In this issue:

LaRouche: Justice for Palestinians Must Be Priority for U.S. President

Israel Operation Kills More Than 140 in Gaza

UNSC Pressures Syria To Withdraw From Lebanon

Lebanese Prime Minister Resigns

Did French-Israeli Deal Play Role in Lebanon UN Resolution?

Iraqi Shi'ites Plan Candidates List for January Elections

Illegal Israeli Settlers Threaten Violence

Israeli AG Office: Geneva Initiative Signers Are 'Provocateurs'

From Volume 3, Issue Number 43 of EIR Online, Published Oct. 26, 2004
Southwest Asia News Digest

LaRouche: Justice for Palestinians Must Be Priority for U.S. President

In answering questions from U.S. elected officials and the international press during his Oct. 6 webcast, former Democratic Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche, who is campaigning to elect John Kerry, delivered a hard-hitting policy perspective for the war-torn region of Southwest Asia. LaRouche's plan to achieve an exit from Iraq demands a regional solution beginning with "justice for the Palestinians" which John Kerry must address. See this week's InDepth for the full transcript of LaRouche's replies on these questions.

Israel Operation Kills More Than 140 in Gaza

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei said that the Israelis killed more than 140 Palestinians, including more than 40 children, and over 500 wounded, as of Oct. 16, during the brutal three-week Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip. On Oct 18, the Israelis killed another six people, and 80 houses were also destroyed, the Israeli paper Ha'aretz reported.

Speaking at a press conference in Ramallah on Oct. 18, Qurei said that the Israeli operation was part of a comprehensive aggression aimed at forcing the Palestinians to succumb to Israeli occupation. "Of course, this will never happen. The Gaza operation is in the context of attempts to create an umbrella for more land confiscation and the construction of the racist separation fence. The occupation always carries out criminal acts, then withdraws."

The Israeli military killing of children has reached unbelievable proportions. Since the Intifada began in October 2000, some 598 Palestinian children aged 17 and younger, have been killed, as compared to 110 Israeli children. Of those Palestinians, 42 were 10 years old, 20 were 7, and eight were 2 years old; furthermore, 13 newborns died when their mothers were prevented from getting them to hospital, by being held up at checkpoints.

The vast majority of these killings are not the result of bombings, but from gunfire at fairly close range, or even by tank shells.

UNSC Pressures Syria To Withdraw From Lebanon

Following days of diplomatic haggling, the 15-member UN Security Council agreed on a statement Oct. 19 calling on Damascus to comply with a previous resolution pushed through the Council on Sept. 2, demanding the withdrawal of 16,000 Syrian troops from Lebanon. The United States and France battled to get the statement adopted despite strong opposition within the Council. The statement calls on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to report to the Council every six months on the implementation of Resolution 1559, which also demands the disarming of militant groups in Lebanon, such as Hezbollah.

Reacting to the Security Council's adoption of the statement, backed by the U.S. and France, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Satterfield told Agence France Presse that the United States is "determined to seek the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1559.... And Syria's failure to implement it will be a serious problem.... We are now trying to see whether Syria's cooperation is serious...."

Lebanese Prime Minister Resigns

On Oct. 19, Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, who has served in that post for 12 years, tendered his resignation to his political rival, President Emile Lahud. Hariri has announced that he will not be a candidate to head the next government, Aljaseera.net reported from Beirut Oct. 20.

Hariri's resignation came amid a deadlock between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government and the United Nations, which on Oct. 20 had adopted a statement in support of implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1559 of September. The resolution called for the removal of 16,000 Syrian troops from Lebanon and disarming of other militant groups functioning inside Lebanon. Damascus has rejected the demand.

Al-Jazeera reports that President Lahud is close to Syria and his term has just been extended by the Lebanese Parliament. This is considered an affront by Hariri, who is very close to Saudi Arabia, and to the U.S. interests behind the UN resolutions. The US and France were key movers in getting the UN Security Council to adopt the statement on Oct. 19.

Did French-Israeli Deal Play Role in Lebanon UN Resolution?

According to French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hervé Ladosus, a project has been agreed on, between the French defense industries Dassault Aviation and EADS, and Israel's Israeli Armaments Industries (IAI), to develop a medium-altitude, long-endurance, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The UAV will be named Eagle and the project would cost some 300 million euros.

According to Israeli defense-sector sources, reports Globes (online), manufacturing the Eagle UAV in France will open additional markets to Israel, especially those markets where Israeli-made products are forbidden. In other words, the French would market it for the Israelis.

On Oct. 19, the UN Security Council had agreed on a statement calling on Damascus to comply with the previously adopted Resolution 1559. The move in the UNSC, strongly opposed by at least six members of the 15-member Council, was vigorously pressed by France and the United States. The heavy-handed policy against Syria, which has had its troops in Lebanon since the early 1980s, by the invitation of the Lebanese government, is being pushed by the U.S. neo-conservative forces, who advocate a "regime change" war against Syria's Bashar al-Assad, like the war that the U.S. has conducted in Iraq. France, which opposed the Iraq war, is now acting as a full partner with the U.S. in the campaign against Syria.

It is now expected that a full-court press will be exerted on Syria by Washington to satisfy what is known to be primarily an interest serving the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon.

Iraqi Shi'ites Plan Candidates List for January Elections

Various Iraqi Shi'ite parties have reached a "preliminary agreement" on a list of candidates for the elections slated for January 2005, according to European press accounts Oct. 22. A committee has been formed, which is to "ensure that all Iraqis—be they parties, movements, currents or independents—will be represented in one list. This list will be open to all," said Hamid Khaffaf, the representative in Lebanon of the Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah in Iraq, Ali al-Sistani, who is promoting the initiative. Lebanese TV, which carried the news Oct. 22, said that the committee intended "to prepare a unified national list of candidates who enjoy the confidence of the religious authority," which refers to al-Sistani. Given al-Sistani's authority, such a list would have good chances of being voted in.

Another al-Sistani spokesman was quoted as saying what the criteria for candidacy would be: "We will support all those who seek a way out of the crisis, who want to end the occupation, and who are committed to implementing free elections." The most important point is the second: ending the occupation.

Illegal Israeli Settlers Threaten Violence

The ultra-right Jewish settlers whose permanent occupation of Palestinian lands has been backed by the Bush Administration, are threatening violence, and possible near-civil war in Israel, if the Israeli government attempts to close down the settlements as both Israeli and international law requires, under the Oslo Agreement, and later resolutions and promises such as the 2003 "Road Map."

Yehoshua Mor-Yussef, head of the Yesha Settlers Council which unites the settlers in the Palestinian Territories, denounced Ariel Sharon, following a "stormy" two-hour meeting on Oct. 17 with the Prime Minister, in which Sharon rejected the settlers' demand that he call a referendum on his "Gaza disengagement" plan. Pinhas Wallerstein, a senior figure in the Yesha Settlers Council, called the meeting "one of the most disgraceful meetings with a Prime Minister of Israel," and issued an unmistakable threat: Sharon "is determined to lead the country to a split which could degenerate into civil war." Sharon responded that "this is very serious and such phenomena will be prevented."

The climate for right-wing terror is growing. Demonstrators opposed to the settlers meeting with Sharon carried signs reading "Sharon Is a Traitor," and "Don't Meet with Traitors." Gush Katif settler leaders cancelled a meeting they had scheduled for Oct. 20 with Sharon, saying he had "trampled and crushed" them, and there was no point in meeting. Last week, former Chief Rabbi Abraham Shapira called on soldiers and police to refuse to participate in evacuating settlers, because to do so would be like "desecrating the Sabbath and eating non-kosher food." Sixty other rabbis echoed his call on Oct. 15.

The Christian Science Monitor featured the charge by West Bank settler Nadia Matar, head of the Women in Green far-right group, that Sharon and his head for disengagement, Yonatan Bassi, are "far worse than the Judenrat," the Jewish collaborators of the Nazis.

Such remarks raised fears among saner Israeli leaders, who recall that it was just such incitement that covered for the right-wing conspiracy that led to the November 1995 assassination of Israel's peace Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. On Oct. 18, Ha'artez reported that Yoni Fighel, a senior figure at the International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism in Herzliya, is calling for tougher laws against such far-right incitement, which he charges is "fuelling a saturated atmosphere in which the smallest event can cause an explosion. There is a system of far-right incitement that is creating the conditions for violent activity. We are just one stage away from this happening."

Israeli AG Office: Geneva Initiative Signers Are 'Provocateurs'

Israel's ultra-rightwing paramilitary and terrorist wing among the illegal Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories has received a boost from the Israeli Attorney General's office—the same office that whitewashed Sharon's corruption by dropping the so-called "Greek Island" bribery investigation earlier this year..

Now Deputy Attorney General Malkhiel Blass has refused a request by Knesset member Ophir Pines-Paz to prosecute for incitement the settler weekly Besheva, which called those who signed the Geneva peace initiative "Geneva criminals" and "traitors," Ha'aretz reported Oct. 21. Not only did Blass refuse to prosecute, but he called the Geneva initiators "provocateurs" for negotiating with Palestinians and therefore inviting the attack!

The outraged Knesset member, Pines-Paz, wrote to Blass's superior, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, saying, "It seems that the law enforcement system internalized nothing since Rabin's murder.... With the next assassination you won't be able to claim to have clean hands."

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