[Peace-discuss] what to do about suicide bombers

[Ricky Baldwin]

Here's an article from the NYT on the recent suicide bombings.  A friend 
pointed out that the 4th paragraph is particularly disingenuous.  I would 
add paragraph 21, apparently a rhetorical question, as if Ram 
Rahat-Goodman's solution - to withdraw - is unthinkable.

Try not to grit your teeth.

Ricky



3 Are Left Dead by Suicide Blasts in Tel Aviv Street
By JOHN KIFNER



EL AVIV, July 17 - Two Palestinian suicide bombers killed three people here
tonight, a day after a West Bank bus ambush that took eight Israeli lives.
The attacks have shattered a period of calm that began nearly a month ago
when Israeli troops took over the West Bank.

The renewed attacks shook the faith of Israelis in the government's tactics
and brought angry responses from officials.




"Palestinian terrorists," said David Baker, a spokesman for Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon, "seem to have an insatiable appetite for spilling Israeli
blood and will do so at every opportunity."

Late tonight, Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer announced the
cancellation of plans to ease the dire conditions of Palestinians, although
these plans were never specified. The Israeli government spokesman, Avi
Pazner, said: "Over the last few days, there was a lot of talk about
alleviating the situation of the Palestinians, who live in very harsh
surroundings. Now we will not be able to do that."

The attacks tonight occurred almost simultaneously. Two young men blew
themselves up near Tel Aviv's old central bus station, in a low-income
neighborhood with a mostly immigrant population of Romanians, Nigerians,
Filipinos and Thais who have flocked here in recent years to replace
Palestinians doing menial jobs for Israelis.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attacks.

It appeared likely that the bombers chose the neighborhood because a
religious holiday had shut down most of the city and they had difficulty
finding a target. Tonight was the beginning of Tisha b'Av, the Jewish
commemoration of the destruction of the Temples of Solomon and Herod. Even
in Tel Aviv, a secular city, fines had been ordered for restaurants staying
open.

The attackers finally fixed on a street called Neve Shaanan (roughly, Oasis
of Tranquillity) and at 10:20 approached a convenience store with a big sign
overhead reading, "Have a Good Time."

"They carried bags that they detonated," the Tel Aviv police chief, Yossi
Sedbon, said. "They blew up 15 meters from each other. The explosive charges
were not large."

The bodies of the suicide bombers were pretty much intact, police officials
said. Many of the foreign workers are here illegally, and passers-by melted
away without giving witness accounts, lest the police ask for their papers.

The police identified one victim as an Israeli and the other two as foreign
workers. Further details were not available.

Uzi Landau, the minister of public security, visited the scene and called
for a stepped-up campaign to destroy the Palestinian Authority.

"We will enter their areas," he said, "and break up the entire Palestinian
security apparatus to bring about the collapse of the Palestinian
Authority."

This morning, authorities were still pursuing ambushers of an armored bus
that had been headed on Tuesday for a West Bank Jewish settlement, Immanuel.
A young Israeli officer and a Palestinian man died in a running two-hour gun
battle early this morning in the rocky hills of the northern West Bank.

As night fell, Israeli tanks and helicopters, guns blazing, swept into Silat
al Dahr, a Palestinian town between Jenin and Nablus. An army spokesman said
the troops were going in to arrest "an extensive terrorist network"
preparing suicide attacks. Later reports from both sides indicated that two
Palestinian militants had been killed. The army said another Palestinian was
killed near Qalqilya while trying to sneak into Israel.

In the Ramallah refugee camp tonight, two Palestinians were killed and
several were injured in an explosion. Palestinians theorized that it was a
tank shell; the army suggested it was a bomb-maker's mistake.

The attack on the bus at Immanuel, described by the army as well planned and
executed, ended a period of uneasy calm that had lasted since June 20, when
Israeli troops moved in force into seven of eight West Bank cities after
back-to-back suicide bombings in Jerusalem. The army has imposed strict
curfews, keeping more than 700,000 Palestinians confined to their homes,
allowing them outside only briefly to buy food and medicine. In the same
four weeks, according to the Israeli rights group B'Tselem, Israeli soldiers
killed 40 Palestinians, at least 22 of them unarmed civilians.

But the attack on the bus clearly shook Israeli confidence in the military's
tactics; a front-page headline in Haaretz labeled it the "first disaster"
for Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, the new chief of staff. The death toll in the
attack reached eight this morning when a premature baby, delivered by
Caesarean section from his badly wounded mother, Yehudit Weinberg, died.

The attack was carried out by three or four Palestinians wearing Israeli
Army uniforms and wielding military-issue M-16 assault rifles, who set off a
bomb several hundred yards from the entrance to Immanuel, then swooped down,
firing into the vulnerable roof of the bus.

The attack was a carbon copy of an ambush on the same spot on Dec. 12 that
killed 11 Israelis. That attack brought an announcement from the Israeli
government that it was breaking off contacts with Yasir Arafat. The only
difference in the attacks was that this time the bus was armored along its
sides.

With the Israeli Army having already reoccupied much of the West Bank, the
bus attack raised questions about what more the Israelis could possibly do.

"Indeed, the Immanuel attack highlights the main dilemma facing Israel -
what to do with the nearly monthlong curfew in the territories," Haaretz
said. "The politicians have been considering longer lulls in the curfew,
because of the great distress they cause the Palestinian population."

Several Palestinian groups rushed forward to claim responsibility for the
bus bombing - an indication of the competition among Palestinians for
militant credibility - but the army said it was the same cell of Hamas
fighters that staged the December attack. This was reinforced today by a
Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Mahmoud al-Zahaar, who also gave details of the
shootout this morning.

In the gun battle, in a valley in the rough terrain between the settlement
and Nablus, Israeli Lt. Elad Grenadir, 21, was killed, and three Israeli
soldiers were wounded, at least one seriously. There was no immediate
identification on the dead Palestinian man.

The clashes caused Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to again cancel a planned
meeting with Palestinian officials, and they came against the background of
an inconclusive meeting of officials of the United States, the United
Nations, the European Union and Russia in New York looking for a Middle East
solution. Increasingly isolated Palestinian officials took heart from the
reluctance of the three other members to endorse Washington's demand that
Mr. Arafat be ousted.

In a sign of further diplomatic maneuvering, a Palestinian official, Nabil
Shaath hinted to The Associated Press that Mr. Arafat is considering the
appointment of a prime minister to share the running of day-to-day affairs.




------------------------

“We have to ask ourselves whether what is needed in the United States is 
dissent – or denazification.” – Noam Chomsky

------------------------


_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: 
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx