Vowing to Expand Hebron Settlements, Sharon Takes First Step to Transfer Palestinians
Monday, November 18 2002 @ 07:13 PM GMT
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon told army commanders to “take advantage of the opportunity” in Hebron to oust Palestinians.
He urged them to establish what he called demographic “territorial [Jewish] continuity” between the illegal settlement of “Kiryat Arba” and the small Jewish settlement enclave piercing the heart of the Old City.
In effect, Sharon has called for a de facto annexation of Palestinian land to link the area colonized by Jewish settlers in the Old City with the nearby illegal settlement in the West Bank City of Hebron, to include Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi, which Jews refer to as the tomb of the Patriarchs.
The Haram is a mosque attended by Muslim worshippers. Jews, who believe the sanctuary is te place where Abraham is buried, pray there as well.
During a visit to Hebron Saturday, the Israeli PM called for setting up illegal settlements, in addition to the ones peppered in and around the Palestinian city, in between “Kiryat Arba” and the Jewish settler enclave in the Old City, effectively creating a corridor that would be occupied and controlled by Israel, Israeli radio reported.
He also stressed that the army must create a “situation” that will force Palestinians to leave their homes, thereby marking the first signs of the policy of transfer long-supported by many Jewish leaders seeking to oust Palestinians from their homeland.
Analysts say Sharon’s new policy is bound to be criticized by its chief ally, Washington, which demands that Israel freeze settlement activity, which has been proliferating, in recent years.
Polls also show that the vast majority of Israelis do not support settlement expansion and want most settlements dismantled, saying they are a key barrier to peace with the Palestinians and are a continuous source of violence.
Linking the settlements would require the demolition of hundreds of Palestinian homes and would further cause tension to the city home to about 130,000 Palestinians and only 400 Jews living illegally on Palestinian land in settlement enclaves, heavily guarded by Israeli soldiers.
Dror Etkes, who monitors settlement expansion for the Israeli group, which opposes Jewish settlements, Peace Now called Sharon’s proposal “outrageous,” pointing out that thousands of Palestinians live in the area Sharon wants to expropriate.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, warned that “if [Israel] carrys out this settlement expansion or linkage, it’s just adding fuel to the fire that will lead to a major explosion in that area. It’s crazy.”
Hebron mayor Mustafa al Natsheh meanwhile expressed fears that the settlers were “hell-bent” on repeating the 1994 massacre-- a reference to the murder of 29 Palestinian worshipers by an American Jewish immigrant at the Al-Harm Al-Ibrahimi Mosque, on 25 February 1994.
“They have the will and the desire, and the Israeli army is doing virtually nothing to rein them in,” said Natsheh.
Natsheh also said Israeli cabinet ministers, leaders of political parties along with settler leaders were inciting the settlers to commit a massacre.
“The target could be a congregation at a Mosque, people in a market, or children at a school.”
“We so badly need international protection, or a massacre or even massacres could happen any time.”
Indeed a call was made Sunday by Jewish settler leaders and by some Israeli cabinet ministers who demanded that Palestinians be deported or killed en mass.
“The army must end the existence of those who stand against the Jews,” said settler leader and former government minister,r Benny Elon.
Elon, who advocates the transfer of Palestinians, added, “those who don’t accept our rule here should be killed.”
Sharon’s “outrageous” policy comes after an attack claimed by the Islamic Jihad resistance movement that left 12 Israeli soldiers and settlement security personnel dead.
Israel had previously misled public media into believing the attack was perpetrated against “worshippers”. Army sources however later backed down and admitted that battle claimed the lives of IOF soldiers and paramilitary settlement security personnel.
Shortly after the radio report on Sharon’s ‘plans’, settlers placed several shipping containers, caravans and tents near the site of the Hebron attack—a few dozen yards from the Kiryat Arba settlemtn—and declared it a new settlement outpost, AP reported.
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) that raided Hebron on Saturday remained in place, while the city remained under choking curfew.
Sharon’s Plan to Transfer Palestinians
Sharon originally presented his transfer plan during the 1996 negotiations led by then-premier Benjamin Netanyahu. He believes that annexation of Palestinian land to expand the already-existing settlement of the city should be undertaken to create a ‘Jewish area’ that would be “compact” with a small Arab population, Ha’aretz reported.
Moreover, the Israeli daily said he believes that the Israeli-controlled sector of the city could include some 2,000 Arabs instead of the 20,000 now living under Israeli control on the basis of the January 1997 Wye River Plantation accord.
According to the prime minister’s proposal, the ‘Jewish zone’ would extend from ‘Kiryat Arba’ settlement to Tel Rumeida and Beit Hadassah. That would create contiguity between Kiryat Arba and Al-Harm Al-Ibrahimi.
Those Palestinians remaining in the Jewish sector would be able to enter and leave through gates, but there would be no Arab commercial ventures inside the walled Jewish area, according to Sharon’s plan.
Meanwhile in yesterday’s cabinet meeting, the Israeli PM declared the Hebron agreement as “null and void… and has no significance.” Sharon has already announced the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 dead and has been acting accordingly ever since.
The presence of the settlers in Hebron was negotiated in 1997 in a deal struck between Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Netanyahu. Now serving as foreign minister, Netanyahu sees the agreement as null.
No Massacre Committed in Friday’s Attack
As Netanyahu misled public opinion about the facts of the Friday evening battle, when he labeled it “a massacre” of Jewish worshipers, Sharon interrupted him and said, “I’m very sorry, but we have to be credible. Soldiers fell in battle, and there was no massacre.”
According to Ha’aretz, Netanyahu reiterated his routine call for expelling the Palestinian President came up in Sunday’s cabinet meeting. He also called on the government to reoccupy all Palestinian territory and “cleans it”, and then withdrawing upon the completion of the separation fence.
Israel’s foreign minister nonetheless continued to say that Jewish worshipers were the target of Friday’s attack, despite statements from Israeli settlers and soldiers that no worshipers were killed or injured, and that all the people who had gone to the tomb to pray had returned to “Kiryat Arba” settlement by the time of the attack.
“I think that you can imagine what would happen in your own country if worshipers would be killed or wounded, either in churches or mosques or synagogues,” Netanyahu misleadingly told a gathering of foreign diplomats in occupied Jerusalem.
The Israeli media made virtually no mention of worshipers allegedly being attacked but criticized the military’s handling of the affair, saying the high number of Israeli deaths seemed to result from bad procedures and poor coordination by commanders on the scene.
Writing in the daily newspaper Maariv, political analyst Hemi Shalev said there was an “over-eagerness” in Israel’s Foreign Ministry “to release the account of a ‘massacre of innocent worshipers’ that never happened. An ambush against ‘IDF’ soldiers, as successful and painful as it might be, does not deserve the name ‘massacre,’ nor perhaps the name ‘terrorism.’”
Echoing Shalev’s analysis, Ha’aretz correspondent, Amos Harel said, “What happened in Hebron on Friday night was not a ‘massacre,’ as claimed by the spokespeople, nor was it an attack on ‘peaceful Jewish worshippers’ returning from prayers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. The attack actually began several minutes after all of the worshippers had already returned safely to Kiryat Arba. Those killed Friday were killed in combat. All of the victims were armed fighters.”
So far, the Israeli occupation army has destroyed six Palestinian homes in Hebron and the nearby towns of Yatta and Dura on Sunday.
The demolitions rendered more than sixty Palestinian men, women and children homeless.
Hebron’s 130,000 Palestinians has been placed under the mercy of some 400 ruthless settlers and a tight curfew imposed by heavily armed IOF patrolling the city aboard tanks and armored personnel carriers. IOF have also been seen carrying out mass arrests and indulging in widespread acts of vandalism and ransacking.
-Palestine Media Center (http://www.palestine-pmc.com/). Redistributed via Press International News Agency (PINA).
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