The US on Wednesday asked Israel to stop its policy of assassinating Palestinian activists because such actions “damage Washington's relations with other countries in the Middle East,” said Haaretz newspaper, citing US officials.
In contacts between Israeli and American representatives after Tuesday’s Israeli attack which killed five Hamas activists, two children and a journalist in Nablus, US officials asked their Israeli counterparts to "understand Washington's interests" in the region and to keep them in mind, one official told the paper.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell also criticized Israel’s assassination policy, saying such operations were too “aggressive,” AFP and Haaretz said.
A US State Department spokesman said that the US "has always been against a policy of assassinations," while White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that the US calls on all sides to show restraint "and that definition includes" opposition to the assassination policy, Haaretz reported.
For his part, Powell said the Israeli attacks “serve to further escalate the situation in the region.”
"This kind of response is too aggressive and it just serves to increase the level of tension and violence in the region," Powell said, referring to Israel’s strike Tuesday on a Hamas office in the West Bank town of Nablus.
"Targeted killing does not help," Powell added.
But he disputed reports that the State Department was taking a stronger stand than the White House against Israel's "liquidation" policy.
"The administration's position," he said, "was that Israel and the Palestinians should do everything possible to try to bring the level of passion, incitement and violence down."
The Israeli security cabinet decided Wednesday to continue with the current policy of "downing terrorists."
A senior Israeli diplomatic source told the paper that "the current policy is much more effective against terror and also politically. This is not the time to bomb empty buildings or move into Area A. And nobody suggested escalation. The decision remains to continue and to monitor the situation, and to adapt policy if necessary."
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon defended Israel's policy of "targeted liquidations" in a conversation with Powell on Wednesday, saying Israel had the same right to defend itself as the United States, an Israeli political source told the paper.
Meanwhile, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, redoubling his call for international observers to be sent to the territories, was set to meet Pope John Paul on Thursday, said AFP.
Arafat met Italian leaders here Wednesday as international condemnation grew over Israel's policy of "targeted killing" -- a euphemism for assassinations -- of Palestinian activists.
China, Russia, the United Nations and France joined Arab and other leaders in the growing international chorus of disapproval over Israel's military tactics.
Up to 100,000 Palestinians massed in the West Bank town of Nablus Wednesday for the funeral of the six Hamas activists and two children.
The anger boiled over into violent clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank town of Hebron, where a Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli forces.
Israel shrugged off the international outcry over its policy of killing Palestinians it considers a threat to its citizens.
Arafat said Wednesday he would appeal to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who chaired last month's Group of Eight summit in Genoa, during a scheduled meeting Thursday "to do everything possible" to enable the deployment of peacekeepers in the troubled region.
G8 leaders at the summit called for the deployment of international observers, provided the move had the backing of both Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel is opposed to an international team being sent to the region to monitor implementation of the Mitchell peace plan aimed at ending the 10-month Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation.
However, the Palestinian president cited previous international interventions in global trouble-spots, without prior agreement from all parties, as precedents for possible intervention in the Middle East.
"You have sent troops to the Balkans, into Macedonia, southern Lebanon without approval from the parties involved, why not do the same thing in our region?" Arafat said during a press conference Wednesday.
The question of international observers appeared to split the hawks and doves within the Israeli leadership Wednesday, AFP said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said he would agree to an "American presence" near Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, but the office of Sharon ruled it out.
"Israel wants the full implementation of the Mitchell report and accepts an American presence in Rafah, as proposed by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak," Peres said in a phone conversation with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Maher, according to a foreign ministry statement, cited by the agency.
But in a short statement, Sharon denied the claims, saying there was "no agreement on observers or international supervision" in Rafah.
In late May, the pope sent a close aide on a peace mission to the Middle East to hand over personal messages to Arafat and Sharon, encouraging both leaders to resume dialogue and adopt a ceasefire.
Since the September 2000 eruption of the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation, the media has reported that Palestinians have killed at least 128 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 international media reports, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 538 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)
