PM Sharon's criminal betrayal of his People

_ Posted by hebron_today@hebron.org.il> Feb 24, 2005
From: zimra [mailto:zimra1@netvision.net.il]
Subject:
You can help!!

As you know, I am a resident of Neve Dekalim slated to be deported, homeless, and unemployed with my husband and five children. I thought you might want to know that Israeli non Jewish soldiers are now being trained to break womens' wrists (mine, for example) so that their babies can be easily snatched from them during the evacuation - and they are learning to do this in such a way that leaves no signs of laceration on the skin so that the women will not be able to show it to the media.

Following is an open letter from Pastor Jim Vinyard (from Oklahoma) to Ariel Sharon regarding the illegal and immoral forcible expulsion of the Jews from Gush Katif and the Shomron.

Do you want to help? You can: 1) Get the following article published in your local newspaper. 2) Write or call Prime Minister Sharon: Office of the PM, 3 Kaplan Street, Jerusalem, Israel; webmaster@pmo.gov.il; 972-2-652-4040; 972-2-670-5527. Write: I strongly identify Pastor Jim Vinyard's open letter regarding the illegal and immoral forcible expulsion of the Jews from Gush Katif and the Shomron.
Cut and Paste the letter and sign your name

3) Send a copy of your letter to President George W. Bush, the White House, Washington, DC 20500; president@whitehouse.gov; 202-456-1414. 4) Distribute this letter as widely as possible, to your Congressional representative, your email list, and your religious leaders. Ask them to add their voices of outrage against the "black-days" planned for the Jewish people.

Open Letter from Pastor Jim Vineyard to Prime Minister Sharon:
Christian-Zionist greetings to you Sir on this "black-day" in the history of the nation of Israel! I call it a "black day" Sir, as an observer from Oklahoma, because of your arrogant and jubilant boast to your cabinet that "Gaza will be 'Judenrein' (my words Sir) by Rosh Hashanah." I call it a "black day" Sir, because your personal plan is a reversal of your "campaign platform" you had against Amram Mitzna. I call it a "black day" Sir because your concept of democracy now says "anyone who speaks or writes against the disengagement plan is guilty of incitement".

I call it a "black day" Sir, because your five thousand Druze, Bedouin and Jewish jerks, raised in a non-faithful environment, "storm-trooper deporters", will not have to wear name tags, hence no accountability. I call it a "black day" Sir, because a Hatzofe article noted that many of your storm troopers will be Druze and Bedouins, who are "looking forward" to manhandling Jews. I call it a "black day" Sir, because the entire storm trooper machine, which is now known as the "State of Israel" had reneged on its Abrahamic Covenant, to adopt a new, sick and macabre venture, all in an effort to secure the "silly approval" of the European Union and the Bush Administration. I call it a "black day" Sir, because your "storm trooper school for deportation", established in Beit-Govrin [Lak'hish area], now promises a cool $5,000 bonus to the "storm trooper" deporters. With five thousand storm trooper deporters receiving $5,000 each, that is a cool $25,000,000 (million) the American tax payers will be giving your storm troopers to deport Jews.

I call it a "black day" Sir, because of the fact that it would seem that the only true friends of those people whom you supposedly lead, the apple of God's eye, are the faithful Jews and Christian Zionists, who believe that God meant what he said, and said what he meant, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

I call it a "black day," Sir, because it is like that day, when Israel's first King, King Saul, as the Holy Bible tells us in 1 Samuel 13: 13-14, when Samuel said to Saul: "thou hast done foolishly, thou has not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which He commanded thee .... But now thy kingdom shall not continue. The Lord hath sought him, a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee."

I call it a "black day," Sir, because it is like that day, when Israel's king, King Ahab, had Elijah tell him that King Ahab had acted immorally in deporting faithful Naboth from his home. God never changes His morality. You too, are acting illegally and immorally when you remove Jews in Gaza and Shomron in 2005 from their homes. As the Bible states: "has thou killed, and also taken possession ... in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine." [1 Kings 21:19]. I call it a "black day," Sir, because it is a day in which people in democracies worldwide need to know that Israel now has a fascist dictatorship endowing Israel in its ruling elite with legitimacy. I call it a "black day," Sir, because American Christians and Jews need to know that Israel's Prime Minister must presently be exposed as a dictator. I call it a "black day," Sir, because Americans need to know that you are utterly ruthless and will stop at nothing - not even bloodshed - to deport Jews from their homes in Gaza and northern Samaria.

I call it a "black day," Sir, because I am going to have to involve all the resources I can, in money and people, to let Americans know what you, Sir - a man who reminds me of Haman, mentioned in the Bible in Esther's day - are going to do to the innocent Jews in Israel.

I call it a "black day" because America is complicit with you in this endeavor.

A true yedid and haver to the Jews.

Jim Vineyard, Baptist pastor
Windsor Hills Baptist Church, 5517 Northwest 23rd St., Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73127. Email: jav9@juno.com

************************************************

Americans for a Safe Israel/AFSI distributes this open letter from Pastor Jim Vineyard to Prime Minister Sharon with a sense of anguish and anger. We agree with the sentiments expressed in this letter regarding the illegal and immoral forcible expulsion of the Jews from Gush Katif and the Shomron. After reading this letter, if you too agree, please write or call Prime Minister Sharon at: Office of the PM, 3 Kaplan Street, Jerusalem, Israel; webmaster@pmo.gov.il; 972-2-652-4040; 972-2-670-5527.
Please send a copy of your letter to President George W. Bush, the White House, Washington, DC 20500; president@whitehouse.gov; 202-456-1414.
In addition, please distribute this letter as widely as possible, to your Congressional representative, your email list, your religious leaders, and your fellow worshippers. Ask them to add their voices of outrage against the "black-days" planned for the Jewish people.

Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI; 1623 Third Ave., Suite 205, New York, N.Y. 10128; Tel: 212-828-2424; Fax: 212-828-1717; afsi@rcn.com; www.afsi.org http://www.afsi.org/ ; February 23, 2005

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PM Sharon's criminal betrayal of his People

ARIK, YOU'VE LET ME DOWN!!
Yehudit Tayar, The Jerusalem Post Feb. 22, 2005


I once so admired you, Ariel Sharon. Now you, along with your patched-up opportunist government, have joined the pathetic ranks of those who have caved in to terror, all those "enlightened" people who have, for reasons of overconfidence, corruption and conceit, given up on the ideals this country was built on.

You have with your bulldozer style trampled on our rights as citizens; but even worse, you have virtually ripped the country in pieces.

You, who send our sons into the houses of terrorists, endangering their lives in order to try and save innocent lives, are now releasing those same terrorists and rewarding and encouraging those who have perpetrated and been involved in terror.

You plan to uproot Jewish homes, synagogues, shops and cemeteries for no justifiable reason using our sons, daughters, and husbands as tools of destruction. This will never be forgotten. You will never be forgiven.

We understand the enemy and his plans; it is obvious that you no longer do.

No matter how many embraces or promises you receive from any head of the Palestinian Authority or president of the United States you forget one important lesson:

Listen to what is said, not what you wish to hear, or imagine you are hearing. We have been through many signatures, many guarantees from US governments and Muslim leaders. We have paid for these in blood and tears.

You will be remembered in the annals of our history as a gambler, or worse. You will be remembered for your autocratic approach. You will be remembered also as a corrupt politician.

Do not weep crocodile tears for us; do not attempt to embrace us. We see through all of this. We will not be a part of your charade.

The threat of a criminal investigation hangs over your head. While we do not need to curry favor with anyone. At the same time, many, many members of our nation are disheartened, discouraged and have lost direction.

We, however, must live with ourselves and our God.

At the end of the day we will persevere despite the wrong-headed decisions railroaded through by you and your political partners.

We have a mandate to protect our Torah, our Land and our people.

Do not fool yourself. This Land does not belong to you. Many of us think you are attempting to erase your shady, arguably criminal activities by directing media attention toward the disengagement scheme.

I can only express my disdain at your decision to destroy the national fiber, and for what? For nothing.

Abraham Lincoln said: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." [Luke 11:17, Jesus said, - Zionsake Editor]

You are ripping apart the country, and callously using the Israeli Defense Forces, police and Border Police to tear Jews away from their homes. You are threatening to incarcerate citizens of Israel who will oppose your policies, much like the British did in the bitterly remembered days of the Mandate.

You were elected to protect us. Instead we feel you have stolen our votes. We feel betrayed. Still, we have faith in God that your plans will not be implemented.

We represent the covenant that the Jewish people have between our God and our Land. No prime minister or government decision can change that.

As our first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, said: "No Jew has the right to give up parts of our heritage, the Land of Israel. The Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people now and forever."

Some things, Mr. Sharon, do not change.

The Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people now and forever. And we will continue to protect that heritage by being there, in Katif, Judea, and Samaria and building the Land.

The writer, who resides with her family in Samaria, is one of the veteran spokespersons of the settlement movement. _____

Copyright 1995-2005 The Jerusalem Post - http://www.jpost.com/

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Abu Mazen: Beneath the Moderate Veneer

Abu Mazen: Beneath the Moderate Veneer

By Arlene Kushner*

FrontPageMagazine.com | February 25, 2005

"If anyone deserves to be given a chance, this is the guy."

So declared Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, referring to
PA Chair Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen), in an address just this past
Friday.

Abbas has been working hard to lend just that impression and he
certainly seems to be succeeding. But precisely what does he
"deserve?" Does this ostensible moderate truly seek the cessation of
violence and genuine peace?

Does he accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state?

More than 11 years ago now, on September 13, 1993, Yasser Arafat,
Chairman of the PLO, shook the hand of a reluctant Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin as the Declaration of Principles was signed on the
White House lawn. A culmination of the negotiations in Oslo, the
Declaration called for putting an end to "decades of confrontation
and conflict" and stated that the parties would "strive to live in
peaceful coexistence."

Within 24 hours Arafat had gone on Jordan TV and explained his
position (in Arabic) with remarkable candor:
"Since we cannot defeat Israel in war; we do this in stages. We take
any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish
sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When
the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final
blow against Israel," he said.

At the end of 1995, a formal pact was established between Hamas and
the Palestinian Authority. Signed in the names of Yasser Arafat and
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, it called on the PA to "cease all preventative
security." That is, in flagrant violation of Oslo agreements, the PA
was agreeing to look the other way as Hamas continued terrorist
attacks, and in fact viewed such terrorist acts - from which it
publicly disassociated itself - as a means of pushing Israel harder
in negotiations.

In the summer of 2002, well after Oslo had collapsed, Dennis Ross,
who had been President Clinton's special envoy in the Middle East,
addressed this approach when he wrote about Arafat's tactics in
Foreign Affairs:
"Not withstanding his commitment to renounce violence, he has never
relinquished the terror card," Ross said.

Now we see Mahmoud Abbas standing in Yasser Arafat's stead. Far more
polished than Arafat ever was, certainly a good deal less abrasive,
and likely considerably smarter, Abbas chooses to be seen as his
antithesis - a new, moderate leader for a new time. Arafat was so
deeply detested in so many quarters that it's not hard for Abbas to
project this persona successfully. Worn down by the need to cope with
Arafat, people are ready to embrace someone new. The current
euphoria, the expressed hope that we may be on the cusp of peace,
would not be possible without a vision of Abbas as the man of the
hour.

Abbas understands that Arafat's belligerent style had become
counterproductive and that terror attacks were not working to further
Palestinian interests. Thus he is eager to project that appearance of
moderation, and to bring to the area a period of "quietness." There
is no question about this. But at the end of the day he was Arafat's
buddy - someone who shared goals and values with him. At the end of
the day Abbas has no more intention of relinquishing that terror card
than Arafat did.

Born in S'fat in 1935, he fled to Syria with his family in 1948. By
the mid-50s he had landed in Kuwait, where he hooked up with Arafat
and helped to found Fatah - which, it should be noted, still
advocates "liberation" of the entire land. As Arafat moved about over
the years, Abbas went with him - to Jordan (where he became involved
with the PLO when Fatah gained ascendancy in that group), to Lebanon
and to Tunis.

For many years, Abbas was Arafat's deputy, his prot?g? and his
constant companion:

"He was party to the plan to take Israel in stages. A formal PLO
resolution outlining this strategy, called the 'Phased Plan,' was
adopted in 1974," according to Arafat was referring to after the Oslo
signing.

He was privy to the advice from North Vietnamese revolutionaries that
the PLO should conceal its true intent and appear flexible. In fact,
Fatah had the works of the North Vietnamese General Giap translated
into Arabic.

He was cognizant of, if not deeply involved in, decisions to formally
ally the PA with Hamas.

And, it must be added, he was the signatory on behalf of the PLO for
the Declaration of Principles. While Arafat shook hands, it was Abbas
who penned his name. Quite clearly, he was privy to Arafat's
declaration a day later - which is to say, privy to the lack of
sincerity that accompanied the show on the White House lawn to which
he had lent his name. He has been partner to it all.

At one point in his career, Abbas went to Oriental College in Moscow,
ostensibly to earn a doctorate in history.

His thesis was expanded it into a book, called The Other Side: The
Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement. In it he
explained that: "[the Zionists gave] permission to every racist in
the world, led by Hitler and the Nazis, to treat Jews as they wished,
so long as it guaranteed immigration to Palestine."

He is a Holocaust denier when he wrote that and remains one. In an
interview he gave on official Palestinian TV, he charged that the
Nazis had no specific plans to murder the Jews.

All indications are, however, that Abbas was in Moscow for a great
deal more than academic study. By the 1970s, the Soviet Union had
become a prime source of training in terrorism, espionage and
indoctrination. It has been noted as more than coincidence that one
of the first places Abbas visited after his election was Russia,
where he met with President Putin, formerly of the KBG.

Not surprisingly, there is evidence that Abbas has been complicit in
terrorism. A couple of years ago a charge surfaced that he was the
man who financed the massacre of Israeli athletes in Munich. The
charge was made credible because it was leveled by Abu Daoud, the
terrorist who planned the operation. More recently (in March 2003 in
the Arabic paper Al-Sharq al-Awsat) he has sanctioned the killing of
(civilian) Jews outside the Green Line.
Yossi Beilin, the left wing Israeli politician who worked with Abbas,
believes that his positions during the Oslo negotiations were
actually more extreme than Arafat's. Beilin says Abbas "was among
Arafat's 'restrictors' during the Camp David summit."
And indeed, Abbas lauded Arafat's rejection of Barak's offer at Camp
David in 2000, saying:

"I do not feel any regret. What we did was the right thing to do. [No
opportunity was missed since] the opportunity did not exist.they say
'we offered 95 percent [of the territory],' and I ask why not 100
percent."
He has sustained his uncompromising demand for full return to
pre-1967 borders. He is even on record as questioning whether there
was really ever a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount, saying, "I
challenge the assertion. But even if it were true, we do not accept
it."

Coupled with this is his consistent position over the years pushing
for the "return" of refugees:

"The refugees.have the right reserved to return to their homeland and
every place they have left.this is not only limited to land under the
sovereignty of the PA. We demand their return to Jaffa, to Haifa and
the other regions they came from."

Were Israel to accede to the demands of Abbas, she would find herself
with indefensible borders, and overrun by hostile population within
those borders: She would be facing her own destruction.

Abbas's present intentions, then, are clear for anyone who is ready
to put aside wishful thinking and see that he will give the
impression of moderation, and he will disarm people with his spoken
commitment to peace. "We have agreed on halting all violent actions
against.Israelis wherever they are," he intoned at the Sharm el-Sheik
summit on February 8."

He will make loud noises about how the terrorists groups must
cooperate in achieving quiet - which is in the interest of the
Palestinian people. He will dispatch police - whose allegiance is
dubious to begin with and who are not truly empowered to take strong
action in any event. The "quiet" he stitches together will be a
temporary quiet, however, merely consented to voluntarily by groups
such as Hamas, who reserve the right to initiate terror again if and
as they deem it appropriate.

At no time has Mahmoud Abbas committed to dismantling the terrorist
infrastructure. He has made it clear that he will not do battle with
the terrorists - who, he has indicated, are his brothers. Nor will he
ask them to surrender weapons. Neither has he uttered a word about
re-vamping the PA-published textbooks, which do not acknowledge
Israel's legitimate existence and teach yet another generation of
Palestinians about "jihad" and "martyrdom."

Abbas's immediate goal is withdrawal of the IDF to the pre-Intifada
position of 2000. He would follow this with a rush to final status
negotiations with Israel. It is nothing short of astonishing how
frequently officials of the PA refer to the need to get to these
negotiations quickly, when they haven't met even preliminary
obligations under the roadmap. Abbas is clearly counting on the
goodwill and impressions of moderation he is generating to lessen the
stringency of the international community in requiring him to meet
these obligations.
Is it possible that a rush to final status negotiations might bring a
lasting peace and a genuine two-state solution?

Consider the words of one Sheikh Mudeiris. The Sheikh is in the
employ of the Palestinian Authority. He offered a sermon (in Arabic)
on official PA TV on February 4. In it, he said:

"We tell you Palestine, we shall return to you, by Allah's will, We
shall return to every village, every town, and every grain of earth
which was quenched by the blood of our grandparents.Our willingness
to return to the 1967 borders does not mean that we have given up on
the land of Palestine. No!.We might be able to use diplomacy in order
to return to the 1967 borders, but we shall not be able to use
diplomacy in order to return to the 1948 borders [i.e., to the
situation before Israel existed]. No one on this earth recognizes
[our right to] the 1948 borders. Therefore, we shall return to the
1967 borders, but it does not mean that we have given up on Jerusalem
and Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramle, Natanyah .and Tel Aviv. Never. We shall
return to every village we had been expelled from, by Allah's
will.Our approval to return to the 1967 borders is not a concession
for our other rights. No!... Palestinians will return the way
Muhammad returned there, as a conqueror." (Palestinian Media Watch
translation).

These words would not have made it on to PA TV without the sanction
of the PA head - Mahmoud Abbas. The PLO "Phased Plan," you see, is
alive and well in the Palestinian Authority headed now by Arafat's
good disciple. His goal is still the eventual destruction of Israel.
Arafat would be proud of him.

*Arlene Kushner lives and writes in Jerusalem. She had done three
major reports on UNRWA for the Center for Near East Policy Research.
Her book, Disclosed: Inside the Palestinian Authority and the PLO,
has just been released and is available at
www.IsraelBehindtheNews.com

Disengagement PAIN

Disengagement=PLO Empowerment - David Bedein
"Disengagement" is not being voted on in the Knesset on Wednesday -
"PLO Empowerment" is on the agenda
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

By: David Bedein media@actcom.co.il
ISRAEL RESOURCE NEWS AGENCY
Beit Agron Press Center, 37 Hillel St., Jerusalem Tel: 02-5300125
Fax: 02-6236470
www.israelbehindthenews.com

In a generation of fast sound bytes and instant news, neither
proponents nor opponents know what the Sharon Plan is all about.

It is hard to find anyone who has read the plan. .

What I have found from covering of the Knesset is that most Knesset
members, reporters who cover the Knesset and even Israeli government
ministers have not read the Sharon Plan.
Instead, people throughout Israel and throughout the world assume
that the Sharon plan only concerns whether Israelis should continue
to live in the Katif district of Gaza and some seemingly distant
Jewish communities in Northern Samaria.

Hence the term "disengagement".

However, if anyone had bothered to READ the Sharon Plan, posted at
www.pmo.gov.il, the reality of the Sharon Plan would unfold in an
entirely different direction.

While the Sharon Plan is described as a "disengagement plan", it does
anything but that..
Despite the premise in clause one of the Sharon Plan that there is no
Palestinian peace partner, the Sharon Plan involves a PLO empowerment
process.

14 clauses of the Sharon Plan strengthen every aspect of the PLO to
belie clause one that that there is "no reliable Palestinian partner"

While the premise of the Sharon Plan mandates that the Gaza Strip "be
demilitarized and shall be devoid of weaponry", the Sharon Plan
provides "advice, assistance and training" to "the Palestinian
security forces? by American, British, Egyptian, Jordanian or other
experts, as agreed with Israel."

The Sharon Plan ignores how military training of the PLO facilitated
by Israel and the western democracies was abused to conduct a terror
campaign against Israel in every part of the country for the past
four years.

The Sharon Plan goes on to say that "Israel will be willing to
consider the possibility of the establishment of a seaport and
airport in the Gaza Strip, in accordance with arrangements to be
agreed with Israel."

The Sharon plan obligates Israel to "provide water pipes,
electricity, industrial zones, markets, employment and an industrial
zone to sustain the Palestinian Arab economy of Gaza"?

The Sharon Plan mandates that "other existing arrangements, such as
those relating to water and the electro-magnetic sphere shall remain
in force" while "economic arrangements currently in operation between
Israel and the Palestinians shall, in the meantime, remain in force."

According to the Sharon Plan, these arrangements will include:
i. The entry of workers into Israel in accordance with the existing
criteria.
ii. The entry and exit of goods between the Gaza Strip, the West
Bank, Israel and abroad.
iii. The monetary regime.
iv. Tax and customs envelope arrangements.
v. Postal and telecommunications arrangements.

Finally, the Sharon Plan envisions international support for the PLO,
"in order to bring the Palestinians to implement in practice their
obligations to combat terrorism and effect reforms, thus enabling the
parties to return to the path of negotiation."

And if the PLO does not "implement in practice their obligations to
combat terrorism"

The Sharon Plan provides no answer to that possibility.

The Sharon Plan does not provide even include a minimal demand that
the PLO not endorse the cold blooded murder of Jews on the official
media outlets of the PLO..

The way in which the official media of Palestinian Authority praised
the October 26th 2004 Knesset approval of the Sharon Plan is
indicative.

In the words of Nabil Shaath, "May this be only one step in the
liberation of all of Palestine." Meanwhile, Hamas spokesman Moshir
Al-Masri declared that "the Knesset vote proves that the Hamas has
forced the Zionist enemy to retreat."

To make a long story short, the Sharon Plan, far from being a plan of
disengagement from the PLO, is nothing less than a program of
empowerment for the PLO.

Since no one bothered to read the Sharon Plan, spin masters were left
in charge, to sell it as a "disengagement from Gaza" program.

Ariel Sharon knows that the very mention of the word "withdrawal from
Gaza" makes him very popular.

Opponents of the Sharon Plan fall right into the trap that Ariel
Sharon has laid for the them, and they scream loudly against "the
Sharon Disengagement Plan from Gaza", and earn the enmity of Israeli
public opinion. What the opposition to Sharon could have done would
have been to educate the population of Israel as to the inherent
dangers of the "PLO EMPOWERMENT PLAN" to every citizen of Israel.

"Disengagement"? It sounded good.

Imagine if Ariel Sharon had tried to sell his plan for what it really
is: Aiding the PLO, which in the media mind set is Sharon's arch
enemy.

: Condoleeza Rice-'viable' Palstate--includes Jordan Valley_Golan
GAMLA: NEWS AND VIEWS FROM ISRAEL Volume 6 Issue 4 Jerusalem, Israel
* * February 3, 2005 http://www.gamla.org.il/english
Rice's "Viable Palestinian State" Would Shrink Israel out of Jordan Valley
and Most of West Bank
*******************************************************************
DEBKAfile Special Analysis
New US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice's upcoming visit to the
Middle East next week has galvanized the region's leaders into a
frenzied round of travel and summit consultations. The centerpiece
summit will bring together Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon,
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas
(Abu Mazen) at Sharm al Sheikh next Tuesday. Jordan's King Abdullah
has also been invited.

Rice will take the place of President George W. Bush, who attended
the last such forum, the 2003 Aqaba summit.

There are other differences.

Abbas will be coming from fruitful talks with Russian president
Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin and Tayyep Erdogan in Ankara. He will
have an Iranian invitation to Tehran in his pocket as well as Moscow's
offer of military aid at some future date, including helicopters, to
"counterbalance" US-British defense support for the Palestinians.

Wednesday, February 2, Egyptian intelligence minister Omar Suleiman
turned up in Jerusalem after talks about a cease-fire in Cairo with
two Palestinian rejectionist leaders, Jihad Islami's Ramadan Shalah
and Hamas Khaled Mashal. Both are holding out for a power-sharing
deal with the PLO without renouncing terrorism.

Not to be outdone in the travel stakes, Syrian president Bashar Assad
suddenly flew to Amman Wednesday, February 2, to tap King Abdullah II
on the goings-on and see where he could fit in.

Amid this flurry of movement, nothing has happened to change the
fundamentals at stake between Israel and the Palestinians. Rice made
this clear on Monday, January 31, ahead of her visit to the region
and at the previous Senate hearings before her confirmation last
week: "Without a viable and contiguous Palestinian state that
represents the aspirations of the Palestinian people - meaning enough
land to function well - there will be no peace for either Palestinian
people or Israelis."

This statement does not address the concerns troubling Jerusalem. She
will no doubt be asked by Israeli officials how does that vision and
the support lavished on Abu Mazen fit in with the refusal of nine
Palestinian organizations, including Abbas' own Fatah, to halt their
terrorist offensive against Israel, their acceptance of a lull at
most - not a ceasefire - and his own refusal to dismantle them, as
required in the first stage of the Middle East road map.

Answering senators' questions on January 18, she had this to say
about her perception of a viable Palestinian state - and by
definition Israel's future borders (which will apparently be
determined by default):

"There are several ways to think about viability. One is that it (the
Palestinian state) has to have territory that makes it viable. It
cannot be territory that is so broken up that it can't function as a
state... It has to have economic viability, and there it probably needs
to have economic viability in relationship to other states around it
- to Jordan, Israel and others... Viability, I think, also has a
political and democracy dimension..."

She went on to say, "...as the president said when he met with prime
minister Sharon back in I think this May, we have to recognize that
the parties are going to determine their borders; that it is not for
us to prejudge what those borders might be. There has been a lot of
negotiation, I think they will need to look at what has been looked
at before."

State department officials who briefed the American press afterward
interpreted Rice's statement as meaning: the territorial contiguity
of a Palestinian state with a common border with Jordan.

Israeli leaders failed to react to the new US secretary's words or
ask for much needed clarifications.

DEBKAfile's sources in Washington, however - after some analysis -
find room for Israel to be concerned on the following scores:

1. The Americans have been shouting from the rooftops for some time
that any cluster of Israeli West Bank communities, including major
towns, that obstruct Palestinian territorial contiguity must be
removed. Back on December 24, we quoted Elliot Abrams, appointed by
President George W. Bush this week as deputy chairman of the national
security council, as saying in closed meetings - on November 30 in
Washington and in New York on December 20 - that "all of the Israeli
settlements east of the existing sections of the West Bank security
barrier will be dismantled and evacuated".

Abrams' comments were no slip of the tongue; he and Rice, along with
new national security chairman Stephen Hadley, are in synch in
everything they say.

2. Establishment of a common frontier between Jordan and a
Palestinian state to ensure the latter's economic viability would
entail Palestinian control of the Jordan Valley and also of
Israeli-Jordanian border crossings. Since Israeli communities in the
Jordan Valley are located east of the security fence, they are
destined by the Bush administration for removal.

3. In the longer-term, Rice's comments on contiguity are also
pertinent to other countries bordering on the projected Palestinian
state - Egypt to the south and Syria to the north. This means Israel
will be required to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor on the
Gaza-Egypt border, an issue now at the heart of its talks with
Washington and Cairo. With Israel out of the way and the buffer zone
gone frm the border, a Palestinian state will gain territorial
contiguity between the Gaza Strip and Egypt's northern Sinai
peninsula.

Further down the road, after Israel returns the Golan Heights, a
Palestinian state will have a common border with Syria.

Rice's core message to Jerusalem is clear: she looks to Israel to
grant the Palestinians territorial connectivity and all the land they
need, along with all the accoutrements of sovereignty such as control
of its borders and air and sea ports. To make it so, Israel is
expected to continue pulling out of large tracts of the West Bank in
addition to its volunteered evacuation of four settlements in the
northern part of the territory and pullback from 21 Gush Katif
locations in the Gaza Strip.

Vice Premier Shimon Peres was the only Israeli leader to grasp what
Rice was driving at - and he tried to sugar the pill. The new
secretary of state, he explained, was referring only to Palestinian
territorial contiguity in the West Bank; she did not mean a West Bank
land link to the Gaza Strip.

DEBKAfile's sources in Washington corrected this interpretration.
Rice, they said, was as clear as rain in physically connecting the
two territories. After all, if the Bush administration is advocating
a territorial link between a Palestinian state and Jordan and Egypt,
it is hardly likely to forego a land link for the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip.

Moreover, our sources say, a West Bank-Gaza corridor - via an
elevated highway or a tunnel -- was on the agenda at the Camp David
negotations in 2000 and other Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in the
past, with the Palestinians demanding a fully sovereign land corridor
to cut through southern Israel.

As Rice said, "There has been a lot of negotiation, I think they will
need to look at what has been looked at before."

All of these statements from the incoming US secretary of state are
in glaring contrast with Sharon's constant claim of an understanding
with Bush at the same White House talks to which she refered that
Israel would not be asked to return to the pre-1967 Middle East war
borders under any permanent peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Obviously, the prime minister's office and the Bush adminsitration
have differing perceptions of this understanding. Perhaps the key to
the gap is to be found in the letter Bush sent Sharon after their
talks, in which he referred only to the 1949 armistice lines set
after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and avoided any reference to the 1967
frontier.

Editorial Posting at 10:01 PM

Updated: Sunday, 20 February 2005 1:37 PM

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Not just religious-Zionists object to Sharon's expulsion plan



Arutz-7 Editor Arutz-7 News: Wednesday, February 2, 2005
The assertion that only religious-Zionists object to the uprooting/transfer plan is about to be bashed in a big way, with a large anti-disengagement event to be held by secular Galilee pioneers.


Moshav Nahalal in the Galilee, one of the most prominent of the secular moshav movement, will host the first of a series of gatherings protesting Prime Minister Sharon's expulsion plan. The plan calls for Israel to unilaterally withdraw all its forces, its 8,500 citizens and their homes from Gush Katif and northern Shomron this summer, and abandon the land to the Arabs.

The gathering at Nahalal is scheduled to take place on Monday, Feb. 14, and will signal the solidarity of the veteran workers' settlement movement with the newer settlers. "We won't leave the Gush Katif pioneers alone in the field," they say. "Their struggle is our struggle."

The announcement of the gathering states, "This is our historic land. Our enemies who waged war on us since the beginning of Zionism will not be satisfied with one piece of land or another. Their ultimate goal is to uproot and banish us from the entire Land."

"We know about the plans being cooked-up in smoke-filled room calling to abandon and expel the residents of the Jordan Valley and Golan as well. Far from the spotlights, an international border crossing is being built in the northern Jordan Valley near Mehola - and this is clear proof of the dark storm about to come upon the Zionist enterprise.

The statement notes that supporters are expected "from all over the country, from a range of the pioneer settlement movements that effected the miracle of the Zionist revival of the nation returning to its land." The organizers "call on everyone with a human and national conscience to come and sound the rational voice of Zionism, nationalism and settlement, against the attempt to illegally and unethically uproot and destroy the Katif bloc and northern Samaria."

One of the organizers, Beit She'an valley Kibbutz member Yoav Toviah, told Arutz-7 last night, "This is not an official gathering, but rather of individual members of the settlement movement here. Let's not kid ourselves: most kibbutz members - I don't know about the moshavim - are in favor of the disengagement. But there are some, like myself, who oppose it." He said that among the organizers are some who have long considered themselves "Land of Israel people," as well as those "who have recently come to the conclusion that this process is both a blow to democracy and a needless destruction of a settlement enterprise in the Land of Israel."

Asked if their support would translate into active opposition in Gush Katif/Northern Shomron itself during the evacuation if it occurs, Toviah said, "I can't speak for others, but I can tell you that already 2-3 weeks ago I sent a fax saying that I would be there on that day."

The organizers' announcement quotes the speech of Simon the Maccabee to Syrian-Greek King Antiochus over 2,100 years ago, in which he said, "Not a foreign land did we take, and not over the property of foreigners did we rule - but the inheritance of our forefathers that was captured illegally and that is in the hands of our enemies. And when the opportunity arose, we restored our forefathers' inheritance."

The statement, phrases of which sounded like they were taken from the National Union party platform, continued, "Facing obtuse powers of evil, facing people with no Zionist or settlement values, and facing a mad dictator who is dragging the country to a civil war - we will establish anew the scale of Zionist and settlement values that built the State of Israel, the national home of the Jewish People."

The statement also refers to the democratic values that were trampled along the way to disengagement: "The nation has already decided three times in favor of keeping hold of Gush Katif: once when the nation overwhelmingly elected Sharon because he said that Netzarim would be like Tel Aviv, while Mitzna, who called for uprooting and destruction, lost." The second time was in the Likud referendum, which gave a large victory to the anti-disengagement camp and which Sharon promised to adhere to but did not. The final instance was the Cabinet decision, when "not only several Likud ministers betrayed their party membership's decision, but Sharon stabbed Israel's democracy in the heart when he created an artificial majority by firing two ministers on the eve of the vote. Who needs a government anyway, if you can just fire ministers before the vote and attain any majority you want."

"We won't leave the Gush Katif pioneers alone in the field," the announcement concludes. "Their struggle is our struggle."

Petitions of soldiers refusing to evacuate fellow Jews

imra Fri Jan 21 00:22:57 2005 Volume 2 : Issue 968
Petitions of soldiers refusing to evacuate

Aaron Lerner Date: 19 January 2005

Noam Livnat, spokesman for the Chomat Magen group, www.hmagen.com , provided
IMRA copies of the two petitions being signed by soldiers and reservists.
Livnat has asked Defense Minister Mofaz for a meeting in three weeks to
present the petitions. He expect to have at least 10,000 signatures by then

The following is IMRA's translation:

#1 Declaration of Reserve Soldiers

We the undersigned are Jewish citizens in the State of Israel, who serve as
reserve soldiers in the IDF. We carry out our army service with pride,
cognizant of our obligation and right to participate in the defense of the
People of Israel in its Land and in war against the enemy.

We identify with the remarks of rabbis and public figures who see the
"disengagement plan" and the evacuations, the destruction and expulsion, a
national disaster and violation of Jewish law that may not be participated
in, and hereby declare that we will not give our hands to implement the
plan.

Name address rank army number telephone number

#2 Declaration of Soldiers

I will not participate in civil war!

I am a proud soldier in the IDF. My task is to defend the State of Israel
and the People of Israel from the enemy.

I may be asked to expel the residents of Gush Katif and northern Samaria,
but I cannot.

I cannot, because I am unable to beat my brothers and sisters, my
countrymen.

I cannot expel a mother of children from her home; I cannot drag an old
woman from her bed; I cannot use force against a boy.

I will not hurt the handicapped, orphans and widows, raze their homes and
give their land to murderers.

I will not hit Jews. Will not uproot the planted. Will not destroy
property.

Will not aid in the destruction of hothouses, take factories apart, destroy
the harvest in the fields.

Will not remove my countrymen from their graves, will not destroy
synagogues.

Will not agree to participate in civil war, even if I receive such an order.

I recognize the obligation to obey army orders, but if I am asked by my
commander to do these things I will see them as grossly illegal, and as a
soldier will be unable in accordance with the laws of the State and the
orders of the General Staff, to carry them out and will be forced to refuse
the order.

Name address rank army number telephone number

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
imra@netvision.net.il http://www.imra.org.il
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Sharon's loathsome strategy to dislodge settlers

Arutz-7 Editor Arutz-7 News: Thursday, January 27, 2005
The disengagement/expulsion plan has begun, according to Arutz-7 broadcaster Adir Zik, with the delegitimization of the Jewish residents in question, as well as government provocations against them.

Excerpts from an article in the B'Sheva weekly by television and radio personality Adir Zik, formerly of the Israel Broadcasting Authority and now of Arutz-7:

"The transfer has already begun. Its steps are clear:

Stage One: Demonizing the settlers. Turning them, with the help of the Israeli media, from a symbol of Jewish and Israeli pioneering spirit and integrity, into parasites and monsters. After all, it's hard to expel good people...

Stage Two: Economic pressure - closing off money sources, drying up their agriculture.

Stage Three: Government provocations against the residents, as occurred in Yitzhar. The footage from the recent evacuation in Yitzhar show soldiers brutally hitting youngsters, dragging religious girls in the mud and over the rocks... But when you turn on the volume, you hear the narrators talking about the wild behavior of the settlers and how they harm the soldiers. This is how the Israeli media lie, and everyone buys it...

Stage Four: Bloodshed... I'm not sure if it can be prevented. I think that the Sharon-Peres-Transfer government will use its force to evacuate Jewish communities, even at the expense of the lives of many Jews. The Israeli media will cooperate, by not showing the distressing pictures of the expulsion of Jews... But the international media will send hundreds of crews for the historic opportunity of photographing Jews expelling Jews, and Jews destroying Jewish towns, and Jews shooting Jews - a real feast for the eyes!

"If [contemplating] these scenes does not wake up the Jewish People in Israel and abroad, and if the nation doesn't wake up and start protesting in the hundreds of thousands as in Ukraine, then the transfer will happen - and the result will be a split in the Jewish Nation... The left and the secular will win in the short run, but the Israeli society will implode and will be destroyed within ten years...

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Palestinians are only used to get hold of Israel's land
Topic: Occupation