In this issue:

Time for LaRouche's Solution: A Palestinian State Now

There Was No Assassination Attempt Against Al-Sistani

Sharon Plan To Evacuate Gaza Settlements a Fake

'Will Sharon Go First, or the Settlements?' Has Become the Big Question in Israel

British Parliament's Damning Report on Israeli Operations in Occupied Territories

From Volume 3, Issue Number 6 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Feb. 10, 2004
Mideast News Digest

Time for LaRouche's Solution: A Palestinian State Now

The hideous escalation of Israeli attacks on Palestinians, with the killing of a 12-year-old boy by an Israeli helicopter gunship attack in the Gaza Strip Feb. 7, means that the international community must stop playing along with the semantic games of Ariel Sharon's government, where Sharon is pretending to seek "disengagement" or to accept a Palestinian state.

It is time to go back to reality, as identified by Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche in his statement of April 14, 2002:

"The United States' most vital strategic and related interests, including the interest of our European partners, requires an immediate historic intervention establishing a just peace in the Middle East, meaning an immediate establishment of the Palestinian State under its currently elected head of government, Arafat [emphasis added].... Indeed, all things considered, the fate of the planet as a whole could depend upon just such a decision."

LaRouche made that statement at the height of the Israel Defense Forces' assault—under fascist Gen. Shaul Mofaz—on the Ramallah headquarters of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, in an attempt to kill him.

In April 2003, President George W. Bush released the "Road Map" to Middle East peace, which has collapsed because the U.S. refuses to require that Israel abide by its terms.

Now the Sharon regime is involved in actions that mean Israel could easily become the trigger for a new Middle East war, possibly involving Syria, Lebanon, and even Iran. War plans—reportedly shared with the neo-conservative gang in the Pentagon, Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Feith—are drawn up for all of these attacks. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has launched an international "campaign" to drive Syria out of Lebanon, and Israeli attacks continue every day on Palestinian homes and civilians, under the guise of the hunt for terrorists.

There Was No Assassination Attempt Against Al-Sistani

Two official representatives of Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Al-Sistani, have said that the reports last week that there was an attempt to assassinate the Ayatollah in Iraq were completely false.

On Feb. 7, the Teheran Times reported the statement by Al-Sistani's Lebanon office director, Hamad Khafaf. He attributed the assassination story to the United States, saying, "There are no sources in these reports. We do not know why they reached—and were circulated by—news agencies." He insisted the reports were "an American attempt to disrupt plans for elections and handover of power back to the hands of the Iraqis." Referring to the United Nations delegation which just arrived in Iraq to explore the possibility of organizing elections, he claimed, "The Americans want to nip in the bud these efforts."

Sheikh Abdel Mehdi al-Karbalai told Iraqi worshippers at the Friday prayers on Feb. 6 that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani had not been attacked. "The report is false," he said. "I contacted Sayyid [His Eminence] myself last night in Najaf, and he denied it strongly and categorically." Al-Karbalai has been one of the more official spokesmen for Al-Sistani.

Later in the day, the Grand Ayatollah's office issued a statement "categorically denying" that there had been an assassination attempt. It lashed out at the reports for "spreading insecurity before the arrival of a UN experts team" and urged people to "observe caution both on the security and political level ... and preserve the unity and independence of Iraq."

Sharon Plan To Evacuate Gaza Settlements a Fake

On Feb. 3, the Jerusalem Post reported that two "no-confidence votes" were brought against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the Israeli Knesset (Parliament). These were, in the words of Knesset Member Ran Cohen of the pro-peace Meretz Party, "The beginning of the end of the Sharon government." The no-confidence votes occurred after Sharon announced, in an interview with the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, that he was going to order "a plan" drawn up, to relocate 17 Gaza Strip Jewish settlements.

Both the National Religious Party and the National Union fascist parties—members of Sharon's coalition government—walked out of the Knesset, refusing to support him, and leaving him to win the second ballot by only one vote. Tourism Minister Benny Elon from the National Union, who is an intimate of the Christian Zionist extremists in the U.S., told reporters that Sharon had better understand that the "national camp will not allow the abandoning" of the land of Israel to "the Arabs."

But this show of opposition from the rightwing is just a cover, since Israeli sources assure EIW that Sharon's "plan" to close down the Gaza Strip settlements is just a prop that Sharon is using to try to stay in power, as there looms over him the threat of an indictment for taking bribes from indicted businessman David Appel.

Since the Jan. 21 Appel indictment, senior Israeli officials and commentators have warned that Sharon would do anything to change the agenda—including talk of making peace—or starting wars. Sharon already tried to start a war against Lebanon and Syria by provoking an incident inside Lebanon (which cost the life of an Israeli soldier), but he was stopped by the Israeli Army brass; many of them oppose Sharon's old tricks, which now are threatening the very existence of Israel.

Now, Sharon has floated the idea of a phony settlement removal. Member of the Knesset Yossi Sarid, a leader of the Meretz Party, said, "As long as we don't see on the ground any attempts to dismantle even illegal outposts" in the Palestinian territories, "I suggest that we receive such comments ... with total disbelief." Labor Party Knesset Member Ophir Pines-Paz said, "We demand action.... Sharon talks about these things endlessly, and we're tired of it."

Even a member of the fascist National Union, Zvi Hendal, who lives in a Gaza settlement, said that Sharon is bluffing. Sharon "has to change the agenda [from his legal problems]. He doesn't believe a word of it."

By Friday, Feb. 6, Sharon's office was already self-exposing the Gaza evacuation as a fake, when it was revealed that Sharon would present to President Bush a plan where the Gaza settlers would be relocated to the West Bank, in a plan to seize an even greater chunk of Palestinian land.

'Will Sharon Go First, or the Settlements?' Has Become the Big Question in Israel

Brigadier Gen. (reserve) Shlomo Brom of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, a signatory of the Geneva Accord peace initiative, told EIR in a Feb. 3 discussion that Ariel Sharon's announcement concerning plans for removal of settlements is a response to political realities. Brom said that, while it may be true that Sharon is under pressure to deflect attention away from his legal problems, he is also responding to public opinion.

"Sharon has started to talk about these plans because of changes in Israeli public opinion. Sharon has started to see that the public is becoming frustrated by his passivity. The public, seeing that the government is not taking the initiative, is supporting non-government peace initiatives." This is a direct reference to support for the Geneva Accord peace initiative and the fact that Sharon's latest gambit is a move to counter it.

General Brom pointed out that the real problem is not the settlements in the Gaza Strip, but those on the West Bank. He said that Sharon, at best, will accept only a tiny Palestinian state on the West Bank, which, of course, will be unacceptable to the Palestinians. "The conflict will just continue."

Brom also said Sharon is losing support in the military, because whenever they feel that they have created a situation in which negotiations could begin, Sharon does nothing. Brom said the military is against a war with Syria at this point and that he feels Sharon could not launch a war at this time.

General Brom was the author of a study on how Israel was a "full partner" with the U.S. and Great Britain in the intelligence failure on the question of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In this context, he found very interesting the situation of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Brom said that while the Hutton Commission might have cleared Blair in the death of Dr. David Kelly, that was not the real issue. The real issue was how the intelligence was used, which should now be investigated. He sees President Bush's call for an independent investigation in the same context.

Another senior intelligence source had a similar assessment on Sharon's troubles, saying that Sharon's statement on the withdrawal of settlements is only lip service. As for war against Syria, Sharon does have a problem. While there is definitely a faction in the military which would want a war against Syria, the army will act only as part of a government decision. As long as the situation is ambiguous in terms of the stability of Sharon's government, they will not act. They do not want to take the responsibility upon themselves.

British Parliament's Damning Report on Israeli Operations in Occupied Territories

The British House of Commons Select Committee on International Development has just issued a damning report on Israeli operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and calls for economic pressure to be put on Israel, according to the Feb. 4 issue of the British paper the Guardian, and the Israeli paper Ha'aretz. The report is the result of a six-month study by the committee, which is headed by Conservative MP Tony Baldry.

"Our report is a balanced assessment of the humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories," Baldry said. "It shows that Israel's security policy is having a marked impact on everyday life. Key measures such as the construction of the security barrier higher than the Berlin Wall, may bring the mirage of immediate security to Israelis, but the level of despair felt by ordinary Palestinians at being denied an ordinary life can only increase the supply of suicide bombers. Nor is it likely to illicit any concessions from the Palestinian leaders.... [A]ny such fence should be constructed on Israeli, not Palestinian land."

The report states that Israeli checkpoints, curfews, incursions, and the wall are choking the Palestinian economy. The MPs say that what "makes the poverty so unpalatable is the level of deprivation vis-à-vis Israel, and the awareness that it is not the result of natural calamity but of deliberate actions on the part of the government of Israel.... It is hard to avoid the conclusion that there is a deliberate Israeli strategy of putting the lives of ordinary Palestinians under stress as part of a strategy of bringing the population to heel."

These are unprecedented words for a report by any European all-party government committee.

The report calls, in effect, for sanctions to be brought against Israel. "We therefore urge the UK government to propose to the EU council of trade ministers that Israel's preferential terms of trade with the EU be suspended until it lifts the movement restrictions which it has placed on Palestinian trade."

Israel exports to the EU total about 28 billion euros per annum; its imports from the EU stand at about 44 billion euros.

The report states that "malnutrition rates in Gaza and parts of the West Bank equal those of sub-Saharan Africa and regional unemployment stands at a staggering 60 to 70%."

The committee expressed "serious concern over a range of policies adopted by the Israeli government and the negative impact they are having on living conditions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza." The report is highly critical of the Israeli policy of checkpoints and speaks of "wilful destruction" of water infrastructure by the Israeli military and settlers, calling it "unacceptable."

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