MIDEAST NEWS DIGEST
Charge That Mossad Created Phony al-Qaeda To Justify Attacks
A major story began to unfold on Saturday, Dec. 7, when Reuters, Ha'aretz and Al-Jazeera all reported that the Palestinian Authority is accusing the Israeli Mossad of creating a phony al-Qaeda cell in the Gaza Strip, to justify Israeli attacks. On Dec. 7, Ha'aretz, an Israeli paper, reported, "The head of Palestinian Preventive Security in the Gaza Strip said Friday [Dec. 6] that his forces had identified a number of Palestinian collaborators who had been ordered by Israeli security agencies to 'work in the Gaza Strip under the name of Al-Qaeda.' He said the investigation was ongoing and evidence would be presented soon." The statements cited by Ha'aretz were attributed to Rashid Abu Shbak.
Al-Jazeera TV also ran the story on Dec. 7, adding that the Palestinian authorities had arrested a group of Palestinian "collaborators with Israeli occupation" in Gaza, who are trying to set up an operation there in the name of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda. The Palestinian Authority spokesman said the members of the group have confessed that they were recruited and organized by the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad. The revelation blows Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's most deadly "justification" for the brutal IDF attacks in the Gaza Strip which killed 10 civilians, including UN workers (see report below.)
Reuters published an extensive Top Story on the affair on Dec. 7, by Diala Saadeh, under the headline, "Palestinians: Israel Faked Gaza al-Qaeda Presence." The article quoted a number of Palestinian Authority senior officials, including President Arafat, who told reporters at his West Bank Ramallah headquarters, "It is a big, big, big lie to cover [Sharon's] attacks and his crimes against our people everywhere." Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo detailed the case: "There are certain elements who were instructed by the Mossad to form a cell under the name of al-Qaeda in the Gaza Strip in order to justify the assault and the military campaigns of the Israeli occupation army against Gaza." Palestinian officials, according to Reuters, promised to provide detailed evidence of the Mossad scheme at a press conference on Sunday, Dec. 8.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Criticizes Settlements
Daniel Kurtzner, who is President Bush's Ambassador to Israel and who is Jewish, was denounced last year as "that little kike," by an Israeli rightwing fanatic in the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament), after Kurtzner dared publicly to criticize the illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian occupied territories. On Dec. 4, Kurtzner did it again. Speaking before an international security conference sponsored by the Herzliya Center in Israel, he reiterated that U.S. official policy is opposed to settlement activity.
Ha'aretz on Dec. 4 reports that Kurtzer said, "Settlers represent a particular point of view in Israel about the future of the occupied territories; they do not represent a national consensus. The settlements movement today is not about the future existence of the state. Israel needs to make choices and define priorities."
He then quoted from a statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell in which the latter said, "Israeli settlement activity has severely undermined Palestinian trust and hope ... and in doing so cripples chances for a real peace and security. The U.S. has long opposed settlement activity, and consistent with the report of the Mitchell Committee, settlement activity must stop." Kurtzer emphasized the last four words. He then spoke about the so-called road map to peace, which has not been released yet.
Immediately, Kurtzer was attacked for his statement by Adi Mintz, the director general of the Yesha Council (representative body of the settlements in the occupied territories.) Mintz charged, "U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer consistently expresses positions identified with the extreme left in Israel. If Dan Kurtzer wants to interfere in Israeli politics so much, as a Jew he can request Israeli citizenship...." Mintz fumed, "I demand that he immediately stop, and if he is incapable of shutting up, I will request that the government return him home." Mintz charged that Kurtzer's statement "does not represent the current consensus in Congress and the Senate."
Report Estimates Iraq War Could Cost Up to $2 Trillion
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in a report entitled "War with Iraq: Costs, Consequences and Alternatives," released last week, warns that the estimates for the cost of a possible war with Iraq coming out of the Bush Administration ignore a number of postwar costs, including the following:
*A prolonged occupation that could cost from $75 to $500 billion.
*Reconstruction of Iraq, which could cost up to $105 billion.
*Humanitarian assistance, at $10 billion, minimum.
*A macroeconomic impact that could run anywhere from $17 billion to $400 billion, because of the effect on the U.S. economy.
In short, in a best-case scenario, the war would cost $99 billion, and in a worst-case, it could cost up to $1.9 trillion. The report, however, assumes that the U.S. is in an economic recovery, however slow it might be, and therefore, a war jeopardizes the rather tepid recovery. Since, in fact, the economy is in a free-fall collapse, the effects of the factors that are cited in the AAAS report are likely to be much greater than they anticipate.
The figures presented by this study coincide precisely with the estimates released weeks ago by Lyndon LaRouche, who warned that the true costs of the war would exceed a trillion dollars!
'President Bush: Jesus Changed Your Heart. Now Let Him Change Your Mind'
A full-page advertisement in the New York Times Dec. 4 was titled, "President Bush: Jesus Changed Your Heart. Now Let Him Change Your Mind," and was signed by several hundred American religious leaders from the National Council of Churches; the Roman Catholic dioceses; the United Methodist Church (President Bush's denomination); the Episcopal Church; Jewish Rabbis; Islamic leaders; and a number of other Christian denominations.
The public declaration to Bush, put out by the group Religious Leaders for Sensible Priorities, said, "THIS IS NOT A JUST WAR," and that a war against Iraq "will be an unprovoked, preemptive attack on a nation which is not threatening the United States. It will violate the UN Charter and set a dangerous precedent for other nations."
The leaders reminded Bush of his own words: "You have proclaimed the crucial role of your faith in your life, and you've often said that people of faith are often 'our nation's voice of conscience.' Listen to our voices now." The text also quoted the General Secretary of the United Methodist Church's General Board of Church and Society, who said, "It is inconceivable that Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior and the Prince of Peace, would support this proposed attack." The ad also said that leaders of President Bush's Methodist Church who oppose the war were denied access, when they sought an appointment with the President.
American Journalist Blasts Anti-Islam Warmongers
William Pfaff, the internationally renowned journalist, tells the neo-conservatives in Washington to stop calling Islam the enemy, in an op-ed that appeared in the International Herald Tribune on Dec. 5.
"A part of the neo-conservative intelligentsia in Washington is trying to turn the Bush Administration's 'war against terrorism' into a war against Muslim civilization and the Islamic religion," writes William Pfaff, naming Elliot "World War IV" Cohen, and Kenneth "Iraq War is a Cakewalk," Adelman of Richard Perle's Defense Advisory Board in the Pentagon, as two of those who criticize President Bush for repeatedly telling Muslims that the war on terrorism, is not a war against their religion.
"The Bush critics say Islam itself is America's enemy because Islamic religion and civilization are intolerant, hostile to Western values, proselytizing, expansionist and violent," Pfaff writes, adding: "Their implicit argument is ... the Israel-Palestine conflict has nothing to do with Islam's crisis with the West. This is a novel argument likely to leave many unconvinced."
Pfaff also points to statements from some self-identified Evangelicals, that Islam is "evil"which, he points out, "is the view of the clergyman who was part of the Bush inauguration in 2001." He adds, "These intellectuals have fallen into Samuel Huntington's pernicious fallacy," the Clash of Civilizations.
The same day that Pfaff's article appeared, Dec. 5, President Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., for the celebration breaking the Ramadan fast, where he made a brief statement to worshippers that honored the Islamic religion. He had previously had a number of Muslim leaders to the White House for a Ramadan dinner.
Exactly as Pfaff's article anticipated, Bush's visit prompted neo-conservatives (aka "neo-crazies") and Televangelicals to attack the President for the equivalent of "honoring shinto ... after Pearl Harbor."
Sharon Government Goes on Retaliatory Killing Spree
Young children, a 95-year-old woman, and United Nations relief workers were among those killed by Israel Defense Forces' attacks between Dec. 1-6. Washington-based Middle East experts report that the Israeli hardliners are becoming increasingly frustratedand therefore, more brutal out of desperationabout their own failure to stop terrorist attacks against Israelis, both domestically and now abroad. The majority of IDF targets now are Palestinian civilians.
Two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military raid in the Gaza town of Beit Lahiya Nov. 30-Dec. 1.
The next day, in Jenin, the Israeli military, with two tanks and two other armored vehicles, opened fire on a market filled with shoppers preparing for the Eid celebration that ends the holy month of Ramadan. A 15-year-old was killed and 16 were injured.
On Dec. 4, the Israeli paper Ha'aretz reported that in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers killed a 95-year-old woman who was travelling in a taxi cab. Two more Palestinians were killed near Hebron the same day.
On Dec. 5, the IDF assassinated Mustapha Sabah, when a helicopter gunship launched a missile that hit a Palestinian police station in Gaza City, where he was staying. The Israelis claim Sabah was an aid to Jamal Abu Samhadna, who, they say, planned the attacks which destroyed three Israeli tanks in the past year. The fact is that Sabah was a leader of Fatah's popular committees in Gaza, and his assassination points to the Sharon government's ongoing campaign to undermine efforts in which Fatah plays a major part, to arrange a ceasefire among Palestinian armed groups.
The worst incident occurred with the killing of 10 Palestinians in the first hour of an attack on the morning of Dec. 6, in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military used tanks, armored personnel carriers, and helicopter gunships to destroy a house. Nine men and one woman were killed, including two United Nations teachers. The Israelis justified the action by claiming that they killed five Hamas members.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said: "It's a new massacre. What happened is a continuation of the massacres against the Palestinian people.... This is terrorism against our children, our women and our holy shrines from Rafah [in southern Gaza] to Jenin [in the West Bank]. Isn't what they are doing daily, terrorism?"
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