Hebron shooting kills 11 Israelis Friday, November 15, 2002 Posted: 5:26 PM EST (2226 GMT) HEBRON, West Bank (CNN) -- Palestinian militants opened fire on a group of Jewish settlers on their way to prayer services Friday, killing at least 11 people, including the region's highest ranking military official, Israeli officials said. Another 15 to 20 people were wounded in the terror attack. The Consulate General of Israel in New York said in a written release that at least one of the wounded was in critical condition and three were in serious condition. Among the dead was the brigade commander for the Division of Judea, the highest ranking Israel Defense Forces official in the area, the consulate said. The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack. The consulate said the attackers came from the Palestinian neighborhood of Abu Sneineh and used guns and grenades in the assault about 17 miles southwest Jerusalem. The militants opened fire from atop a hill in a Palestinian-controlled section of Hebron, the IDF said. The victims were in an Israeli-controlled section. Hebron was divided under a 1997 agreement. The victims include Israeli settlers from the divided city and may include army soldiers protecting Israelis in the area. Approximately 450 Jewish settlers live in Hebron, surrounded by 130,000 Palestinians. Approximately 30,000 Palestinians living near Jewish enclaves are in Israeli-controlled areas. The Israeli Jews were walking to a religious service to mark the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site holy to both Jews and Muslims. Evacuation of wounded was delayed as the militants and soldiers exchanged fire, Israel Defense Forces officials said. Abdallah Shalah, head of Islamic Jihad's operations in Syria, said the attack was revenge for Israel's killing of Iyad Sawalcha last week. Sawalcha was believed responsible for orchestrating terror attacks against Israelis that left dozens of Israelis dead and many more injured. Israeli forces shot and killed him after he opened fire on them while they were attempting to arrest him. Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a militant group dedicated to the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel. The group has carried out attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians. The U.S. Department of State lists it as a terrorist organization. In response to Friday's attack in Hebron, the IDF said it surrounded the house of a person authorities believe helped orchestrate the attack. Palestinian officials in Hebron said Israeli tanks in the city have shot at least a couple of shells, in response to the shooting. The militants opened fire from atop a hill in a Palestinian-controlled section of Hebron, the IDF said. Earlier Friday, in the West Bank city of Nablus, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said a 16-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed in a stone-throwing incident. Two other teenagers were lightly wounded, the society said. The IDF said it was checking the report. The attack in Hebron comes five days after a Palestinian gunman attacked a kibbutz in northern Israel. The Sunday shooting killed five people, Israeli military radio reported. Police and army officials rushed to the scene at Kibbutz Metzer, a collective village near the West Bank border, but did not find the gunman. Shortly after the attack, two Israeli Apache helicopters fired on a target in central Gaza City. The helicopters fired at least four missiles, apparently targeting a workshop near Palestine Square, in part of the old city, the sources said.
It just never ends Israel needs to declare an all out war on Hamas and Islamic Jihad. No ifs ands or buts about it. The Palestinians can't police themselves. Their leader is corrupt. Its just a freakin mess.
Franchise 2001. Sharon has been taking your position and has that really improved things? Are you advocating genocide against the Palestinians? What are you going to do after your "all out war" with those Palestinians still alive? . Make them citizens of Israel with full rights? or "ethnically cleanse them"? . Perhaps you would forcefully create a bantustan for them to live on and call it a country. An interesting alternative from a leading peace Israeli ciritic of Sharon. His proposed tactics for the Labor Party have much to say to the Democrats in the US. ****** (Uri Avnery to a possible leader of the Labor Party) *** You will inherit a party that has come to the brink of the abyss. During 20 terrible months, it was Sharon’s despised kept woman, the same Sharon you protested against when he caused havoc in Lebanon. Now the Labor Party has helped him to cause even worse havoc in the Palestinian territories. Shimon Peres has convinced the world that the Bad Sharon, the man of Sabra and Shatila, has become the Good Sharon, a real peacenik. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has done the dirty work, giving a Labor Party alibi to a policy of executions, destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure, demolition of homes, uprooting of trees, expropriation of land and setting up settlements at a crazy pace. Such a party will lose the elections by a knock-out. Who needs a second Likud? Certainly not the pensioners and unemployed, invalids and one-parent families, whom the Labor Party is wooing now, after not giving a damn for them for years. Neither do the Arab citizens, whom the Party is trying to seduce by a lot of chatter about "a political horizon", while not even bothering to wash the blood off its hands. The Labor Party is courting disaster, and that would be a disaster for the nation at large. The extreme right will wield unbridled power. It will destroy any chance for peace for tens of years, perhaps for generations, perhaps forever. The Labor party will not even play the role of an opposition. It will leave a black hole behind it. It you win the nomination, you will have to change this situation dramatically and rapidly, and in the middle of an election campaign to boot. That will be an immense challenge. No party creates new political assets during elections; it can only realize assets accumulated throughout the years. The voters have learned that election promises are worthless. And now you are called upon to do something without precedent: to change the substance and the image of your party in the middle of an election campaign. That is unprecedented, but not impossible - on one condition: that your message be unequivocal, straightforward and sharp, without stuttering, without hesitation, without demagogy, without tricks, without gimmicks. Election experts and all kind of "strategists" will tell you that you must first use left-wing language, so as to gain the leadership of the party, and later right-wing language, in order to win the voters of the center. If you do that, you will fail. Time is much too short. And that is not your way, anyhow. Your only chance of passing the test is to be you, express you own truth and state it clearly and honestly. The message must be simple and forceful: Israel has no future without peace. Peace is possible, if we are ready to pay the price. There is a partner to peace. The great majority of the Palestinian people want peace. Yasser Arafat wants peace. (If you run away from that name, like the cowards do, your message will lose its credibility.) Peace means a Palestinian state, the Green Line border with mutually agreed changes, Jerusalem the capital of the two states, evacuation of all the settlers from the Palestinian territory. All settlement activity must stop at once. The money must be used for economic growth and social services. Obligations and resources must be shared equitably. An immediate cease-fire must be achieved, the IDF must be withdrawn from the Palestinian towns and villages. The peace negotiations must be resumed from the point at which they stopped at Taba; final agreement to be achieved within a year. This is a clear alternative. It will present the voters with a real choice. You must promise that if the right wins, the Labor Party will not join a "National Unity" government. Will this assure you of victory at the polls? Of course not. But you will have a reasonable chance, while the present way will surely lead to inevitable, shameful defeat. Even if the right wins this time, this clear program will allow the Labor Party to become a fighting opposition, whose banner will attract all those who will be disappointed by the right. It will be poised to re-conquer power. The opportunity will come when the public is finally fed up with the methods of brute power and oppression, which lead only to endless bloodshed and economic and social devastation. Many people, more than one would believe, are waiting for that day.
Were I in charge this is what I would do... 1) IMMEDIATELY make a Palestinian state. 2) When the bombings continue, the Israelis would have the nation of Palestine to blame. 3) As a result Israel could legitimately declare war on said state of Palestine. 4) Does that make you happy...finally...glynch?
Approximately 450 Jewish settlers live in Hebron, surrounded by 130,000 Palestinians. Approximately 30,000 Palestinians living near Jewish enclaves are in Israeli-controlled areas. I know this is going to sound really insensitive - and I certainly don't mean it to be - but is this really that surprising? A group of civilians go and settle in the middle of an mass of Palestinians, knowing that these people hate them, knowing that there's all sorts of violence, knowing that these settlements is one of the biggest sources of anger between the parties. WHY go there? WHY settle in the middle of a mess of raging anger and violence when there are plenty of Jewish controlled areas to live?
So keep them in their "own" neighborhood, right? That's really the same argument (in a much different situation) as the whites off Alameda in the 1960s wondering why the blacks didn't just "stay in their own neighborhood." It was a crappy argument then and it's a crappy argument now.
I'm no authority on this, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think many of the settlers feel that God gave them the land, so they can ignore Palestinian claims to it. I think maybe they should consider that God wants them to share the land with their distant relatives. So leave the settlements and allow the rest of Israel and Palestine to live in peace (I'm not saying that is the only prerequisite for peace, but it wouldn't hurt the peace process).
With every passing week of more and more bloodshed, I am incessantly reminded of what one of my very good friends has told me many a time. He is orthodox Jewish and someone I consider to be pretty intelligent, logical, and with a good awareness and generally optimistic outlook. He has also lived in Israel for several years. When discussing what can be done to stop the violence and hatred between both the Israeli side and the Palestinian side he always replies: "It will NEVER end."
So keep them in their "own" neighborhood, right? That's really the same argument (in a much different situation) as the whites off Alameda in the 1960s wondering why the blacks didn't just "stay in their own neighborhood." It was a crappy argument then and it's a crappy argument now. Of course the big difference is that these settlers are purposely settling in middle of "enemy" territory just for the hell of it. It's land that's supposed to be going to the Palestinians, but the people are settling there just to expand Israeli claims to territory. I believe the settlements violate UN resolutions as-is. It's more similar to Americans going in and plopping down on an Indian reservation just to provoke them. I'm not saying its right that they get attacked - just that its not at all surprising. Intentionally provoke people that hate you and what do you really expect is going to happen?
