Re: THE WAY THEY FIGHT IN GAZA

"TonyaK911" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Boy Killed by Brother, Not IDF, PA Report Says - Amos Harel
> http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/366840.html
>
> A 9-year-old boy from Rafah in the Gaza Strip was not killed last week by
> IDF fire, according to a report by Palestinian security services. Although
> his death was initially blamed on the IDF, further investigation by the
> Palestinians revealed the boy had been shot by his older brother.
>     The past 10 days have seen a 70% increase in attacks in the Gaza
Strip,
> most involving Qassam rockets and mortars, and a total of 26 explosive
> devices were set during November. (Ha'aretz)
 PALESTINIANS WILL FIGHT YOU ANY POSSIBLE WAY THEY CAN!

If the success of the unofficial Israeli-Palestinian peace plan launched
amid great fanfare in Geneva on Monday were dependent on international
goodwill, it could be implemented tomorrow.

With three Nobel Peace Prize laureates - including former US president Jimmy
Carter - in attendance, as well as messages of support sent from leaders
from around the world, including a video hookup with former South African
president Nelson Mandela, the so-called "Geneva Initiative" was signed by
former ministers Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo before more than 300
Israelis and Palestinians.

But the question that remains to be answered was whether the Initiative, as
well as a parallel citizen's petition, known as the "People's Voice"
project, initiated by former Israeli intelligence chief Ami Ayalon and a
prominent Palestinian leader, Sari Nusseibeh, can generate sufficient
international and domestic pressure to achieve a breakthrough for both
sides.

"We are saying to the world: 'Don't believe those who tell you that our
conflict is unsolvable'," urged Beilin, who served as justice minister under
the Labor-led Israeli governments of the 1990s. "Don't try to help us manage
the conflict. Help us to end it."

"We cannot wait while the future of our two nations slides deeper into
catastrophe," warned Rabbo, former information minister of the Palestinian
Authority (PA) and a longtime collaborator of its president, Yasser Arafat.

The detailed, 50-page initiative, based largely on official peace talks held
in Taba, Egypt just before the Labor Party was voted out of office in
January 2001, was completed in October and has been circulating since,
drawing support from prominent global figures, including United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and US
Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The People's Voice, which has been signed by some 200,000 Israelis and
Palestinians, has also drawn favorable comment from US Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the principal proponent of the US war in Iraq and
widely considered the highest-ranking "neo-conservative" hawk in the
administration of President George W. Bush.

Nonetheless, Washington maintained a discreet silence on the two plans
Monday, apparently fearful that anything it said could upset the current
diplomatic mission to Israel - the first in several months - aimed at
getting Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his new Palestinian
counterpart, Ahmed Qurei, to resume peace talks.

The Initiative calls for the creation of a Palestinian state roughly defined
by the Green Line that marked Israel's borders before the Jewish state
conquered East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 war.

Jewish settlements close to the border would be incorporated into Israel in
exchange for comparable territory in Israel being turned over to the
Palestinians. Others would be abandoned or absorbed by Palestine.

Palestinian refugees would have the right to return to the new Palestine or
opt to be resettled with compensation and rehabilitation assistance in third
countries. A few would be permitted to return to their homes in Israel,
subject to Israel's agreement. The Palestinian state would also be
demilitarized.

As to the contentious issue of Jerusalem, Arab neighborhoods of East
Jerusalem would become the capital of Palestine; each side would govern its
holy sites with guarantees of access by members of all religious faiths;
while a US-led multinational force would help provide security and ensure
the accord's implementation.

A public-opinion survey sponsored and released last week by the Texas-based
James Baker III Institute and Brussels-based International Crisis Group
(ICG) found that such a plan has majority support among both Palestinians
and Israelis.

In face-to-face interviews, 53.3 percent of Israelis said they would support
such a proposal, while 43.9 percent said they opposed it. Among
Palestinians, the proportion was 55.6 percent for and 38.5 percent against.

While Arafat and his ruling Fatah Party in the PA have not taken a formal
position on the plan, he reportedly encouraged Rabbo in his work and several
other top Fatah officials, including Arafat's top security official, to
attend the Geneva signing.

Sharon, on the other hand, strongly denounced the plan when it became
public, going so far as to suggest that it constituted treason. But after
Powell and Wolfowitz indicated they support such initiatives, the prime
minister muted his remarks, leaving it to his right-wing ministers to lead
the charge against it.

In this, they have been supported by US neo-conservatives - apart from
Wolfowitz who has long voiced more sympathy for the plight of Palestinians
than his ideological comrades - and leaders of the Christian Right, who have
attacked the Initiative.

New York Times columnist William Safire wrote last week that Sharon had
nothing to worry about since he "is backed up by a US president who has
shown he understands the value of patience and courage in the face of
terror."

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, who often acts as a
mouthpiece for hard-line pro-Likud officials in the administration, said the
Initiative amounts to a "suicide note (for Israel) - by a private citizen on
behalf of a country that has utterly rejected him politically."

He added that Powell's letter of encouragement to Beilin and Rabbo was a
"disgrace."

Still, both plans have support from some surprising US sources, including
Wolfowitz and Powell.

Republican Senator John McCain, normally close to the neo-conservatives on
foreign-policy issues, has spoken favorably of them, as has California
Democrat, Sen. Diane Feinstein, one of the most prominent Jewish members of
Congress, and Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a Republican moderate who
recently complained that the administration's "disengagement" in peace talks
was hurting its credibility in Iraq and the rest of the Arab world.

Outside the United States, current and former leaders who have taken an
interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appear virtually unanimous
behind the plans.

Among those who sent messages of support to Geneva were Blair, French
President Jacques Chirac, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Morocco's King
Mohamad VI and former president Bill Clinton.

Former president Carter told the Geneva audience: "The only alternative to
this initiative is sustained and growing violence."

Fifty-eight former world leaders also signed a statement endorsing both
plans and noting the critical importance of laying out the basic principles
of a "fair and lasting solution" at the beginning of the peace process
rather than negotiating incremental steps that gives leverage to "extremists
on both sides."

They also called for the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the
United Nations, which have been trying unsuccessfully to get both parties to
implement a "road map" unveiled 10 months ago, to line up behind the two
initiatives.

Signers included former Finnish presidents Martti Ahtisaari and Kalevi
Sorsa; former Costa Rican presidents Oscar Arias Sanchez and Jose Maria
Figueres; former Swedish prime ministers Carl Bildt and Ingvar Carlsson;
former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso; and former Soviet
president Mikhail Gorbachev.

Former Indian prime minister I. K. Gujral; former Australian prime ministers
Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke; former South African president F. W. de Klerk;
former Philippine president Fidel Ramos; former Ghanaian president Jerry
Rawlings; former Polish prime minister Hanna Suchoka; and former Mexican
president Ernesto Zedillo also endorsed the plans.

Among international officials, former UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros
Ghali; former European Commission president Jacques Delors; former UN high
commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata; former UN Population Fund director
Nafis Sadik; former Organization of African Unity secretary-general Salim
Ahmed Salim, and former UN commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson also
signed the statement.