While Washington talks
Israel makes war on Palestinians
By Joyce Chediac
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat were in Washington meeting
with President Bill Clinton in late September, Israeli soldiers
attacked Palestinians in West Bank cities, focusing on Hebron.
The Clinton administration issued not one word of condemnation
for the Israeli actions.
Instead of exerting pressure to get Israel to withdraw from
more Palestinian land, what came out of the Washington meetings
looked more like a back-handed way of supporting Israeli
intransigence. Another 3 percent of West Bank land would become
a nature preserve where Israel would control security. No
additional lands would be turned over to the Palestinian
Authority.
Yassir Arafat said Oct. 2 that "No substantial progress can
be cited" from the Washington meetings, according to the
Associated Press. The Israeli government has been stalling for
18 months, refusing to implement the agreed-upon Oslo
accords.
An Israeli-Palestinian summit will be held in Washington
Oct. 15 to 19. The Palestinian Cabinet on Oct. 2 called on
Israel to approach the new round of talks "without the delaying
tricks of the past."
Arafat said he still plans to declare a Palestinian state on
May 4, 1999, the day the interim peace accords expire.
Netanyahu has threatened to retaliate against such a
declaration, possibly by annexing more Palestinian land.
The Israeli state-armed with Pentagon weapons and
Washington's back-door political support-continues its war on
the Palestinian people. On Oct. 2, Israel closed its borders
with the Palestinian territories indefinitely, causing great
hardship to families whose only source of income is from
employment in Israel.
Israeli soldiers and settlers also attacked Palestinians in
the West Bank city of Hebron, populated by 450 Israeli settlers
and 130,000 Palestinians.
Attack in Hebron
Hebron's downtown area is controlled by Israeli soldiers.
This city is the site of daily provocations by ultra-right-wing
Israeli settlers, who are protected by Israeli soldiers. When
Palestinians react to these provocations, the soldiers come in
swinging and firing.
Apparently one such reaction to a provocation by settlers
was the shooting of an Israeli woman in the leg Sept. 28.
Shortly afterward, settlers took to the streets and
indiscriminately beat Palestinian passersby, according to the
AP. Others settlers overturned carts in the Palestinian market,
spitting at Palestinian merchants and calling them "dogs."
Israeli soldiers eventually hauled the settlers away, but did
not arrest them.
Palestinian anger at the soldiers and settlers led to
demonstrations. The Israeli army poured reinforcements into
Hebron, fired rubber bullets into crowds, imposed a curfew on
the Palestinians, and set up roadblocks barring Palestinians
from leaving or entering the city.
Israeli soldiers also fired rubber bullets at 400 people in
the West Bank town of Biddou after the funeral of a Hamas
member, according to the AP.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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