The End of the Game?

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March 29, 2002

From that Yom Kippur (1973) to this Passover, we have not had such Arab savagery mixed with such deep contempt for our people and our heritage.

What the Palestinian terrorists are saying to us is: We will murder you at every opportunity. At any place at any time, even on your holiest of days. The continuous acts of slaughter, in which the elderly and children are mowed down along with anyone within the reach of the terrorist, teach us the degree of the murderous ambitions and the depth of the hatred toward us. If the Arab terrorists had more lethal weapons, they would destroy us, down to the last of our children.

That is the first real goal of Arafat’s terror regime — not to establish a state, but to destroy a state. That was and remains the heart of the conflict. In 1948, the Arabs rejected an international proposal to establish an Arab state and tried to destroy the Jewish state immediately after it was born. 52 years later, Arafat again rejected a similar proposal and insisted on realizing the “right of return,” which means the destruction of Israel.

With such a regime, whose goal is to get rid of our state and which does not find the most barbarous means of mass murder repugnant, there is no room for negotiations, and no arrangement of existing in peace is possible.

The “diplomatic option” so often talked about, was exhausted to the finish two years ago at the Camp David meeting and utterly failed. Arafat refused the Israeli proposal for Palestinian sovereignty in Judea, Samaria and Gaza and half of Jerusalem, and chose the present terror onslaught.

Only one path remains — military victory in the war on terror forced on us. What we have to do now is not continue with our willingness to tolerate this horrible blood-spilling, which is meant to weaken our endurance, but the absolute military defeat of the enemy which forced this war on us. Such a defeat means eradicating Arafat’s regime, besieging the Palestinian population centers, purging them of fighters and arms and terror means, and then setting up security separation lines that allow us to enter the Palestinian areas but prevent the Palestinians from coming into ours.

What we need, therefore, is not to choose between military victory and security separation, but a combination of the two. Only such a comprehensive operation can stop the terror, restore the Israeli deterrence that has been so eroded this past year, and enable more realistic and moderate elements among the Palestinians to reach a position of leadership, with whom, when the time comes, we can conduct negotiations on an agreement.

Any partial action, of the kind the government has carried out so far, any local actions, from restraint to a limited and short “response,” forceful as it may be, has not achieved anything and will not achieve anything. It is like taking a quarter dose of antibiotics, not enough to make the patient well.

The hyper-consciousness of “what the goyim will say” does not elicit any consideration or sympathy from them. On the contrary — it only generates growing doubt among them as to the justification of our position, and it also encourages the Arabs to increase their blood shedding. The only way to obtain understanding in the international arena, particularly in the United States, is to win quickly and stop the awful acts of slaughter of our citizens, explaining firmly and clearly our natural right to protect our people and our country.

The argument that we’ve exhausted all the military options to eradicate terror is groundless. We have still not used even a small part of our might, and the might we did use was not directed at the right target: Arafat’s regime. It is unbelievable, but a fact, that even today, the government continues to act under the illusion that we can stop terror while accepting the existence of this regime.

What is clear is that we must not, even one more day, continue in this hesitating manner, without a goal and without a policy. We must do what any normal people would do in our situation: stop the internal arguments, return war and defeat the enemy threatening our existence.

This also ran as a front page editorial in Maariv on March 29, 2002

Saudi Arabia’s Secret Missile City in the Middle of the Desert

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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March 29, 2002

The computer at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia chooses random names for topics and operations it deals with. “Deep Blue” is the name given to an aggregate of troubling information received by the agency at the beginning of 1988. The source of most of the reports is the NSA’s monitoring of communications by the Chinese administration and military. According to these, Saudi Arabia was conducting advanced negotiations with China about the acquisition of dozens of surface-to-surface missiles built to carry nuclear weapons.

The intelligence communities of both the US and Israel were totally stunned, as until then they did not know anything about this. Officials from the CIA and the research department of IDF Intelligence sat with a compass and drew the ranges. The missiles that the Saudis planned to buy, CSS-2 as they are called in professional terminology, or Dong-Feng 3 in the Chinese version, have a range of between 2,500 to 3,500 kilometers. Such a range encompasses all of the Middle East, including parts of what was once the USSR, and, of course, all of Israel.

Officials in Israel and the US did not understand why the Saudis, who in public take a moderate and pragmatic diplomatic line, had to buy the missiles, which at the time constituted China’s central nuclear attack force. Concern increased when these reports were added to reports of the great financial support given by Saudi Arabia to the development of the “first Islamic bomb,” as Pakistan’s atomic enterprise was called.

Israeli and American intelligence began a wide-scale campaign with a double purpose: To gather details about the deal, and an attempt to learn what the Saudis were really planning to do with the missiles. The campaign was partially successful. It turned out that 120 missiles were to be acquired, as well as 12 launchers. The Americans were especially surprised when it turned out that the person conducting the dialogue on the part of the Saudis was none other than the State Department favorite, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the charming ambassador to Washington.

The Saudis paid a fortune for the missiles. The Chinese got the feeling from them that money was no object, and that Prince Bandar would pay any price to get his country into the prestigious club.

They’re Planting the Desert with Missiles

The first CSS-2 missiles arrived in June, 1990, and were deployed in two places south of Riyadh: Most of them in the huge complex built north of the El-Suleil desert, about 500 kilometers from the capital, and a minority of them in El-Jofer, 100 kilometers from the city. The rest of the missiles arrived during the following years.

About two weeks ago, the satellite Iconus, the best civilian photographic satellite in the world, took special photos for Yediot Aharonot over El-Suleil. The photos, which appear here for the first time, prove that over the last few years the Saudis have invested huge resources in the development of a secret military city, “King Khaled.”

In comparison to previously accessible photos of the region, photographed by the French satellite Spot in 1995, the intensive construction in the region, spread over hundreds of square kilometers in the heart of the desert, is clearly recognizable. The Saudis have added missile launching pads, access roads, command headquarters, a huge residential area, a mosque for the engineers and crews, as well as a huge new area, spread over 1400 square kilometers, dotted with numerous bunkers for conventional and non-conventional weapons, with a capacity of more than 60,000 cubic meters. East of El-Suleil, outside of the photographed area, is a Saudi air force base, with two Tornado squadrons.

The huge missile base is made up of a support area and two launching areas, six kilometers apart, and are located in narrow hidden ravines.

In the support area, more than 33 buildings are visible. Eight of them are large enough to store the CSS-2 missiles, which are 24 meters long. The launching areas have a scattering of buildings, and a concrete launching pad.

In each of the two launching areas, an unidentified building can be seen, covered with dust, about 50 meters long, two underground storerooms for the missiles, two large support buildings, and garages.

In comparison to the photos from 1995, a sizable expansion can be seen in the administrative and residential areas. Command headquarters installations, residential areas, a large mosque, a soccer field, a large park, parking lots, etc., can be clearly seen. The take-off area of the local airport was increased to more than three kilometers.

The weapons storage area, spread over more than 1,400 kilometers, is too big to be connected only to a CSS-2 missile base, and apparently has other secret purposes. More than 60 fortified buildings for weapons storage can clearly be identified.

For a long time it was not clear to American intelligence where the Saudis were hiding their missiles. At first they thought that they were to be found at the El Haraj air force base complex, about 50 kilometers south of Riyadh. Only through intelligence information on the ground, and careful monitoring via satellites, led the CIA to the secret military city in El-Suleil. The photos from Iconus were received according to the coordinates located previously by American intelligence.

This updated information, which Israeli and American intelligence has had for a long time, is the cause of no little headache. All this became even more relevant after 9/11, when it became clear that anything, absolutely anything, could happen, and there are those who today regret the docile line Israel adopted towards Saudi Arabia under American pressure. Buying Up Every Adversary and All Opposition

The acquisition of missiles was part of a general Saudi military build-up, which at the beginning of the nineties turned it into the number one buyer of arms among third world countries, after Iraq.

The Washington administration felt betrayed. Only several years after the huge efforts made by President Reagan to approve the sale of AWACS warning planes to the Saudis, this deal suddenly appeared, in contrast to Riyadh’s declared policy, apparently without any practical need.

The angry Americans asked for explanations. The Saudis said that they needed missiles to defend themselves from Iran (which was then considered to be the most serious regional threat), and that they had decided to acquire them from China, after the US refused to sell them F-15s in 1985. In the end they were sold 24 airplanes, but the missile project, said the Saudis, was already underway.

King Fahd made a commitment not to arm the missiles with chemical or nuclear warheads, and not to use them in an initial attack. In order to allay their concerns even more, Saudi Arabia signed a nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The king made a commitment not to take part in developing a nuclear bomb, and also promised that after the missiles were in place, all military activity would be stopped in the El-Suleil region.

Fahd, to put it nicely, did not exactly keep his word. The Saudis promised to allow American supervision of the site in El-Suleil, if Washington would promise that Israel would not attack them, but in the end refused to allow visits to the site.

Following the Gulf War, the Saudis became a kind of underdog, and succeeded in directing anger to other places, mainly Iran and Iraq. Even Israel, in conversations with other countries, did not raise the Saudi issue.

In 1990, when the missiles began to arrive in El-Suleil, Israel wanted to arouse a commotion, but the US was satisfied with Fahd’s promises and instructed Israel to keep a low profile. Israel in turn sufficed with registering a protest, which was a drop in the ocean in contrast to the campaigns it led against countries such as Syria and Iraq.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, even when the details of its involvement in the Pakistan nuclear project became clear, even when it was obvious that it was financing terror organizations, even when it was proven without any doubt that the Saudi family was tainted to its roots with corruption and an unstoppable desire to rule, by buying up, in essence, every enemy and all opposition, the US remained silent and compelled Israel to do the same.

September 11 upset the applecart for the Saudis. Many in the US, both within and outside the administration, felt free to express what they had been keeping inside. About four months ago, chief Pentagon strategist Richard Perl said here: In my opinion, the Saudis are not part of the solution, but part of the problem… We had all the reasons to assume that they were grateful that we saved them in the Gulf War, and we were wrong.

This piece ran in Yediot Aharonot on March 27, 2002

Radio Damascus: Leaders Must Provide Palestinian People with “All means of Support to their Legitimate Struggle”

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Center for Near East Policy Research

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March 26, 2002

Thanks to IMRA for locating this source.

Radio – Commentary

Damascus, March, 26 (SANA)

Damascus Radio on Tuesday indicated that in order the Arab summit to be the actual summit of the Arab right,the potentials should be geared and the obstacles should be removed in front of a real Pan-Arab solidarity and where all must stand in favour of the Arab supreme interests.

In its Political Commentary,the radio indicated that the potentials of the Arab states are really strong and ensures the Arab right and defeats the Zionist designs which aim at displacing the Palestinian people and swallow all the occupied Arab territories including Jerusalem and Golan.

The radio called on the Arab leaders to extend all the necessary support to the front countries particularly Syria and Lebanon who are courageously resisting the Israel enemy.

The radio also called the Arab leaders to provide the Palestinian people with all means of support to their legitimate struggle against the occupation.

A. N. Idelbi

From Riyadh to Jihad: Perspective on the Arab Summit in Beirut

By

David Bedein

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March 26, 2002

Saudi Arabia has remained the most consistent opponent of Jewish sovereignty in the middle east, ever since King Saud of Saudi Arabia made that clear to US President Franklin Roosevelt in March, 1945, Since the Saudis would never compromise with the idea of a sovereign Jewish state in an area of the world that the Moslems viewed as a “Wakf” or exclusive to Moslem rule. For fifty seven years, that Saudi policy has remained unchanged.

As recently as January,1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin Called accused the Saudi Arabian government of providing direct finance for the Islamic Hamas terror network, whose express purpose was to overthrow the Jewish State and to replace it with an Islamic state of Palestine. Rabin also took that occasion to express his disappointment that the outgoing Bush administration had done nothing to use US influence to stop Saudi Support for the Hamas. The Clinton administration also neglected to use its Influence with the Saudis to stop Riyadh sponsorship of the Hamas and Hizbullah.

As for the Saudi plan that will be floated this week at the Arab summit in Beirut, far from calling for recognition of Israel, the now-published Saudi plan, made available to Reuters and posted at here, instead calls for Israel’s dismemberment.

The Saudi plan would solves the “problem of Palestinian refugees in conformity with Resolution 194”, without any mention of UN resolution 242 that followed the 1967 war and UN resolution 338 that followed the 1973 war which guaranteed the security of all States as a condition for any withdrawal from territories.

UN resolution 194, adopted after the 1948 war, guarantees the 3.6 million Arab refugees and their descendents left villages in 1948 the “inalienable” right of repatriation to the 531 Arab villages that were replaced by Israeli cities, collective farms and woodlands.

The Saudi plan calls for Israel to relinquish control of its most of Its capital city, Jerusalem, by demanding that Israel unilaterally withdrawal to the 1949-1967 cease fire lines that divided the city, and by mandating the “right of return” for Palestinian Arab refugees who have been wallowing in UN refugee camps since 1948 to exercise their right to go back to the Arab neighborhoods inside Jerusalem that were uprooted during the 1948 war.

In other words, the Saudi plan is an elegant way of advocating that that the vast majority of Israel’s population would be displaced.

Since Saudi Arabia remains a prime business partner of the US, and a prime supplier of oil to the world, the voice of Saudi Arabia is hardly to be dismissed.

The question remains: Why has Israel reacted with little more than the Shrug of a diplomatic shoulder to the Saudi initiative?

Perhaps the Israeli attitude has something to do with the fact that Israel has established a “modus vivendi” business-like relationship with the vast majority of the Moslem Arab world, reflected in the fact that Israel quietly exports more than 1.5 billion dollars of goods and products to the same Moslem Arab world that maintains no diplomatic relations with the Jewish state

There is an atmosphere of optomism and wishful thinking throughout Israel which posits that Saudi Arabia is ready to conduct “normal” relations with the Jewish state. Not diplomatic relations, not a peace treaty. Business relations.

After all the philosophy of the “new middle east”, posited by Israel’s Foreign minister, Shimon Peres, is that good business relations will Lead to peace.

The question remains: Does the Saudi initiative reflect a business-like Approach to upgrade Israel’s status in the middle east marketplace, or is this the beginning of an international Moslem Jihad/Holy War to displace the Jewish state

Time will tell.

The Ecological Disaster Posed by the Palestinian Authority

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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March 26, 2002

[March 22] The state of the environment in the Palestinian Authority is perhaps the last subject that interests the Israeli public today, but there are a few things that are worth knowing about our neighbors’ garbage can before it is too late: an ecological time bomb is ticking beyond the border. The bomb is located inside the Palestinian Authority and is aimed – sometimes maliciously – straight at Israel. The damage may be irreversible.

Here, for example, are a few incidents that have taken place very recently and which the roar of the canons have diverted to the sidelines: waste concentrations containing very toxic acids seep into the underground water table of the coastal plane; the sewage of Tulkarm flows into the Alexander River, a source of drinking water; mountains of waste burn continuously in PA territory, almost on the border, and waft toxic smoke at Israeli cities near the seamline; rivers that supply water to the coastal plain area are polluted with sewage; huge garbage dumps are lit daily in order to pollute the air drifting into Israel.

The danger to the Israeli environment is clear and immediate. The environmental damages spread over a radius of several kilometers and include continuous pollution of water sources vital to Israel. A detailed document presenting this chilly situation and the angers inherent in it, was submitted recently to Environment Minister Tzahi Hanegbi. The author, the coordinator for environmental affairs in the Civil Administration, exposes severe findings of dangerous neglect and of deliberate pollution in the areas under the PA’s authority.

“The country is in the midst of a demanding campaign against Palestinian terror – and therefore does not do enough to thwart environmental terror taking place in the Palestinian administration,” says Hanegbi. “The government must realize that the damages resulting from flowing sewage and air pollution extract a very high price from us, irreversible, long term damage. The environmental damages will affect our health years after a solution is found to the political conflict. The government must invest serious resources to build reservoirs to stop the toxic flows before they seep into our water table and pollute the water so vital to our existence. All the attempts to cooperate with the Palestinians in this have not worked, and the State of Israel must not wait one more day. We must handle this matter unilaterally.”

The Garbage Can of the Country?

The environmental ruin is not just a result of a lack of communication between the sides and the state of war. Garbage flowed from there to here long before the Intifada. In the mid ’90s, in the good years in relations between Israel and the PA, shrewd entrepreneurs on both sides of the Green Line turned the PA into the unofficial garbage dump of the State of Israel. What could not be dumped in Israel, was dumped in the PA, cheaply. Israeli garbage, some of which quickly flowed back into Israel, worsened the pollution in the PA, an area that the Palestinians neglected in any case.

The Intifada made matters even worse. Who has the attention for matters of sewage when the bombs are falling. There is no more cooperation, hostility deepens from moment to moment, and even environmental matters have now become a weapon in this war.

The large Palestinian cities and the villages near them are the main source for the pollution from the PA into Israel. For example, the sewage of the Jenin area, numbering close to 300,000 people, flows into the Kishon River and pollutes it long before it reaches Haifa Bay.

In normal times, Jenin’s purification facility ensured that the water would be filtered of toxins and would be used for agriculture. But the facility, which cost the State of Israel around NIS 140,000 to upgrade, is now shut down because of maintenance problems, and the sewage of Jenin piles up there until it overflows and flows west, into Israel.

The situation is almost identical in the Tulkarm area, where the garbage flows to the Alexander River, some of which is a nature reserve. The same holds true for the cities of Nablus and Ramallah, the most populated of the West Bank cities.

Before the Intifada, the Palestinians asked for permits to build purification plants in their cities. Even in the cities where this was approved, the work has yet to begin. In some case, the work stopped because of Israeli bombings. In others, where the facility already worked, the amount of sewage produced by the population was too much for it to handle. The result is always the same: the waters flow out of the facility and into the riverbeds.

The report’s authors noted a number of cases in which the Palestinians in fact had good intentions, but still caused heavy damage. The a-Ram municipality near Jerusalem linked up unauthorized to the el-Bireh waste purification plant, which was built by donations from foreign countries. The link caused frequent waste spills and led to shutdowns.

Even more serious pollution comes out of the crowded and neglected Gaza Strip. In the Beit Hanoun industrial area there are medicine, plastic and concrete factories and cattle pens. The waste from the industrial area, along with waste from houses, flows into the Hanoun River. The purification facilities do not work and the wastes go straight into the riverbed. In the winter, these wastes reach the Shikma riverbed inside Israel and from there the Shikma reservoir, a major water source for the northern Negev. In the area of Netzarim, where the sewage of Gaza City runs, very serious pollution was found on the beach area.

A few years ago, the oxidation basins of Gaza were rebuilt but the growth of the population and neglect led to the waste flowing into the sea. Similar things happen in the cities of Rafah and Dir el-Balah. Near the town of Beit Lahiya in the Gaza Strip, an international effort prevented a Palestinian plan to have the sewage flow into the sea. The huge waste reservoir of Beit Lahiya is just a drop in the ocean. Pirate Dumps on the Border

The report of the Civil Administration is based on a first of its kind survey, undertaken by the environment experts in the Civil Administration over a lengthy period. To prepare it, teams were sent to photograph environmental damage, sometimes risking their lives because of the security situation. In the previous survey, taken in early 2000 in the Judea and Samaria area, more than 300 unauthorized solid waste dumps were found. These are local concentrations holding anything from construction waste to old car batteries whose acid is considered extremely toxic and which mainly affects the nearby area. The main damage to Israel is from the dumps of the big cities.

Here too, the fighting made things worse. “In the good years, every night dozens of trucks brought garbage to the dumps of the Palestinian cities, today the drivers are scared to enter the territories and simply dump the garbage in improvised dumps near the seamline on the Palestinian side. The hungry Palestinians take a few pennies for this and there is no supervision, everything is just dumped,” says that director of an Israeli recycling plant, who has almost nothing to do because of the pirate dumps on the border.

Since the Intifada, the pirate dumps grow daily because of the difficulty in getting the garbage to a proper site. Today, almost next door to every village, there is a dump causing serious damage. The supervision unit of the Civil Administration does very little enforcement except for sites it can get to safely.

The lengthy closures imposed by the IDF have also made things worse. City mayors have ordered city dumps to be made near population centers. The dumps have quickly turned into enormous incinerators, whose smoke is extremely dangerous to breathe. North of Jerusalem there are a number of such pirate incinerators, whose smoke is blown by the wind to Mevasseret Tziyon and the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot. Ramot residents have long been complaining of the pollution, the smoke and the smell. Radioactive Materials in Ramallah

The interim agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority obligate the PA to take responsibility for toxic materials. Importing dangerous materials into the PA requires the approval of the Civil Administration, but the PA grants the import license. According to data in the Environment Ministry, Palestinian supervision of industrial factories with environmental risk that use toxins is very limited. Toxic waste is thrown together with regular waste or flows into the riverbeds. Medical waste, including radioactive materials, is thrown into regular dumps, in Ramallah, for example.

Waste sites have become in the last two years another way for the Palestinians to take revenge on the Zionist enemy. As part of the ecological Intifada, many waste sites are located near the Green Line and near Israeli towns.

In the Gaza Strip, with money from Holland, the Palestinians have built a waste site for dangerous materials. The site, near Kibbutz Beeri in the western Negev, suffers from poor maintenance and winter damages. The director general of the Palestinian Ministry for Environmental Affairs recently said that the plant is barely used because of the cost of bringing materials there and they prefer to dump their garbage near the industrial areas.

The agreements call for the PA to collect dangerous waste materials from Judea, Samaria and Gaza and bring them to the Israeli site in Ramat Hovav. But like other agreements, this remains on paper. The Palestinians have never brought one gram of dangerous waste into Israel, despite what the report calls “repeated requests.”

The PA’s strategic infrastructure sites are also centered in Gaza. The Dahaniya airport and the Gaza port are defined as official international ports and are designated to handle all the naval and air traffic into the PA. The Dahaniya airport was built after tests were conducted by the PA and presented to Israel, on the effect it would have on the environment. The plan called for the airport to be built in stages, with each stage conforming to environmental concerns. In practice, the airport was built without any means to examine air pollution, noise, or to prevent fuel or other dangerous materials from leaking into the underground water table. A few months ago, the airport was bombed by IDF forces and as of today, the airport is shut down.

The Gaza port, according to the Palestinian plan, was to change from a small port into a large port by international standards. Until construction was frozen by Israel, the Palestinians managed to build a breakwater that stops the sand from reaching the Gaza Strip beaches and Ashkelon beach and are causing the beach area to shrink in those places. After the breakwater was built, the PA was to have brought sand in artificially, as common in all sand ports throughout the world, but so far, that has not happened even once.

Drinking Water in Exchange for Waste

Many environmental projects, which Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed to in various agreements throughout the years, were never undertaken or at best, were begun and neglected. Even when there was money earmarked for them and the professional consultants presented the plans, the projects were not done. That is what happened, for example, with the money that was received for building a number of purification plants in Nablus, Salfit, Hebron, Tulkarm and Ramallah. In none of these cities was construction even begun. In the town of Beit Lahiya in the Gaza Strip the money was used for other things, while the waste still flows to the sea.

Over the years, the Environment Ministry and the Ministry for Regional Cooperation have invested millions in joint environmental projects with the Palestinian Authority. The Civil Administration built and funded oxidation pools for the city of Hebron as part of the plan for Israeli settlement in the Yatir area south of Hebron. In a period of ten years, over NIS 2 million was invested in the project, but the system worked for only a few weeks. An argument over the use of the treated waste and non-cooperation between Israel and the PA turned the project into a sad monument to all plans for regional cooperation.

Another NIS 25 million from Israel and the PA were invested in another project for a regional sewage system for settlements and Palestinian villages in the area of Nahal Kana in Samaria. To this day, despite progress in the project, the Palestinians have not submitted even an initial plan detailing which villages in the area would be linked to the sewage system.

In Gaza, the Palestinian side posed conditions for building a joint project to purify the wastes of the northern Gaza Strip. The Palestinians demanded to receive drinking water from Israeli sources in exchange for having Palestinian waste handled in the purification plant. After hearing this demand, Israel stopped all discussion of the project. Israel does not have drinking water to spare, even if this means large amounts of pollution.

Dialogue between Israel and the PA over environmental matters is conducted today only on the local level. Civil Administration inspectors speak to town mayors, to councils, villages and local mukhtars. The interim agreements called for joint committees on water and environmental matters, but in the last two years this has stopped almost completely.

The report’s authors note that in mutual relations between the sides over time, local issues such as garage removal and waste in fact enjoy relatively good cooperation on the local level, compared to the national level. There are around 20 examples appended to the report of letters that Israel sent to the PA regarding various environment issues warning of dangers and even proposals to fund treatment. Most of them were completely ignored.

This was the case, for example, regarding the need to close the waste plant near the town of Azoun, or the matter of sewage from Jenin or exterminating mosquitoes and West Nile fever or even a proposal for Israel to fund a plan to collect toxic wastes from olive presses in Judea and Samaria.

Nonetheless, there is a ray of light at the end of the tunnel: a meeting was held last month between Israel and PA representatives and the UN’s Agency for Environmental Protection which led to a plan for a study of the environmental situation in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, with joint funding. After the meeting, which was held in the framework of an international conference in Columbia, the Palestinian minister for the environment, Yousef Abu Safia said: “The accumulation of dangerous wastes and the joint pollution of the water resources threatens the population on both sides of the divide. It is clear that in the future we will have to share the same small piece of land and we should therefore find a common way to protect it.”

The Israeli representative at the conference, the deputy director general of the Environment Ministry Valeri Brachiya, was optimistic afterwards. “The job of protecting the environment is seven times harder in times when the tension between the sides is at a peak and there is almost no good will,” she said. “We definitely hope that the joint study will lead to a renewal of professional cooperation between the sides.”

Five weeks have gone by since the conference, but as of today, not even a timetable has been set for beginning the study.

Official PA News Agency Threatens the US with “unpleasant surprises” if the Palestinian Arab People Do not Get What They Want

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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March 24, 2002

The issue is not a fragile ceasefire nor is a solid one; the issue is establishing foundations to implement the international legitimacy according to the UN and the Security Council’s resolutions, which means that the demand is not stopping the Israeli terror and the Palestinian resistance, but it is solving the essential political issues, which is the only way to establish a suitable atmosphere for calming the violence, and return to the mutual trust through which coexistence can be materialized.

The USA Administration and the peace envoys should dig deep to find the roots of the explosions and all this terror against the Palestinian people that are bravely resisting it with their bare hands, naked chests and with the use of naïve and simple weapons.

If the key to solving the conflict was ceasefire, it should have been solved long ago, but it is not the ceasefire that matters, it is the fire that does, so what are the motives, the reasons and the justifications for both sides, the Israelis and the Palestinians? Israel is investing and planning to prolong the occupation and enforces it, to maintain the illegal settlements and to build new ones, and practices racism and discrimination against the Palestinians, depriving them their natural and legal rights, leading them to nowhere land by deceiving them and sabotaging their efforts to materialize their national goals and expectations.

The USA envoys exert their efforts in dealing with marginal insignificant and indecisive issues, wasting their efforts for nothing, aren’t they aware of this fact? Or they are trying stalling to gain time by freezing the situation and cooling the area, so they can pass their schemes while the Palestinians, the Arabs and the coming Summit are calm and obedient anticipating positive results on the Palestinians grounds.

Surprising events and developments, took place in the past few hours, indicating that there is a gap between the course of events and the USA declared efforts and intentions of solving the conflict, aided by the Emir Abdullah’s initiative and the Security Council’s resolutions No. 1397.

Leaked information pointed out that there are some disputes between the Arab Leaders concerning the USA war against Iraq, which means that what was said publicly is not the same as what was said behind closed doors, so what really concerns us is the Palestinian issue, if they are too in the center of the Arab dispute? And what about the Israeli terror waged against the Palestinian people?

As we have said, solving the crisis, the disaster or the holocaust caused, by the Jews, to the Palestinians, with the full knowledge of the USA Administration, will not be by cooling the atmosphere and freezing the area, but by solving the essential and basic issues starting with the political issues then the occupation and the settlements and then the terrorist war waged against us, because war is a result and not a reason, and it is taking place because non of the political issues was solved mainly ending the occupation, for Palestinians like any other free nation, do not want to see the occupation to last any more nor seeing its lands being confiscated for building more settlements over its own hills and heights.

If the USA Administration seeks solving the conflict, then the above topics are to be dealt with, it has to drop the scheme of cooling the situation and freezing the area, and deal with the roots of the conflict, not the symptoms.

Regardless our fate and what is awaiting us confronting the elephant, we have not only to say our word, but as well to confront all the schemes, conspiracies, deception and the attempts to jump over state terror considering the legitimate resistance as terror.

We have nothing to lose, but we know that we have a lot to win even when seeing the Arab Leaders trembling around us, we have warned from coming series of explosions in the whole region, those explosions might be unseen and can not be predicted, but neglecting the rights and the will of the others might lead to unpleasant surprises, we think that the American people have suffered such surprises.

New Orphans at the Graves of Their Parents

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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March 24, 2002

On Thursday, March 21, 2002, Tzippora and Gadi Shemesh were murdered when an Arab blew himself up near them on King George Street in Jerusalem. Here is an account of their orphaned children after their funeral.

When the double funeral was over and the bodies of Tzippora and Gadi Shemesh were already covered by two mounds of earth, side by side, 7-year-old Shoval was brought in to see the freshly dug graves.

In a floral dress, wearing a shy smile, holding the hands of two social workers, Shoval came up and stood before the two temporary wooden markers bearing the names of her parents. The relatives who were still there came over to her, hugged her, and she looked around confused and just asked: “Are Mommy and Daddy here?” After about two minutes, the social workers took her away.

The two funerals lasted nearly two hours. Only in the morning was permission granted to bury Tzippi beside her husband Gadi, a career army man, at the Mt. Herzl military cemetery. At 12:15 p.m. the families arrived. Tzippi’s mother, Mazal, was supported by relatives and wept heart-breakingly. When the two coffins arrived, shrouded in the national flag, a heart-rending cry went up from both families: Ben Hamo from Tzippi’s side, and Shemesh from Gadi’s side.

Shoval and her three-year-old sister Shahar did not attend the funeral itself. Gadi’s brother, Mano, said, “Shoval woke up this morning and asked where Daddy and Mommy were. We started telling her. Shoval wrote a letter to her parents who are gone: “I’m writing you a letter because I’m saying goodbye to you, because I won’t see you for a long time.'”

And then, after everyone left, including Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Mayor Ehud Olmert, little Shoval came to visit Daddy and Mommy.

Shiva [the Jewish week of mourning] is being observed at the grandmother’s house in Pisgat Zeev. The two girls, Shoval and Shahar, walk among the guests and smile, as if they do not grasp how great the disaster is. On Friday, relatives, with the help of social workers and a psychologist, tried to explain to Shoval and Shahar that their parents had been killed. “Shoval understood. Shahar did not grasp it. From time to time she cries and yells that she want to go to Mommy. Shoval talks about Mommy and Daddy being in heaven, that they’re asleep and feel good. Shahar doesn’t understand. She says, ‘If they’re asleep let’s wake them,’ or ‘Let’s bring Mommy a chair so that she can get down from heaven,'” Yigal Shemesh, Gadi’s brother, recounted yesterday.

The relatives do not know yet what the two little girls will do after the shiva is over. “We’ll meet, consult with social workers and figure out what’s best for the girls.”

Documents Seized at the PLO Orient House Reveal Arafat’s Direct Orders to the Tanzim

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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March 24, 2002

Israel has uncovered documents in recent days that irrefutably link Yasser Arafat with acts of terror being committed by the Fatah Tanzeem militia and by other terror organizations.

Other documents strongly suggest that Arafat and his lieutenants had been planning the current war of attrition (called “Infitada” by them) well before September 2000-perhaps as early as late 1995–and that they had no intention of reaching a peaceful compromise settlement with Israel.

“These documents–many of them signed by Arafat–are more than a smoking gun. They are a smoking pen–a pen dripping blood–held by Arafat,” declared Uzi Landau, Israel’s Minister of Public Security, who made the documents available to the A.P.

The documents were part of the archives containing tens of thousands of papers kept at “Orient House” a set of buildings owned by Feisal Husseini, Yasser Arafat’s personal representative in Jerusalem (until his death late last year), and the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters in the Israeli capital.

The buildings were closed down by order of Security Minister Landau, with the backing of the Israeli courts, because the Palestinian Authority is not allowed to maintain national institutions under terms of treaties signed with Israel.

Additional documents in the archives seized by Israeli authorities reveal close links between Arafat (and the institutions he controls) and Islamic terror groups such as HAMAS and the Holy Land Foundation (connected to Al-Qaeda).

The documents also show that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has a strong relationship with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and was glad to receive special monetary aid derived from Iraqi oil revenues made under special arrangement with the U.N.

Among the notable finds amid the thousands of documents are:

signed orders by Arafat to pay Tanzeem members who were known hit-men;
signed reports on terror activities, asking for more budgetary disbursements, directed to the man who was Arafat’s personal representative in Jerusalem-Feisal Husseini;
and signed orders by Arafat to give official officers’ commissions in the Palestinian Army to members of the Tanzeem militia, which is an un-uniformed army that is illegal under international law.

“Arafat denied involvement in the arms shipments of the ‘Karinne A’, but he cannot deny these documents that show he and his top aides planned and financed acts of terror,” declared Dr. Landau.

The documents may serve to put an end to the question whether Arafat controls the Tanzeem or is being controlled by it.

In addition, the archival material contains many handwritten notes and letters as well as typewritten articles and essays signed by leading Palestinians such as Arafat himself, Husseini and Tanzeem leader Marwan Barghouti.

The material suggests very strongly, among other things, that:

The Tanzeem is an integral part of the Palestinian Authority’s military branches, and its men operate essentially as an un-uniformed army, contrary to international law;
Yasser Arafat has formal and practical control of the Tanzeem, contrary to analyses that have contended that Tanzeeem is independent of Arafat’s control;
And Marwan Barghouthi regularly reports to Yasser Arafat even on seemingly minute details of his organization’s operations-even the appointment and rank of a mid-to-high-level officer;

One of the most telling revelations of the documents is that the broadly accepted view that Arafat “leaves the details to others” is completely incorrect.

In fact, the documents repeatedly show that Arafat is in day-to-day control of the details of all his organizations, relaying the information for comment to the senior members of his military branches-for example, to Generals Haj Ismail, Abdel-Razek Mujaida and Haj Mutlik (who handles military salaries for the PA).

Detailed coverage of the Orient House documents, including photographs of them and background material, is available at the Media Line website.

Michael Widlanski is senior analyst at The Media Line and lecturer at The Rothberg School of the Hebrew University. Fuller versions of his articles are available at the Media Line webside .

Saudi-initiated Peace Plan to be Presented in Beirut: Includes the “Right of Return”

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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March 24, 2002

Thanks to IMRA for locating this on the wire.

Beirut (Reuters), March 24, 2002- Following is a translation of a draft text obtained by Reuters of a Saudi-initiated peace plan, due to be debated at an Arab summit here Wednesday and Thursday:

The Council of the Arab League, which convenes at the level of a summit on March 27-28, 2002, in Beirut, affirms the Arab position that achieving just and comprehensive peace is a strategic choice and goal for the Arab states.

After the Council heard the statement of Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz in which he called for the establishment of normal relations in the context of a comprehensive peace with Israel, and that Israel declares its readiness to withdraw from the occupied Arab territories in compliance with U.N. resolutions 242 and 338 and Security Council resolution 1397, enhanced by the Madrid (peace) conference and the land-for-peace principle, and the acceptance of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state with al-Quds al-Sharif (Jerusalem) as its capital, the Council calls on the Israeli government to review its policy and to resort to peace while declaring that just peace is its strategic option.

The Council also calls on Israel to assert the following:

Complete withdrawal from the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including full withdrawal from the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and the remaining occupied parts of south Lebanon to the June 4, 1967, lines.

To accept to find an agreed, just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees in conformity with Resolution 194.

To accept an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the Palestinian lands occupied since June 4, 1967, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and with Jerusalem (al-Quds al-Sharif) as its capital in accordance with Security Council Resolution 1397.

In return, the Arab states assert the following:

To consider the Arab-Israeli conflict over and to enter into a peace treaty with Israel to consolidate this.
To achieve comprehensive peace for all the states of the region.
To establish normal relations within the context of comprehensive peace with Israel.

The (Arab summit) council calls on the Israeli government and the Israelis as a whole to accept this initiative to protect the prospects of peace and to spare bloodshed so as to enable the Arab states and Israel to coexist side by side and to provide for the coming generations a secure, stable and prosperous future.

It calls on the international community with all its organisations and states to support the initiative.

The council calls on its presidency, its secretary general and its follow-up committee to follow up on the special contacts related to this initiative and to support it on all levels, including the United Nations, the United States, Russia, the European Union and the Security Council.

AP: Documents Show that Arafat Remunerates the Killers

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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March 22, 2002

Jerusalem (AP) – After seizing Palestinian offices and scouring thousands of papers, Israel says documents show Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat authorized payment to a militant who allegedly had been involved in killing several Israelis.

Israel’s Public Security Ministry says the documents are important because they indicate that instead of arresting militants, Arafat provided support to fighters in his Fatah movement, which includes a militia responsible for many deadly attacks – including a suicide bombing in Jerusalem on Thursday.

The Palestinians said the money was for political and social activities only.

Arafat has denounced violence against Israeli civilians, and the Palestinian security forces have detained some militants, though they have been reluctant to act against those linked to Fatah.

Israel says Arafat must prevent attacks and make more arrests, and the issue is pivotal to negotiations to end 18 months of Mideast violence.

Israeli authorities have been poring over some 100,000 documents seized from Orient House and a neighboring building since they shut down the semiofficial Palestinian office in east Jerusalem last August.

Other than the letter authorizing payment to a wanted militant, no other such documents have been found, the Public Security Ministry acknowledges.

Some documents show Arafat in contact with Palestinian political and security officials whom Israel suspects of organizing attacks. However, none shows a direct link between the Palestinian leadership and specific acts of violence.

A document recently uncovered by the ministry and given to The Associated Press shows Arafat’s signature on a July 9 letter approving a $300 payment to Atef Abayat, a leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades militia in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

The Al Aqsa Brigades most recently claimed responsibility for Thursday’s suicide bombing in Jerusalem that left two dead and threatened to undermine truce talks.

The letter, sent to Arafat by Kamil Hmeid, the Fatah leader in Bethlehem, lists Abayat as one of 24 people to be paid. All are Fatah political activists in Bethlehem, and as such, periodically receive stipends from the Fatah leadership.

“The documents discovered so far show Arafat transferred funds to Fatah and the Tanzim including its fighters,” said Michael Widlanski, adviser to Public Security Minister Uzi Landau. Tanzim is a Fatah-affiliated militia.

But Hmeid, while confirming the document is authentic, disputed that interpretation.

“The money we receive is used for political and social activities only,” Hmeid said. Israeli claims that money supports militia activities are propaganda, he added.

Boaz Ganor, head of the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Israel, believes Arafat bears responsibility for Palestinian violence, but doesn’t think that any paper trail exists.

“Arafat is too clever to use written documents that would link him to attacks,” said Ganor. “He knows how to incite people, how to create the atmosphere, but in a way that doesn’t directly point to him.”

At the time the letter was written, Israel was demanding Abayat’s arrest, saying he had already taken part in three lethal shooting attacks against Israelis in the West Bank.

They included a November 2000 gunbattle in which two Israeli soldiers were killed, and shootings on roads near Bethlehem in February and April of 2001 that killed Israeli motorists Tzahi Sasson and Danny Deri.

Two months after Arafat signed off on the payment, Abayat struck again, killing an Israeli woman near Bethlehem, Israel alleges.

Israel said it demanded Abayat’s arrest several times, and that on October 2, Arafat told Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres that Abayat had been detained.

However, a day later Abayat was interviewed by an Israeli journalist, saying he was a free man and would continue to carry out attacks.

On October 18, a bomb exploded in Abayat’s jeep in Bethlehem, killing him and two other militants. Israel, which has killed dozens of Palestinians suspected of involvement in attacks, was believed responsible, but has refused to comment.

Arafat’s relationship to Palestinian militants has been intentionally shrouded in mystery since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.

He has denounced Palrations, particularly suicide attacks, that we have always denounced, and we shall hold accountable all those who facilitate and plan them,” Arafat declared.

However, Israel said such statements haven’t been followed up by strong action, and claims that Arafat also offers thinly veiled encouragement to militants.

Several Palestinian factions regularly carry out shootings and bombings, including the Al Aqsa Brigades, a militia that emerged after the uprising began and which is linked to Arafat’s Fatah movement.

Members of the Al Aqsa Brigades swear loyalty to Arafat and his movement, but also claim to operate with some autonomy, and that Arafat has no specific prior knowledge of their attacks.

This has produced such strange scenarios as a March 2 suicide bombing that killed 10 people and was claimed by the Al Aqsa Brigades while the Palestinian leadership simultaneously denounced it.

Israel says it’s a charade – that Arafat, whether or not he knows about attacks in advance, cannot shirk responsibility for his organization. Also, it says, the Palestinian Authority’s 40,000-strong security force could be ordered to crack down on violent groups.

But the Palestinians say Israel makes that difficult by launching military strikes that have destroyed some of Arafat’s offices and dozens of Palestinian security installations.

Israel’s Public Security Ministry also says other documents suggest the Palestinian uprising was planned in advance.

Israel Behind the News

The End of the Game?

Saudi Arabia’s Secret Missile City in the Middle of the Desert

Radio Damascus: Leaders Must Provide Palestinian People with “All means of Support to their Legitimate Struggle”

From Riyadh to Jihad: Perspective on the Arab Summit in Beirut

The Ecological Disaster Posed by the Palestinian Authority

Official PA News Agency Threatens the US with “unpleasant surprises” if the Palestinian Arab People Do not Get What They Want

New Orphans at the Graves of Their Parents

Documents Seized at the PLO Orient House Reveal Arafat’s Direct Orders to the Tanzim

Saudi-initiated Peace Plan to be Presented in Beirut: Includes the “Right of Return”

AP: Documents Show that Arafat Remunerates the Killers

Column from the Director