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Bush upset at Israel for trying to kill Hamas chief
(Justin Huggler and Sa'id Ghazali, The Independent, 11 June 2003)
George Bush reacted angrily when Israel attempted to assassinate a leading Palestinian militant yesterday - an attempt that could seriously damage the peace process which is personally sponsored by the US President. . . . Ari Fleischer, Mr Bush's spokesman, said the President was "deeply troubled" after an Israeli helicopter fired seven missiles in an attempt to kill Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, a senior leader in the political wing of Hamas. The attack killed two people and seriously hurt other bystanders. . . . President Bush "is concerned that the strike will undermine efforts by Palestinian authorities and others to bring an end to terrorist attacks and does not contribute to the security of Israel," Mr Fleischer told reporters. "In looking at the progress that must be made for the road map and then looking at this attack the President is deeply troubled by it." . . . Abu Mazen used stronger language. The Israeli missile strike was a "terrorist attack in the full meaning of the word because it targeted innocent people", he said. A woman in her fifties was killed when shrapnel smashed into her car and an eight-year-old girl was in critical condition last night after shrapnel hit her as she stood nearby. One of Dr Rantisi's bodyguards was also killed. . . . Israel has repeatedly been accused of timing assassinations of Hamas militants to wreck Palestinian and Arab attempts to get a ceasefire. Last summer, a ceasefire was believed to be near when the Israeli air force bombed a packed residential neighbourhood to assassinate a Hamas leader, killing nine children as well. . . . After yesterday's assassination attempt, Dr Rantisi said from his hospital bed: "We will continue with our holy war and resistance until every last criminal Zionist is evicted from this land," he said. . . . The attack looked like a bad miscalculation by Israel. It came on the same day an Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, published what it said was an account by an insider at the closed-door meetings at Aqaba last week. According to the unnamed source, Mr Bush spoke angrily to Mr Sharon and then told Condoleeza Rice, his National Security Adviser: "We have a problem with Sharon I can see." . . . But within hours of yesterday's criticism, Israeli rockets and tank shells slammed into the Gaza Strip again. They were aimed at militants who fired rockets into Israel in retaliation to the attack on Dr Rantisi. Two men and one woman were killed by the Israeli attack on the residential area - a development unlikely to improve Mr Bush's mood.

posted by Lorenzo 8:14 PM

 

How Israeli Settlers Abuse Palestinian Children
Photo Caption: Eight-year-old Palestinian boy Naseem Sobih, center, cries, as does his younger brother Hazim, 4, while other family members grieve queitly, as they crowd into their car, and vacate their village of Yanun, under ongoing pressure from nearby Israeli settlers, in the West Bank.

posted by Lorenzo 2:15 PM

 

Robert Fisk: In Cliche Land
(Robert Fisk, ZNet, June 5, 2003)
IT WAS all about cliches. No longer a "peace process" - which, like a disobedient railway loco, constantly had to be put back on track - it's now a "road-map". . . . Settlements built for Jews and Jews only on Arab land are now divided into "established settlements", the illegal kind Ariel Sharon does not intend to dismantle, and "unauthorised outposts", the equally illegal "caravanserais" that Israeli extremists have set up and that can be torn down in front of the television cameras as a demonstration of goodwill. . . . So let's ask a question. Who invented the phrase "peace process", which journalists used so religiously, long after it ceased to proceed to anywhere but war? And who invented "road-map" - originally produced from the hat during Colin Powell's desperate attempt to prevent India and Pakistan nuking each other a couple of years ago? Why, the State Department of course. And yesterday afternoon, the BBC was officially calling it the "so-called road-map" without daring to suggest who created the cliche in the first place. . . . Like Oslo, it expects the Israelis and Palestinians to marry before falling in love. So an American president surrounded by right-wing neo-conservatives thinks he can create peace between an Israeli prime minister who supports illegal settlements and a Palestinian Prime Minister who can't stop the intifada. Poor old Palestinians, you couldn't help thinking yesterday afternoon. And poor old Israelis.

posted by Lorenzo 9:17 PM

 

WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES FOLLOW

Israeli Death Squad Caught on Tape

posted by Lorenzo 8:59 PM