Has Israel Stopped The Suicide Bombings?

[David Gold]

Becoming very difficult. The new "barrier"is doing the job. The UN and EU condemned it. It works. London Telegraph.

Has Israel beaten the suicide bombers?
The Telegraph ^ | 22/05/2004 | Patrick Bishop





Israelis are beginning to hope that daily life may be returning to something like it was before the Palestinian uprising. In Tel Aviv, which prides itself on being fun, the bars are full at weekends. Crocodiles of Christian and Jewish tourists are once again thronging the narrow streets of Jerusalem's Old City.

The more relaxed mood has a simple explanation. It is three months since the last serious terrorist attack.

Israeli soldiers blindfold Palestinian captives in the Rafah refugee camp The army says there were 25 such attacks in 2002, which killed 147 people. Last year there were 20, killing 141. So far this year there have been only two, in which 19 died.

The Israelis are starting to believe that their tactics are working. Palestinian groups fighting them tend to agree.

The question is whether the trend marks an irreversible improvement or is merely a lull while the militant groups, decapitated again and again, regroup and rethink.

One reason cited for the decline in attacks is the barrier being built to separate Arab and Jewish territory.

"If you want to keep mosquitoes out, then you need a screen on the windows," said Dr Hanan Shai, a military strategist and reserve colonel in the Israel defence forces who has the ear of some top-ranking officers.

"The screen is the separation barrier." But whatever the claims made for the barrier, it is too early to judge as the project is incomplete. Palestinians say it is not a serious deterrent. "The wall can't stop operatives," said Usama al-Ayasseh, author of a book on suicide bombers. "It has many holes in it."

Both sides agree that the main factor in the decline in activity is Israel's success in killing or capturing the leadership of the most militant groups.

Sources close to Hamas, which is responsible for many of the suicide attacks, say that in the West Bank, from where most operations were launched, the organisation has been badly hit.

"There is no money to finance operations," said one. "Many of the leaders are gone and it is difficult to replace them. Hamas needs at least two years to rebuild."

Only one senior figure, Ibrahim Hamad, the Hamas commander in the Ramallah area, is still at large, having survived numerous attempts to capture or kill him.

A local Hamas boss in Qalqilya was killed on Thursday. Some leaders have retreated to Syria. Offensive operations are "drying up the swamp", says Dr Shai.

At the heart of his thinking is the notion of separation and exclusion. "If you want to stay human in the war against terror, the only way is to isolate the enemy," he said.

The barrier will mean great hardship for many Palestinians, who feel imprisoned behind barbed wire and checkpoints, barely able to work or move. But Israelis have no qualms in putting security above Arab rights.

Even the most enthusiastic backers of the barrier admit that it is not a long-term answer. Safety from this kind of attack ultimately depends on a dearth of volunteers willing to sacrifice themselves. In this respect, an end seems a very long way off.

In a cool, marble-floored house overlooking Bethlehem this week two middle-aged men kept each other company, as they often do since the loss of their children.

Mohammed al-Akhras is the father of Ayat, who shortly after her 18th birthday walked into a supermarket in Jerusalem and blew herself up, killing a guard and a Jewish girl of her own age, Rachel Levy.

Twelve days earlier Ishaq al-Nabtiti's 24-year-old son Akram detonated a bomb near a bus in north Jerusalem, wounding nine Israelis.

Ayat was intelligent. Akram was looking forward to getting married. Searching for clues as to what happened, both men come back to the same answer.

Shortly before she struck, Ayat saw a neighbour in the Dheisheh refugee camp shot dead by Israelis while he held a six-month-old girl. Akram watched troops blowing in the door of a house, killing the woman who lived there.

"It was vengeance for the criminal acts of Israel," said Mr al-Nabtiti. "They saw the killing of men and women, the raids on homes and took revenge."

The al-Nabtiti family had their home demolished in reprisal for Akram's actions. Mr al-Akhras, a retired schoolteacher, seems tired rather than angry. He just wants the violence to stop.

"We don't want any more killing. We stand for the principles of humanity. One army defeating another doesn't get anyone anywhere. The important thing is for humanity to win."

He was speaking after a week in which the Israeli army killed eight peaceful demonstrators in the Gaza town of Rafah, mostly young boys. Others who saw the carnage will make their own minds up about how to react.

And, judging by the numbers of adolescents at the Islamic Jihad mourning rallies, it will have no shortage of recruits.

Motivation will never be a problem as long as there is an Israeli occupation. "The suicide bombings are not finished," said Mr al-Akhras.

"They are just waiting for a chance."

[rachel]

I always have wondered how much of what Palestinians say to reporters is truth, and how much is the under-threat party line...this article says it well.


http://www.techcentralstation.com/052104B.html

..................This same deceptive dynamic plays out when Palestinian parents are interviewed after being told that their sons or daughters have murdered a bunch of Israeli café patrons. The parents talk about their pride in martyrdom. We in the West are led to believe that the "Arab mind" is intransigent, different from ours and that more violence is inevitable. Not just inevitable, but it will increase and increase. In such a world view, Israeli counterattacks simply create more terrorists. The murder of Berg creates a similar mindset. Responding in kind throws flames on the fire and does more harm than good.

And yet, when the cameras go away, sometimes the mask falls. Once, alas only once, I read a story where the reporter actually stayed and listened to the mother after the press conference had played itself out. She broke down in tears and bitterly condemned a Palestinian leadership that sends children and teenagers to kill and be killed.

I wonder what happened to that woman. My guess is that she played a steep price for revealing her heart. She lived under a thugocracy where violence and the threat of violence are used to keep public statements in line with the needs of the ruthless.............

[Bodie]

Whats happened with Hamas? I thought they said that the "gates of hell" were going to open after Israel began taking out their leaders. Apparently the opposite has happened. The terrorist leaders seem to be
a little less bold now since they know that they personally will pay the price for continued bombings.

[David Gold]

Israel has won the Intafada. Wash Post
Israel's Intifada Victory


By Charles Krauthammer

Friday, June 18, 2004; Page A29


While no one was looking, something historic happened in the Middle East. The Palestinian intifada is over, and the Palestinians have lost.

For Israel, the victory is bitter. The past four years of terrorism have killed almost 1,000 Israelis and maimed thousands of others. But Israel has won strategically. The intent of the intifada was to demoralize Israel, destroy its economy, bring it to its knees, and thus force it to withdraw and surrender to Palestinian demands, just as Israel withdrew in defeat from southern Lebanon in May 2000.

That did not happen. Israel's economy was certainly wounded, but it is growing again. Tourism had dwindled to almost nothing at the height of the intifada, but tourists are returning. And the Israelis were never demoralized. They kept living their lives, the young people in particular returning to cafes and discos and buses just hours after a horrific bombing. Israelis turned out to be a lot tougher and braver than the Palestinians had imagined.

The end of the intifada does not mean the end of terrorism. There was terrorism before the intifada and there will be terrorism to come. What has happened, however, is an end to systematic, regular, debilitating, unstoppable terror -- terror as a reliable weapon. At the height of the intifada, there were nine suicide attacks in Israel killing 85 Israelis in just one month (March 2002). In the past three months there have been none.

The overall level of violence has been reduced by more than 70 percent. How did Israel do it? By ignoring its critics and launching a two-pronged campaign of self-defense.

First, Israel targeted terrorist leaders -- attacks so hypocritically denounced by Westerners who, at the same time, cheer the hunt for, and demand the head of, Osama bin Laden. The top echelon of Hamas and other terrorist groups has been either arrested, killed or driven underground. The others are now so afraid of Israeli precision and intelligence -- the last Hamas operative to be killed by missile was riding a motorcycle -- that they are forced to devote much of their time and energy to self-protection and concealment.

Second, the fence. Only about a quarter of the separation fence has been built, but its effect is unmistakable. The northern part is already complete, and attacks in northern Israel have dwindled to almost nothing.

This success does not just save innocent lives; it changes the strategic equation of the whole conflict.

Yasser Arafat started the intifada in September 2000, just weeks after he had rejected, at Camp David, Israel's offer of withdrawal, settlement evacuation, sharing of Jerusalem and establishment of a Palestinian state. Arafat wanted all that, of course, but without having to make peace and recognize a Jewish state. Hence the terror campaign -- to force Israel to give it all up unilaterally.

Arafat failed, spectacularly. The violence did not bring Israel to its knees. Instead, it created chaos, lawlessness and economic disaster in the Palestinian areas. The Palestinians know the ruin that Arafat has brought, and they are beginning to protest it. He promised them blood and victory; he delivered on the blood.

Even more important, they have lost their place at the table. Israel is now defining a new equilibrium that will reign for years to come -- the separation fence is unilaterally drawing the line that separates Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians were offered the chance to negotiate that frontier at Camp David and chose war instead. Now they are paying the price.

It stands to reason. It is the height of absurdity to launch a terrorist war against Israel, then demand the right to determine the nature and route of the barrier built to prevent that very terrorism.

These new strategic realities are not just creating a new equilibrium, they are creating the first hope for peace since Arafat officially tore up the Oslo accords four years ago. Once Israel has withdrawn from Gaza and has completed the fence, terrorism as a strategic option will be effectively dead. The only way for the Palestinians to achieve statehood and dignity, and to determine the contours of their own state, will be to negotiate a final peace based on genuine coexistence with a Jewish state.

It could be a year, five years or a generation until the Palestinians come to that realization. The pity is that so many, Arab and Israeli, will have had to die before then.

[Bodie]

I haven't heard a peep out of Hamas in two months. When Isreal started killing the Hamas leaders, Hamas said that the "gates of Hell would open." What happened?

We now have proof that the best way to defeat terrorism is to kill the leaders.

[David Gold]

Israeli Arabs love the fence.

Israeli Arabs credit fence for newfound prosperity
IMRA



Israeli Arabs credit fence for newfound prosperity

Matthew Gutman



Jun. 17, 2004

The West Bank security fence has gained some unlikely enthusiasts: the leaders of Israel's Islamic Movement.

Since the fence's completion in their areas last August, many Arab communities - especially those bordering Palestinian villages - have enjoyed a spike in both security and economic activity, as Arabs who once hauled back millions of shekels worth of wares from Jenin now shop locally.

"God be blessed, the fence ended the parade of terrorists through this city and gave us an economic boom and increased security," says Umm el-Fahm City Manager Tawfiq Karaman.

Until the completion of the fence outside Umm el-Fahm 10 months ago, locals in this city of 42,000, northwest of Jenin, had complained that Palestinians casually filtering through from the territories had harassed schoolgirls, stolen cars, and even snatched laundry.

"They stole from us as they did from the rest of Israelis," says Karaman.

Worse yet, they stamped Umm el-Fahm as a launching pad for suicide bombers. Israeli checkpoints often blocked Umm el-Fahm's streets, and border policemen patrolled the city on a regular basis, hoping to pick up illegal Palestinian workers - or terrorists.

Because of its political sensitivity, the issue of the fence is a contentious one here. A few months ago, local Islamic Movement leaders skewered Umm el-Fahm Mayor Sheikh Abdel Rahman Mahajaneh for declaring that the fence had actually benefited his community. He was accused of collaborating with Israel; some branded him a "traitor" for abandoning his Palestinian brethren.

"It appears that telling the truth might not be the safest thing for a politician to say around here," Karaman says.

He apologized for Mahajaneh's absence, explaining, "It's just that he's at the Haifa District Court today for Sheikh Ra'ed [Salah]." Salah, the town's former mayor and leader of the Islamic Movement, is on trial on charges of funding Palestinian terrorist groups.

On the downside, the fence has sliced families in half, physically separating Umm el-Fahm from its satellite village of Anin on the Palestinian side. Worse, it has damaged Israeli Arabs' solidarity with the Palestinians living on the other side of the Green Line.

But the truth, say Karaman and leaders of the Islamic Movement, is that the security fence has significantly improved their lives.

From the dilapidated Umm el-Fahm Municipality building, wedged between the city's two main mosques, Karaman sees signs of progress. "Look," he says, "there are new stores opening up everywhere. We have security, and it is improving relations with our Jewish neighbors."

The benefits of the fence to Umm el-Fahm are already evident, says Karaman. On a drive toward the area's only country club, el-Waha, Karaman points out a new shopping center lining the city's main road. Shops there include Ra'adi Kaba'a's new "Tel Aviv-style" caf , replete with traditional Ashkenaki treats such as rogalach and cheesecake, a cellphone shop, and a spacious new restaurant.

A year ago, shopkeepers say, the area was a khirbet, or wasteland.

A little farther up the hillside is the city's colossal al-Manar Mall, whose 150 investors have grown more enthusiastic in recent months. Now that they can no longer buy their wares in Jenin - where prices are a fifth of those in Israel - local Arabs "use our city as a hub for shopping."

While no one will say the economic situation here is good, says Wa'el Radban, the owner of the city's largest supermarket, it is picking up. "When you can't go to Jenin, you have to go to Wa'el's," he joked.

Even relations with the area's Jews are on the mend. The Menashe Regional Council and the Jewish town of Katzir Harish are planning to build a joint industrial zone with Umm el-Fahm and two nearby villages. When Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Ehud Olmert came to Umm el-Fahm on Tuesday, it was the first time in the city's history that a deputy prime minister had paid a visit.

City officials say that this is no coincidence. The "Umm el-Fahm effect," as some here call it, is not unique to this city.

"While it is paradoxical, this phenomenon is occurring across the Arab sector," says Bassam Jabber, editor-in-chief of the Israeli Arab weekly Panorama. "In Nazareth, for instance, people who used to shop in Jenin are purchasing all their basic needs in Nazareth." The same has occurred in Taiba, where Panorama is based, and other major Arab communities, Jabber added.

Towns like Mukeibila and Barta'a, which abut major fence crossings into the West Bank, have particularly benefited from the increased traffic. The Jalama crossing, due to be finished in September, will funnel thousands of Palestinians per day past Mukeibila, says Eid Salim, a resident of the village and deputy head of the Gilboa Regional Council.

The towns, positioned along a strategic mountainous ridge overlooking the West Bank, were left in a sort of no-man's land after the 1948 War of Independence. And ever since Israel negotiated with the Jordanians for the area in the 1949 armistice agreements, residents have been torn between their kinship with the Palestinians across the forested ridge.

Between 1949 and the 1967 Six Day War, the area was sealed hermetically, according to Karaman. "Anyone crossing the border would be shot, either by the Jordanians or the Israelis."

Three young men were killed at the entrance to Umm el-Fahm in the October 2000 Arab riots, which drove a wedge between Israel's Jewish and Arab communities. The ensuing intifada further upset a delicate balance in the city and its environs.

Arabs' acceptance of the security barrier "does not mean they will dance for joy because of the fence," explains Jabber. "Everyone would prefer the fence to be on the Green Line all the way around the West Bank; many prefer no fence at all." One of those who would prefer it otherwise is Umm el-Fahm's Mahmud Khader, owner of el-Waha country club. Over omelets and humous at his caf , Khader explains that, when he invested in the place in 1997, it was with the belief that peace and the Oslo Accords would bring Palestinian customers as well as local Arabs to the sprawling compound of indoor and outdoor pools, a small amusement park, and a theater stage.

The fence has cut off thousands of prospective customers. But his parking lot is packed with buses. With his outdoor pools teeming with screeching children, Khader contemplates whether he can pack more people into the place.

"Always more people," he says. "There is a growing demand for recreation here. People just want to live normal lives. I just wish they all had access to my club."

[jtdc]

Since the fence's completion in their areas last August, many Arab communities - especially those bordering Palestinian villages - have enjoyed a spike in both security and economic activity

Gee, do you think that would work in the United States as well?

Now that they can no longer buy their wares in Jenin - where prices are a fifth of those in Israel - local Arabs "use our city as a hub for shopping."

So if we secure our borders our economy will suffer?

[rachel]

The UN's puppet court is at it again. Somehow, after reading the above posts I don't imagine that Israel is going to take down that wall, whaddayou think?

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m


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Last update - 03:59 09/07/2004
Court: fence violates int'l law, must be dismantled
By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent

The International Court of Justice will rule on Friday that the separation fence contravenes international law, that it must be dismantled, and that compensation must be paid to the Palestinian owners of property confiscated for its construction, according to documents obtained by Haaretz.

The decision will be officially made public at 4 P.M. Friday under the heading, "Legal implications of the construction of the barrier in Palestinian occupied territory."

The court has ruled that on the basis of the material available to it, "[it] is not convinced that the specific course Israel has chosen for the wall was necessary to attain its security objectives." Fourteen votes favored the decision and the sole opponent was the American Judge, Thomas Buerghenthal.

It then says: "The wall, along the route chosen, and its associated regime, gravely infringe a number of rights of Palestinians residing in the territory occupied by Israel, and the infringements resulting from that route cannot be justified by military exigencies or by the requirements of national security or public order."

"The construction of such a wall accordingly constitutes breaches by Israel of its various obligations under the applicable international humanitarian law and human rights instruments."

In support of Judge Buergenthal's opposition, the Dutch Judge, Pieter Kooijmans, rejected the call for all countries to act against the project.

The Hague court ruled that it had jurisdiction to render an opinion on the issue of the fence. The justices conducted a lengthy analysis of the legal situation and of the history of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Parts of the fence constructed within the Green Line were not included in the court's decision.

Most of the justices believed that in building the fence, Israel violated international humanitarian law, by infringing on Palestinians' freedom of movement, freedom to seek employment, education and health. Israel violated international treaties it had signed which deal with these topics, the ruling states.

The International Court in the Dutch capital, The Hague, was asked to deliberate on the issue of the security fence by a United Nations General Assembly resolution of last December, and its decision will be presented to the world body.

Prior to the release of the decision, Israeli sources said they were unsure of the court's ruling. However, European sources said that on the basis of information available to them, the legal opinion would be "negative and critical" of Israel.

PA Chairman Yasser Arafat on Thursday said he had full confidence in the International Court. "I believe the court in the Hague is capable of stopping the construction of the fence that damages our people," he said in Ramallah.

For its part, the Defense Ministry has carried out changes on the official map delineating the route of the fence according to the ruling of the High Court of Justice. The changes run along the section of the fence northwest of Jerusalem, and in parts near Qalqilya, Modi'in and southeast of Jerusalem near Gush Etzion.

According to the map made public by the Ministry of Defense, there are many changes from the original route of the fence, and all are meant to alleviate the pressure on the Palestinian population in those areas.

However, the new map also shows the intention to build the fence around the Ariel salient, linking the largest settlement in the West Bank, with Karnei Shomron and Immanuel, to the Green Line.

Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization have prepared their public relations and diplomatic offensives in anticipation of the decision. The PLO representative in the United Nations, Nasser al-Qidwa, and diplomats from Arab countries at the UN, plan to request an emergency session of the General Assembly where the results of the court's decision will be presented.

It is expected that the Palestinians will seek operative application of the court's conclusions, in case Israel refuses to adopt the recommendations of the International Court.

Israel has already prepared its response, assuming that the court will be critical of Israel. Israel will seek to block the issue from reaching the Security Council, with the assistance of the United States. Israel is also hoping that most EU countries will not support the Palestinian move as they opposed bringing the matter before the ICJ.


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