12 - 18 April 2001
Issue No.529
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 12 - 18 April 2001 Issue No.529 |
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'Missiles, and more missiles'
As the rabidly racist spiritual leader of the Shas movement called for the annihilation of Arabs, the Israeli army seemed to be implementing his ravings on the ground, Khaled Amayreh reports from Hebron
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the much-venerated spiritual leader of Shas, the third largest political party in Israel, let fly another outburst of his racist venom against Palestinians and Arabs during a Passover sermon in West Jerusalem on 5 April. "All Arabs must be annihilated. God will take deadly revenge against them, will wipe out their seed, will defeat them, persecute them and eliminate them from the face of earth," Yosef said. "We must not have mercy on them. They should get missiles and more missiles. They should be annihilated, those cursed evil people," he added.
Seeking to extenuate Yosef's words, some Israeli officials described them as "miserable and unfortunate." But Shas political leader Eli Yeshai insisted that Yosef's statement "reflects the state of thinking among most Israeli Jews."
In any case, the Israeli army was busy this week implementing Yosef's plan. Acting upon direct orders from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the Israeli army carried out heavy shelling of Palestinian Authority (PA) targets in Gaza and the West on a daily basis. On Tuesday, it fired rockets at a naval installation in Gaza City and a military intelligence building in the town of Deir Al-Balah, killing a doctor and injuring 20 people. The Israeli army said its attack, using surface-to-surface missiles and tank shells, was justified after Palestinians fired two mortar shells at the Jewish settlement of Katif in the Gaza Strip, causing no injuries. Firing mortars at settlements is a tactic Palestinians had not previously used in the uprising.
At the time the exchange in Gaza was taking place, Sharon was touring the Israeli communal farm of Nahal Oz on the edge of the Gaza Strip. He said he was determined to put an end to what he termed Palestinian violence. "I have a very clear programme. That programme will be implemented and security will return. However, a little staying power and a little patience is needed," he told reporters.
Raanan Gissin, a Sharon aide, said Palestinians have fired 50 mortar shells at Israeli settlements in recent days. Israel holds Palestinian security forces responsible for the mortar fire because they are not stopping the attacks, which are often carried out from Palestinian police compounds, Gissin said. "They [security officials] themselves become targets. Nobody has immunity," he insisted.
An incident on Monday, however, indicated that Palestinians are determined to confront Israeli attempts to re-occupy areas under Palestinian control. Palestinian policemen exchanged fire for more than two hours with the Israeli occupation army in the West Bank village of Betounia, between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Palestinian officers refused to cease firing until the Israeli army evacuated a building it occupied at the entrance to the village and forced the Israelis to seek a truce after four Israeli soldiers were injured. The fighting erupted following the killing of a Palestinian, Taysir Al-Amuri, a 45-year-old Bedouin.
It appears that Al-Amuri was brutally shot dead by Israeli machine-gun bullets simply for being in the wrong place. The Israeli army says that he was killed in an exchange of fire, but residents insist that there was no shooting when the killing took place.
Meanwhile, the PA issued a clear warning on the possible consequences of Sharon's request last week to allow Jewish groups to pray at the Al-Haram Al-Sharif compound that includes the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Sharon's insistence on entering Al-Haram Al-Sharif in late September, surrounded by thousands of Israeli troops, sparked the second Intifada.
Claiming that Al-Haram Al-Sharif was a Jewish holy place, Sharon instructed Israeli security bodies to find ways and means to enable Jews to "visit" the exclusively Islamic sanctuary "whenever they feel like it." The word "visit" is misleading here, since Jews, like tourists from around the world, have never been prevented from entering the compound, except when the holy place is closed to tourism for security considerations.
In fact, what Sharon has in mind is not normal visiting at all, but rather "the right to pray and worship" at Islam's third holiest site. In other words, Sharon wants to arrogate religious rights for Jews at Al-Haram, echoing persistent efforts by Jewish extremists to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque in order to facilitate the building of a Jewish temple on its site.
Islamic figures in Jerusalem warned that "the issue of Al-Haram Al-Sharif is a powder keg that would spark a huge uncontrollable fire all over the region."
"We warn Sharon to keep his hands off our holy places," said a statement by the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem, adding, "Muslims around the world will sacrifice their souls and blood to defend the first Qibla [the direction to which Muslims turn during prayer] and third of the holiest shrines."
Rights appeal
TWENTY-seven Arab human rights groups and five from Israel appealed to the European Union (EU) on Tuesday to adopt a fair position towards the Palestinian cause on the basis of human rights principles.Baheieddine Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the human rights groups handed a memorandum explaining their stand to the Swedish ambassador to Cairo since Sweden is the current EU president. Hassan added that the appeal was timed to precede a second attempt by Arab countries to seek UN Security Council approval of the deployment of an international force to provide protection for the Palestinian people. On 28 March, the United States blocked a moderate resolution seeking the deployment of such a force by using its veto power, while European countries abstained. "We were very dismayed by the European stand and their conspiracy of silence," Hassan said. He added that the appeal was addressed to Europe and not the United States, "because we have no hope that the US will change its position."
"The continued exemption of Israel from being held accountable for its gross human rights violations puts the whole international system before serious dangers," the eight-page memorandum notes. "This exemption threatens the collapse of the whole international human rights protection system," it continues.
The memorandum's signatories called for "imposing political and economic sanctions on Israel to oblige it to respect and implement international legal resolutions." In addition to reiterating the need for a UN force to protect Palestinians, it urged the creation of an international criminal tribunal for prosecuting Israeli war criminals similar to the one for the former Yugoslavia.
"The international community needed only six months to force Iraq out of Kuwait, and some other months to intervene in Kosovo, while it failed to enforce resolutions pertaining to the rights of the Palestinian people which have been adopted more than half a century ago," the human rights groups' statement said. It asked the international community not to tolerate "such blackmailing for more than 50 years by a state that threatens international peace and security, starts wars, occupies land and commits collective massacres and acts of ethnic cleansing which led to the displacement of five million [Palestinian] refugees."
Copies of the memorandum were sent to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and to international human rights groups.
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