizing for injuries caused to a female Israeli reporter who was attacked by residents while covering the incident.

Police spokesman Ran Ofir said the scenes of violence in both Arab and Jewish communities in the north were extremely serious.

"We are talking about a very large outburst of violence. We are working to end the protests and at the same time we are working to calm tensions in the area," he said.

In the Arab city of Umm el-Fahm, dozens of young Arabs threw stones onto a main highway, damaging several cars and causing minor injuries. Police closed off several roads, including a key east-west highway in the north.

In Tiberias, a mostly Jewish city on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, hundreds of citizens went on a rampage, throwing stones at the police and firebombs at their vehicles.

Similar incidents played out in Jerusalem and the West Bank between Jewish settlers and Palestinians.

Settlers entered 10 Palestinian villages in the northern West Bank, throwing stones at homes and cars before Israeli soldiers put an end to the incidents, said Ahmed Keshawi, a 28-year-old resident of Kifel Hares.

The Israeli army said shots were fired at the Jewish settlement of Efrat and on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, a molotov cocktail was thrown at an Israeli police car. There no injuries in either incident.

http://www.nandotimes.com/no_frames/global/story/0,4382,500267260- 500415257-502555930-0,00.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), October 10, 2000.