A Western diplomatic report received by a Gulf state says that the US gave the go-ahead to Israel’s plan to use massive firepower to remove Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and his aides from the Occupied Territories, according to press reports.
The Lebanese Arabic daily An Nahar Arabic quoted the diplomatic report, allegedly authored in Washington, as saying the Israeli army was expected to follow the plan put forward by Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz as early as August 1.
An Nahar said that the information was leaked to a Gulf country, and that Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign ministers subsequently called for an urgent meeting of the follow-up committee on the Intifada formed at last October’s Arab Summit in Cairo. The meeting, scheduled for Cairo on Wednesday, is meant to head off the Israeli plan, according to An Nahar.
Although the daily did not name the Gulf state that received the report, other press reports pointed to Saudi Arabia, which called for an urgent GCC foreign ministers’ meeting last week. The call for the Arab Summit follow-up committee meeting emerged from that gathering.
An unnamed senior Lebanese official told An Nahar that the Cairo meeting would also focus on other actions by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, including ongoing assassinations of Intifada activists, settlement expansion, intransigence on the issue of the occupied Golan Heights, and plans to bar the return of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon to their homeland.
The official said that Lebanon had recently won the understanding of the US and the EU regarding the implementation of UN Resolution 194, which secures the right of return for all Palestinian refugees.
Up to 40,000 Palestinians could be killed or flee from their homeland if Israeli generals follow through on the Mofaz plan, according to the last issue of the British weekly Foreign Report by Jane's Information Group.
Last week, the Israeli press printed excerpts of the report by the group, one of the world’s most authoritative sources of information on military hardware and intelligence, along with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres’ dismissal of the of the article as “baseless…and fantasy.”
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer was quoted Tuesday as denying Israel wants “to harm Arafat.”
According to the article, after the next major bomb attack inside the Green Line marking Israel’s pre-1967 borders, the Jewish state will launch a massive military blitz against the PA to erase it from the map and disarm its security forces.
The plan has already been presented to the cabinet by Mofaz, said Foreign Report.
According to the report, the attack will follow a suicide bombing that causes considerable casualties, which the generals believe will create the necessary climate among Israelis for war, while simultaneously justifying the assault before world opinion as an act of retaliation against “terrorism.”
The weekly alleged that the campaign would last for a maximum of 30 days and involve 30,000 Israeli troops, starting with attacks by F-15 and F-16 warplanes on Palestinian facilities in Gaza and Ramallah. Heavy artillery would also be used, it said.
According to the report, there are two scenarios. If Palestinian resistance fighters flee from the Occupied Territories, the campaign will end.
If, however, the Palestinians fight back fiercely – the scenario predicted by Israeli intelligence – it is estimated that about 300 Israeli soldiers will be killed; in other words, one percent of all the Israeli forces involved.
The plan predicts that up to 40,000 Palestinians will defend their homeland, but these resistance fighters will either flee or be killed, according to the report.
The weekly quoted Israeli intelligence reports as assuring that the move would not trigger a regional war.
It said the Israeli army thought that Egypt might send forces into the Sinai, and Israel would respond by calling up its reserves.
If Iraq sends tanks, Israel will bomb them before they reach the Jewish state’s eastern border, according to the report.
Israeli leaders, said the weekly, predicted that as the campaign was wrapped up, Arafat would leave the Occupied Territories. In addition, many leaders and fighters who came with Arafat from Tunisia after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 would either leave or be killed.
– Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
