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extremist groups with ties to no-one

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In a May 10th Al-Quds newspaper interview, Yasser Arafat once again explained to the Arab readership that his agreement to the Oslo accords is to be compared to the pact which Muhammad made with the Arabian tribe of Koreish. Muhammad, who signed the ten-year peace treaty, overcame the Koreish tribe once he had amassed enough strength. This quote and others are documented in a Government Press Office release today which is attached at the end of this news report.

Question: Do you feel sometimes that you made a mistake in agreeing to Oslo?

Arafat: No... no. Allah's messenger Mohammad accepted the al-Khudaibiya peace treaty and Salah a-Din accepted the peace agreement with Richard the Lion-Hearted."


[Note: Arafat is referring to the Khudaibiya agreement made by Muhammad with the Arabian tribe of Koreish. The pact, slated to last for ten years, was broken within two years, when the Islamic forces - having used the peace pact to become stronger - conquered the Koreish tribe. His reference to Salah a-Din is to the Muslim leader who, after a cease-fire, declared a jihad against the Crusaders and captured Jerusalem. This marks the second time in a month that Arafat has compared the Oslo Accords with the temporary truces signed by Muhammad and Salah a-Din. Previously, he made the comparison in an interview with Egyptian Orbit TV on April 18, 1998.] --- PA Chairman Yasser Arafat in a newspaper interview (cited in Al-Quds, May 10, 1998)

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12 Fugitives Serving in the Palestinian Police:

1. Bassam Subhi Issa - involved in planning the terror attack on Yoel Solomon street in Jerusalem on October 9, 1994. Two people were killed and eight injured in the attack when terrorists opened fire on the crowded street lined with open-air cafes. He also planned the December 1994 bombing at Jerusalem's Convention Center which injured 13 Israeli soldiers. He also took part in the murder of three IDF soldiers in April 1993. He was arrested and later released by the Palestinian police, and was then drafted to serve in Jibril Rajoub's Palestinian Preventive Security Service.

2. Bassam Khalil Abdel Rahman Aram - resident of Khan Yunis; took part in the attempted murder of Zvi Fixler at Moshav Gan-Or on December 10, 1993. He was arrested and then set free by the Palestinian police and now serves in the Palestinian security forces.

3. Yasser Muhammad Musa Aram - resident of Khan Yunis; active in Islamic Jihad; took part in the attempted murder of Zvi Fixler at Moshav Gan-Or on December 10, 1993. He was arrested and then set free by the Palestinian police. He now serves in the Palestinian security forces.

4. Nafez Mahmoud Sabih - involved in planning the two suicide bombing attacks on Bus 18 in Jerusalem on February 25 and March 2, 1996, and the suicide bombing attack in Ashkelon on February 25, 1996. A total of 45 people were killed in the three attacks, for which Hamas claimed responsibility. Currently serves in the Palestinian security forces.

5. Imad Mahmoud Issa Abbas - took part in the murder of Moshe Bino and Amikam Zaltzman, who were stabbed to death in their Karni vegetable packing house near Gaza by terrorists posing as buyers on June 25, 1992. Currently serves in the Palestinian security forces.

6. Atef Hamadan - took part in the attempted kidnapping and murder of an IDF soldier on September 18, 1992, and the murder of several Palestinians suspected on collaborating with Israel. In September 1996, he was arrested and then released by the Palestinian police, and was drafted to serve in Jibril Rajoub's Palestinian Preventive Security Service.

7. Rajah Khalil Ali Abu-Sita - resident of Khan Yunis; a Fatah activist who was involved in the murder of Uri Megiddish of Gan-Or on March 9, 1993. He currently serves in the Palestinian security forces.

8. Amru Abdallah Abu-Sita - resident of Khan Yunis; a Fatah activist who was involved in the murder of Uri Megiddish of Gan-Or on March 9, 1993. He currently serves in the Palestinian security forces.

9. Iyad Hamdi Abu-Shakafa - resident of Khan Yunis; Fatah member involved in the attempted murder of Shaul David in Ramle on February 9, 1994. Currently serving in the Palestinian police.

10. Iyad Abdelkader Ismail Basheeti - resident of Rafah, Gaza; Hamas member, involved in the murder of two Israelis in Ramle on August 26, 1994. He was arrested and then set free by the Palestinian police, who then drafted him to join their ranks.

11. Yusuf Mahmoud Abdelaziz Malahi - resident of Rafah, Gaza; Hamas member, involved in the murder of two Israelis in Ramle on August 26, 1994. He was arrested and then set free by the Palestinian police, and currently serves in their ranks.

12. Ibrahim Lateef Shaheed - resident of Tulkarem; Fatah member wanted for the murder of Labib Latif Shadeed, a suspected collaborator with Israel, on October 12, 1994. Currently serves in the Palestinian security forces.

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they can never ever be trusted to work with Israelis.

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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Latest Press Releases

Israel/OT: Impunity for Killers of Palestinians
AI Index: MDE 15/004/2001
Publish date: 24/01/2001

"The sentence handed down to Nahum Korman sends out a powerful message - that Israelis can kill Palestinians with impunity," Amnesty International said today. The human rights organization was commenting on the decision of the Jerusalem District Court to sentence Nahum Korman, a 37-year-old Israeli citizen, to six months community service for the killing of an 11-year-old Palestinian child, Hilmi Shawasheh. He was also ordered to pay 70,000 shekels to the victim's family.

The punishment is in sharp contrast with the six and half year sentence given to Su'ad Hilmi Ghazal, a Palestinian from Sebastia village near Nablus who in December 1998 at the age of 15 and whilst suffering psychological problems, injured an Israeli settler by stabbing him. Immediately after her arrest, despite being a minor, she was held incommunicado without access to either a lawyer or her family for 27 days, for 17 of which she was held in solitary confinement. Since then, Su'ad Hilmi Ghazal, whose mental health deteriorated as a result of the ordeal, has been held for two years in the women's section of Neve Terze prison in Ramle.

"These two contrasting sentences reflect a deeply rooted culture of discrimination against Palestinians, which permeates the Israeli justice system,"Amnesty International said. "People have a right to be treated equally under the law, regardless of which community they come from, yet his clearly does not apply in Israel."

Both Nahum Korman and Su'ad Hilmi Ghazal were sentenced on 21 January 2001.

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The Palestinians murder a 10-month-old Jewish girl.

Wednesday, March 28, 2001
It was a quiet day in Hebron. Yitzhak and Oriya Pas, two Jews who chose to settle in Judaism's second holiest city, were taking their 10-month-old baby for a stroll. From a hundred or more yards away, Israeli authorities say, a Palestinian Arab sniper put the baby's head in the crosshairs and killed her with a single rifle shot.

The girl's name was Shalhevet, which means "flame." It may well be too much to hope that her murder will illuminate our understanding of what is happening in the war against the Jewish state. But even against the backdrop of the bloody anti-Jewish riots that swept the West Bank and brought the war to Jerusalem, it is hard to think of a killing as cold-blooded as this.

This is not a case of a child being caught in the crossfire. It is different from the tragedy of Muhammad al-Durrah, the young Arab boy who was famously photographed crouching and clinging to his desperate father as the two of them sought to avoid the gunfire that moments later claimed Muhammed's life. Nor was it the case of someone snapping under stress, as happened when an Israeli soldier, Baruch Goldstein, murdered Arabs as they knelt in prayer at a shrine in Hebron. The killing of Shalhevet Pas, Israel's military authorities believe, was a premeditated, precision assassination by a sniper a long way from his target.

Which is one reason why it elicited not even a note of remorse from the Palestinian Arab leadership. Reuters did manage to find a member of Yasser Arafat's cabinet in Amman, Jordan, at a meeting of Arab dictators exploring ways to keep financing the attacks on Israel. It quoted the minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo, as saying there is no evidence that the baby was killed by Palestinian fire. "We believe that the atrocities of the occupation are responsible for all crimes that have claimed the lives of Palestinians and Israelis," he said.


The war against the Jews of Hebron began long before Yasser Arafat came of killing age, and in the struggle between East and West in the Middle East, Hebron plays a seminal role. Jews have lived in Hebron for centuries, not far from the Cave of the Patriarchs, burial place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But in a classic pogrom in 1929, the Arabs turned on them and began a slaughter that claimed the lives of more than 60 religious Jews, including women and children.

The pro-communist left sided with the Arabs and sought to portray the killings as a grass-roots uprising against British imperialism, for those were the days of the British Mandate in Palestine. But the anticommunist left understood the killings for what they were and began to swing behind the logic of a Jewish state.

This group included the Jewish Forward newspaper, which was allied with the anticommunist labor movement and, much to the astonishment of many on the left, ran out a famous editorial. It sided squarely with the Jews of Hebron. It also contrasted Hebron with earlier pogroms, such as Kishinev, where Jews "were slaughtered like Oxen in a butcher shop." In Hebron, it reported, yeshiva students fought back against their attackers, filling Jews the world over with admiration.

Nonetheless, the Jews were largely, if not completely, driven from Hebron by the pogroms of 1929. They didn't go back in any numbers until after Israel's victory in the Six Day War of 1967. Years later, when I was editing the Forward, I more than once went back and read that editorial to try to understand the roots of the left's loyalty to the Arab struggle--and, for that matter, the eagerness with which the Clinton administration tried to pressure Israel's government into pulling out of Hebron.

Even at Oslo, Israel had refused to do so entirely. It clung to the Cave of the Patriarchs. But it did agree to turn over the remaining parts of Hebron in pieces. The Oslo map in Hebron gave the commanding ground dominating the Jewish neighborhood to the Palestinian Authority. One such domineering position was Abu Sneina Hill, where Shalhevet's assassin lay in wait.

Israel's commitment to pull out of Hebron was given by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin back in 1995. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiated hard on the details, fearing the kind of tragedy that has just occurred. Security arrangements agreed to at the time even included limiting long-range rifles in the hands of Palestinians. But the Clinton administration cajoled and pressured Mr. Netanyahu, and in January 1997, he and Yasser Arafat signed a protocol on Hebron. Within weeks, Israel began pulling back, setting the stage for Shalhevet's murder.


What Israel's new premier, Ariel Sharon, is going to do now is an important test, and not only because there is an Arab summit in progress. The Jews living in Hebron are reported to be in an angry mood and moving to take matters into their own hands. Reuters quoted an Israeli colonel as saying that the Israeli army might have to restrain the settlers.

Mr. Sharon, however, issued a statement saying he "holds the Palestinian Authority responsible for the instances of violence and terror which brought about the murder today of the baby and the wounding of her father in Hebron."

If it turns out that Monday's assassination marks the end of Israel's retreat from Hebron, the little flame of Shalhevet Pas will burn in Jewish memory for generations.

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