Palestinian President Yasser Arafat appealed Saturday for world pressure on Israel to withdraw from Orient House, the unofficial PLO headquarters in occupied Jerusalem, which Israeli forces took over on Friday.
The Palestinian news agency, WAFA, said that Arafat had written to the leaders of the United States, Russia, the UN and the European Union, asking for help in obtaining the return of the building, a symbol of Palestinian presence in the occupied city.
Arafat’s advisor, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, stated that Arafat's letter said that Israel had "crossed all the limits and violated all previously-signed agreements.”
Arafat’s appeal came as other Palestinian leaders warned the occupation would escalate the conflict throughout the region, calling on Israel to "understand the danger of this crime before it is too late."
The West Bank leader of the Fateh movement, Marwan Barghouthi, also declared a strike on Monday in the occupied Palestinian territories to denounce the seizure, and urged Muslims and Arabs throughout the world to join the protest action, said AFP.
Also on Saturday, Israeli police violently repelled about 100 protesters trying to approach the building, which was protected by police barricades.
The police forcefully drove back the protesters, who earlier chanted nationalistic slogans.
"Orient House will remain a (Palestinian) fortress and witness to Israeli terrorism," read a banner carried by the demonstrators.
Orient House has long been the symbolic cornerstone of Palestinian political presence in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of a future independent state.
Following Saturday's demonstration, Palestinian parliament member and Arab League spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi, accompanied by an entourage of some 10 people, was also forcefully pushed back by Israeli police after trying to approach the building, AFP said.
"They use force, we use civilized actions," Ashrawi told reporters after failing in her bid to enter Orient House. "We have the right to go to the Orient House. We have the right to go anywhere we want in Palestine, including Jerusalem."
Ashrawi earlier told a press conference that Israel's actions in taking over Orient House could expand the conflict throughout the region.
"I can not overestimate the danger inherent in the latest Israeli moves... its policies are liable to launch the whole region into a new cycle of conflict and violence," she said, cited by AFP.
Israel occupied Orient House and carried out military strikes in the West Bank after a member Hamas blew himself up, killing other 15 people in a crowded west Jerusalem pizzeria on Thursday.
The United States and other nations voiced their protest at Israel's takeover of Orient House, warning the move would lead to further conflict.
Also on Saturday, two Palestinians died of their injuries in the Gaza Strip.
The two died from their wounds after Israeli soldiers shot them during clashes near the Muntar crossing point (known to Israelis as Karni), medical sources told the Palestinian news agency, WAFA.
They died shortly after midnight Saturday at the Shifa Hospital, said its emergency services director, Muayya Hussein.
Maher Afaneh, 27, was shot in the chest, while Mohammed Al Saqqa was shot in various parts of his body, WAFA said.
According to AFP estimates, the death toll since the Intifada began 10 months ago now stands at 714, of which 547 are Palestinians and 146 Israelis.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nabil Shaath said Saturday in an interview on Voice of Palestine Radio that the Israeli occupation of Orient House was a “gross violation of a written Israeli commitment delivered to the Norwegian foreign minister in 1993.”
“Because the Oslo Accords stipulated that discussions on five principal subjects, including Jerusalem, be postponed until final status talks, the Palestinians demanded a commitment that Israel would not harm Palestinian establishments in east Jerusalem,” he was quoted by Haaretz as saying.
“The Palestinian representatives were not satisfied with a verbal agreement, so Foreign Minister Shimon Peres signed a letter, written by the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, which promised that the Palestinian establishments (including religious, economic and cultural buildings) would be allowed to develop,” he added.
Shaath added that the letter was sent to Norway and that the Norwegian foreign minister personally traveled to Tunis and delivered the letter to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. "We wouldn't have signed the Oslo Accords without that letter," Shaath said.
He conceded that Orient House was not explicitly stated in the letter, but that the verbal agreement said the establishment was not to be touched.
Earlier in the day, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority demanded that Israel immediately withdraw from the building.
The US also condemned the takeover and the seizure of a Palestinian Authority security office in Abu Dis on the outskirts of occupied Jerusalem.
The US State Department said that Israel's seizure of the Orient House and Abu Dis lands damaged the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians.
According to Haaretz newspaper, the US administration asked Israel how long it intended to maintain control over Orient House, during a meeting between Danny Ayalon, foreign policy advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage and Middle East envoy William Burns.
The official answer it received from Israel was that "Israel acted according to agreements it had signed with the Palestinians."
Israeli sources told the paper that "despite the moderate criticism on the Israeli attacks late Thursday, the United States is content that Israel avoided a harsh military response and made due with a political action."
Ayalon told the US administration the actions Israel undertook following the suicide bombing Thursday in west Jerusalem were "legal and came after the Palestinians violated the agreement with Israel."
"We gave Arafat all the information on the people involved in terror attacks but he did not act against them and therefore we had to take action," Ayalon said. He claimed that the actions against the Palestinian Authority were planned so as not to cause casualties on the Palestinian side.
Earlier, a senior State Department official said Secretary of State Colin Powell had spoken Friday with Sharon to raise US criticism of the occupation of Orient House and the raid on Abu Dis.
It was the second telephone call between Powell and Sharon in two days, AFP said.
For his part, US President George W. Bush said Friday that the mounting conflict in the Middle East "frustrated" him, and declared that Arafat must "do a better job in curbing violence."
In an interview with ABC television, Bush said "Mr. Arafat can do a better job. I am deeply concerned that some of the more radical groups are beginning to affect his ability and obviously are provocative as heck toward the Israelis."
Saudi Arabia on Saturday also condemned Israel's seizure of Orient House.
"The acts of the Israeli forces of occupation, the latest being the abominable occupation of Orient House, symbol of Palestinian sovereignty in east Jerusalem, represent an escalation that the region cannot tolerate," an official spokesman said, cited by AFP.
"The government and people of Saudi Arabia condemn and detest this act and hold Israel responsible for the consequences.
The United States was joined by Russia and European nations in demanding that Israel and the Palestinians seek reconciliation and negotiations.
Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries officially at peace with Israel, also blasted the Jewish state's reprisal for the suicide bomb attack, which both states had also strongly condemned.
Since the September 2000 eruption of the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation, AFP estimates that Palestinians have killed 146 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to AFP, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 547 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
According to an Amnesty International report issued early this year, nearly 100 of the Palestinians killed were children. In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.” - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
