Jewish Peace News
[JPN Commentary: A car bomb in Damascus killed the leading Hamas figure in Syria. Observers generally made the obvious assumption, that Israel was behind the bomb. Israel's initial reaction of "no comment", rather than denying their involvement offered its own confirmation, as does this article from Ha'aretz.
The attack is remarkable in that it was the first major operation of its kind since an Israeli attempt on the life of Khaled Mahal in Jordan ran aground and put a strain on Israel's relations with the late King Hussein. The surface motivation, retaliation for the recent suicide bombing in Be'ersheva which Israel immediately linked to Syria (though evidence for this accusation remains unclear) does not explain why Israel would take this step at this time.
In recent days, Syria, under intense American pressure and surely jittery as it watches American troops fighting in Iraq, took two steps. It agreed to remove some of its troops from Lebanon, a country it has dominated for nearly three decades, and it just closed down offices of Palestinian groups operating in Syria, an act which was confirmed by Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. It would seem less than coincidental that Israel would carry out this attack in the wake of such acts of compliance on the part of the Syrian government.
Initial reports had Hamas threatening attacks on Israeli targets abroad. Such a widening of the scope of the conflict would be quite dangerous, as it might well give Israel American, and possibly even wider approval for a major intensification of its military operations against Palestinian targets in both the Occupied Territories and in neighboring Arab countries. Later statements by Hamas denied any intention of broadening the scope of the conflict. One of the major differences between the armed Palestinian groups of recent years has been their focus on operations only in Israel and the Occupied Territories, in contrast to earlier groups such as Abu Nidal and Black September who carried out attacks overseas. This strategy has helped gain the Palestinian cause more sympathy, even though attacks on civilian targets in Israel continue to disgrace the legitimate grievances of the mass of the Palestinian people.
While Hamas does have a presence in other countries, an attack such as this one threatens to escalate the conflict unnecessarily. Further, it means that Syria will have to respond in the diplomatic arena, the only place it can. The Syrian government itself has been targeted for attack by al-Qaeda, as have many Arab governments, helping to motivate Syria toward a more conciliatory stance. Indeed, there has been, over the past several years, periodic speculation that Syria would once again be willing to negotiate a peace with Israel in exchange for a return of the Golan Heights, something Yitzhak Rabin is said to have nearly achieved with Hafez al-Assad, the late Syrian leader, just before Rabin's assassination. Again, it becomes apparent that diplomacy, negotiations, indeed even peace, are simply not part of the Sharon agenda. – MP]
Sources: Israel behind Damascus hit
Hamas vows vengeance after exiled leader killed in car bomb in Syrian capital.
By Haaretz Staff and Agencies
http://ga3.org/ct/LpaCgtM1CaFR/
Security sources acknowledged Sunday that Israel was involved in the assassination of a senior Hamas official in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Hamas vowed to strike Israeli targets in revenge for the killing of Iz a-Din al Sheikh Khalil in a car-bomb blast.
The government, however, issued no official statement regarding the assassination. A spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that Israel had "no knowledge" of the car bomb.
For his part, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuval Steinitz, MK (Likud), said: "I can't confirm or deny [our involvement] but in principle, those who kill us should know they have no immunity, not in Israel, not in the territories, not in countries that give them shelter, including Syria."
Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra told Channel 10: "I don't have information, and I can't confirm or deny it, [but] I'm not sorry it happened."
Khalil was expelled from Israel in 1992 as one of the 400 Hamas leaders taken to south Lebanon, but unlike many Hamas leaders who later returned, he remained overseas, "living in secrecy," as one of his relatives said yesterday.
Khalil was killed when a bomb, apparently planted under the driver's seat of his white SUV, exploded when he answered a call to his cellular phone as he was pulling out of his parking place in the Zahara neighborhood of Damascus at 10:45 yesterday morning. Other cars and surrounding had windows blown out.
Almost immediately, Hamas took to the air to blame Israel and issue threats of retaliation. At first, the organization's military wing warned that Israelis traveling outside Israel would be targeted by the organization. But later official Hamas web sites and spokesmen for the political wing retracted the threats, saying Hamas would stick to its policy of targeting Israelis only at home and in the territories.
In addition to the confusion inside the organization, the conflicting statements were indicative of the internal debate inside Hamas about its policy regarding foreign attacks. While Imad Alalami, now the Hamas representative in Iran, who was Khalil's direct boss in the Hamas hierarchy is in favor of foreign attacks, most of the leadership, including Khaled Mashal, want to stick to the policy set by Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, who narrowed the Hamas conflict with Israel to the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
Up to yesterday Hamas officials did not believe Israel would take action against Hamas in Syria. Those against Hamas attacking foreign targets argued it would give Israel an excuse to conduct assassinations in Lebanon and Syria. Furthermore, foreign attacks would harm Hamas internationally, Yassin believed.
That internal Hamas debate is now likely to intensify, but the Yassin line is likely to win. And even if splinter factions do conduct attacks on foreign soil, Hamas is unlikely to claim responsibility.
Syria's national news service only began to carry reports of the bombing in the late afternoon, with a laconic statement identifying Khalil as "a Palestinian expelled by the occupation authorities to south Lebanon who did not return to the Palestinian areas."
No details were given of how he was killed or who was behind it, in the official Syrian press. However, a well-known Syrian political columnist, speaking to Al Jazeera television attacked Israel as "hysterical" but admitted Syria does not have many options for retaliation. Presumably, he said, Syria will respond in the diplomatic arena.
Israel's ability to infiltrate the Hamas leadership in Damascus is likely to further rattle the group after Israel killed Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his successor as Gaza leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, in missile strikes earlier this year.
"They (Hamas leaders) have to take more precautions than they are doing now," said Ali Jarbawi, a Palestinian political science professor. "[The Israelis] are trying to reach Hamas everywhere."
Last week, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported that in response to a request by Mossad chief Meir Dagan, an Arab intelligence service gave Israel information on Hamas leaders abroad, including where they live, what their hobbies were and even what food they eat.
Dagan made the request after the Be'er Sheva bombing on August 31 that killed 16 people. After that bombing, when Israeli saber-rattling pointed to Hamas in Damascus as the orchestrator of the Be'er Sheva attack, Syria reportedly told the top Hamas leader, Khaled Mashal, and another senior official, Imad al-Alami, to leave Damascus, their longtime base, according to a Palestinian close to the group.
Syrian officials told Mashal and al-Alami they should find safer territory, and Alami reportedly went to Iran while Mashal surfaced briefly in Cairo and then disappeared. Syria has officially denied it kicked out Mashal and other Hamas chiefs.
[JPN Commentary: Israel employs different legal mechanisms in order to confiscate Palestinian lands. One such device is designating parts of the West Bank as "state lands", based on old Ottoman land ownership laws.
Large swaths of West Bank land fall under this designation and can be expropriated after a review process. While it is true that only a small percentage of the land that can go through this process has actually undergone it, it remains a key method for Israel to "legally" take Palestinian land. Indeed, the state lands designation conveniently falls outside of Israeli agreements with the United States against taking more land for Jewish-only settlements.
Of course, these allegedly legal mechanisms face the inherent contradiction of the illegality of the entire settlement program. As was recently confirmed by the International Court of Justice (including even by the lone dissenting justice of that court, the American, naturally), it is illegal for an occupying power to transfer its own population into occupied territory. Israel has generally contended that these laws do not apply to them because the West Bank and Gaza are not occupied, but disputed. This transparentl6y flimsy dodge has been rendered ineffective even my Israel's logic with the recent declaration of the Israeli Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz that the Geneva Convention applies to the Palestinian territories.
These legal mechanisms are a major factor in creating facts on the ground while also keeping Israel's image as a democratic, law-abiding country alive. It is crucial that we understand how this happens. If you share only one article with someone who does not understand what is happening in the occupied territories, make it this one. – MP]
'State land' loophole allows appropriation
By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent
Israel is continuing to expropriate territory in the West Bank, under the guise of "state lands" to expand settlements, data from the Civil Administration shows. At least part of these areas received were appropriated with the direct approval of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz.
Since the start of 2004, some 2,200 dunams of land in the West Bank have been declared state lands. These include land in Givat Eitam in Ofrat, and land designated for use as the Border Police headquarters in Metsudat Adumim.
Last year 1,700 dunams of land in the West Bank were designated state lands, such as the area between the Palestinian village of Bet Ichsa and the settlement of Givat Ze'ev. The authorizations given by Sharon and Mofaz were made after preparatory work was presented to them by the assistant to the Defense Minister for settlement affairs, Ron Shechner.
The Sharon government made a commitment to the Bush administration in 2003 that construction in the settlements beyond existing building zones would be placed on hold, and is now in negotiations with the U.S. administration over the territorial limits of the settlements.
The Israeli promise to the U.S. includes a commitment not to expropriate territory for construction, but does not relate in any way to designating areas as "state lands."
The "state lands" designation has consistently served the governments of Israel in establishing and expanding settlements. In the late 1970s the Supreme Court forbade the expropriation of private Palestinian property for settlements.
The then director of the Civil Section at the State Attorney's office, Felia Albak, developed a legal mechanism that relied on Ottoman Land Law, and permitted the designation of extensive tracts of land in the West Bank as state lands, allocating them to the settlements.
There are currently 700,000 dunam - 13 percent of the West Bank before June 5, 1967 - under different stages of "review", according to non-government sources collecting data on the Israeli activities in the territories. At the end of the "review" process it is possible to designate these lands "state lands."
The majority of these tracts are in southern Mount Hebron, in the area of Gush Etzion, and on both sides of the trans-Samaria highway.
Regarding the data of the non-government sources, a Defense Ministry source said that the data is irrelevant because the land in question may be considered "state land" but in practice only a small portion of it is being handled as such.
"It is sufficient that someone 20 years ago marked a particular piece of land as possible state land," the source says, in order for that area to be placed in the data bank of the "review process," even if no one actually did carry out a review.
The legal department of the Civil Administration is currently busy with the appropriation of lands for the building of the separation fence - an effort that is based on a different legal process - and in dealing with the illegal outposts.
The designation of areas as "state lands" is on a low priority, and non-government sources estimate that the Civil Administration officials are only handling several dozen such cases.
Many of the illegal outposts in recent years were set up in the West Bank on "survey lands," as part of an effort to alter their status at a later date to state lands and therefore legalize the establishment of the outpost.
Data made public by B'tselem two years ago, between 1967 and 1979, shows approximately 700,000 dunam were designated "state lands" in the West Bank, most in the Jordan Valley.
In legal steps undertaken by Albak during the years 1980-1984, an additional 800,000 dunam were selected and declared "state lands," serving as the main source of land for the establishment of settlements.
Since the designation of state lands has slowed down significantly, but never completely ended.
Jewish Peace News Editors:
Judith Norman
Alistair Welchman
Mitchell Plitnick
Lincoln Shlensky
Ami Kronfeld
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
John Wilner
Joel Beinin
The attack is remarkable in that it was the first major operation of its kind since an Israeli attempt on the life of Khaled Mahal in Jordan ran aground and put a strain on Israel's relations with the late King Hussein. The surface motivation, retaliation for the recent suicide bombing in Be'ersheva which Israel immediately linked to Syria (though evidence for this accusation remains unclear) does not explain why Israel would take this step at this time.
In recent days, Syria, under intense American pressure and surely jittery as it watches American troops fighting in Iraq, took two steps. It agreed to remove some of its troops from Lebanon, a country it has dominated for nearly three decades, and it just closed down offices of Palestinian groups operating in Syria, an act which was confirmed by Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. It would seem less than coincidental that Israel would carry out this attack in the wake of such acts of compliance on the part of the Syrian government.
Initial reports had Hamas threatening attacks on Israeli targets abroad. Such a widening of the scope of the conflict would be quite dangerous, as it might well give Israel American, and possibly even wider approval for a major intensification of its military operations against Palestinian targets in both the Occupied Territories and in neighboring Arab countries. Later statements by Hamas denied any intention of broadening the scope of the conflict. One of the major differences between the armed Palestinian groups of recent years has been their focus on operations only in Israel and the Occupied Territories, in contrast to earlier groups such as Abu Nidal and Black September who carried out attacks overseas. This strategy has helped gain the Palestinian cause more sympathy, even though attacks on civilian targets in Israel continue to disgrace the legitimate grievances of the mass of the Palestinian people.
While Hamas does have a presence in other countries, an attack such as this one threatens to escalate the conflict unnecessarily. Further, it means that Syria will have to respond in the diplomatic arena, the only place it can. The Syrian government itself has been targeted for attack by al-Qaeda, as have many Arab governments, helping to motivate Syria toward a more conciliatory stance. Indeed, there has been, over the past several years, periodic speculation that Syria would once again be willing to negotiate a peace with Israel in exchange for a return of the Golan Heights, something Yitzhak Rabin is said to have nearly achieved with Hafez al-Assad, the late Syrian leader, just before Rabin's assassination. Again, it becomes apparent that diplomacy, negotiations, indeed even peace, are simply not part of the Sharon agenda. – MP]
Sources: Israel behind Damascus hit
Hamas vows vengeance after exiled leader killed in car bomb in Syrian capital.
By Haaretz Staff and Agencies
http://ga3.org/ct/LpaCgtM1CaFR/
Security sources acknowledged Sunday that Israel was involved in the assassination of a senior Hamas official in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Hamas vowed to strike Israeli targets in revenge for the killing of Iz a-Din al Sheikh Khalil in a car-bomb blast.
The government, however, issued no official statement regarding the assassination. A spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that Israel had "no knowledge" of the car bomb.
For his part, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuval Steinitz, MK (Likud), said: "I can't confirm or deny [our involvement] but in principle, those who kill us should know they have no immunity, not in Israel, not in the territories, not in countries that give them shelter, including Syria."
Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra told Channel 10: "I don't have information, and I can't confirm or deny it, [but] I'm not sorry it happened."
Khalil was expelled from Israel in 1992 as one of the 400 Hamas leaders taken to south Lebanon, but unlike many Hamas leaders who later returned, he remained overseas, "living in secrecy," as one of his relatives said yesterday.
Khalil was killed when a bomb, apparently planted under the driver's seat of his white SUV, exploded when he answered a call to his cellular phone as he was pulling out of his parking place in the Zahara neighborhood of Damascus at 10:45 yesterday morning. Other cars and surrounding had windows blown out.
Almost immediately, Hamas took to the air to blame Israel and issue threats of retaliation. At first, the organization's military wing warned that Israelis traveling outside Israel would be targeted by the organization. But later official Hamas web sites and spokesmen for the political wing retracted the threats, saying Hamas would stick to its policy of targeting Israelis only at home and in the territories.
In addition to the confusion inside the organization, the conflicting statements were indicative of the internal debate inside Hamas about its policy regarding foreign attacks. While Imad Alalami, now the Hamas representative in Iran, who was Khalil's direct boss in the Hamas hierarchy is in favor of foreign attacks, most of the leadership, including Khaled Mashal, want to stick to the policy set by Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, who narrowed the Hamas conflict with Israel to the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
Up to yesterday Hamas officials did not believe Israel would take action against Hamas in Syria. Those against Hamas attacking foreign targets argued it would give Israel an excuse to conduct assassinations in Lebanon and Syria. Furthermore, foreign attacks would harm Hamas internationally, Yassin believed.
That internal Hamas debate is now likely to intensify, but the Yassin line is likely to win. And even if splinter factions do conduct attacks on foreign soil, Hamas is unlikely to claim responsibility.
Syria's national news service only began to carry reports of the bombing in the late afternoon, with a laconic statement identifying Khalil as "a Palestinian expelled by the occupation authorities to south Lebanon who did not return to the Palestinian areas."
No details were given of how he was killed or who was behind it, in the official Syrian press. However, a well-known Syrian political columnist, speaking to Al Jazeera television attacked Israel as "hysterical" but admitted Syria does not have many options for retaliation. Presumably, he said, Syria will respond in the diplomatic arena.
Israel's ability to infiltrate the Hamas leadership in Damascus is likely to further rattle the group after Israel killed Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his successor as Gaza leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, in missile strikes earlier this year.
"They (Hamas leaders) have to take more precautions than they are doing now," said Ali Jarbawi, a Palestinian political science professor. "[The Israelis] are trying to reach Hamas everywhere."
Last week, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported that in response to a request by Mossad chief Meir Dagan, an Arab intelligence service gave Israel information on Hamas leaders abroad, including where they live, what their hobbies were and even what food they eat.
Dagan made the request after the Be'er Sheva bombing on August 31 that killed 16 people. After that bombing, when Israeli saber-rattling pointed to Hamas in Damascus as the orchestrator of the Be'er Sheva attack, Syria reportedly told the top Hamas leader, Khaled Mashal, and another senior official, Imad al-Alami, to leave Damascus, their longtime base, according to a Palestinian close to the group.
Syrian officials told Mashal and al-Alami they should find safer territory, and Alami reportedly went to Iran while Mashal surfaced briefly in Cairo and then disappeared. Syria has officially denied it kicked out Mashal and other Hamas chiefs.
[JPN Commentary: Israel employs different legal mechanisms in order to confiscate Palestinian lands. One such device is designating parts of the West Bank as "state lands", based on old Ottoman land ownership laws.
Large swaths of West Bank land fall under this designation and can be expropriated after a review process. While it is true that only a small percentage of the land that can go through this process has actually undergone it, it remains a key method for Israel to "legally" take Palestinian land. Indeed, the state lands designation conveniently falls outside of Israeli agreements with the United States against taking more land for Jewish-only settlements.
Of course, these allegedly legal mechanisms face the inherent contradiction of the illegality of the entire settlement program. As was recently confirmed by the International Court of Justice (including even by the lone dissenting justice of that court, the American, naturally), it is illegal for an occupying power to transfer its own population into occupied territory. Israel has generally contended that these laws do not apply to them because the West Bank and Gaza are not occupied, but disputed. This transparentl6y flimsy dodge has been rendered ineffective even my Israel's logic with the recent declaration of the Israeli Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz that the Geneva Convention applies to the Palestinian territories.
These legal mechanisms are a major factor in creating facts on the ground while also keeping Israel's image as a democratic, law-abiding country alive. It is crucial that we understand how this happens. If you share only one article with someone who does not understand what is happening in the occupied territories, make it this one. – MP]
'State land' loophole allows appropriation
By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent
Israel is continuing to expropriate territory in the West Bank, under the guise of "state lands" to expand settlements, data from the Civil Administration shows. At least part of these areas received were appropriated with the direct approval of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz.
Since the start of 2004, some 2,200 dunams of land in the West Bank have been declared state lands. These include land in Givat Eitam in Ofrat, and land designated for use as the Border Police headquarters in Metsudat Adumim.
Last year 1,700 dunams of land in the West Bank were designated state lands, such as the area between the Palestinian village of Bet Ichsa and the settlement of Givat Ze'ev. The authorizations given by Sharon and Mofaz were made after preparatory work was presented to them by the assistant to the Defense Minister for settlement affairs, Ron Shechner.
The Sharon government made a commitment to the Bush administration in 2003 that construction in the settlements beyond existing building zones would be placed on hold, and is now in negotiations with the U.S. administration over the territorial limits of the settlements.
The Israeli promise to the U.S. includes a commitment not to expropriate territory for construction, but does not relate in any way to designating areas as "state lands."
The "state lands" designation has consistently served the governments of Israel in establishing and expanding settlements. In the late 1970s the Supreme Court forbade the expropriation of private Palestinian property for settlements.
The then director of the Civil Section at the State Attorney's office, Felia Albak, developed a legal mechanism that relied on Ottoman Land Law, and permitted the designation of extensive tracts of land in the West Bank as state lands, allocating them to the settlements.
There are currently 700,000 dunam - 13 percent of the West Bank before June 5, 1967 - under different stages of "review", according to non-government sources collecting data on the Israeli activities in the territories. At the end of the "review" process it is possible to designate these lands "state lands."
The majority of these tracts are in southern Mount Hebron, in the area of Gush Etzion, and on both sides of the trans-Samaria highway.
Regarding the data of the non-government sources, a Defense Ministry source said that the data is irrelevant because the land in question may be considered "state land" but in practice only a small portion of it is being handled as such.
"It is sufficient that someone 20 years ago marked a particular piece of land as possible state land," the source says, in order for that area to be placed in the data bank of the "review process," even if no one actually did carry out a review.
The legal department of the Civil Administration is currently busy with the appropriation of lands for the building of the separation fence - an effort that is based on a different legal process - and in dealing with the illegal outposts.
The designation of areas as "state lands" is on a low priority, and non-government sources estimate that the Civil Administration officials are only handling several dozen such cases.
Many of the illegal outposts in recent years were set up in the West Bank on "survey lands," as part of an effort to alter their status at a later date to state lands and therefore legalize the establishment of the outpost.
Data made public by B'tselem two years ago, between 1967 and 1979, shows approximately 700,000 dunam were designated "state lands" in the West Bank, most in the Jordan Valley.
In legal steps undertaken by Albak during the years 1980-1984, an additional 800,000 dunam were selected and declared "state lands," serving as the main source of land for the establishment of settlements.
Since the designation of state lands has slowed down significantly, but never completely ended.
Jewish Peace News Editors:
Judith Norman
Alistair Welchman
Mitchell Plitnick
Lincoln Shlensky
Ami Kronfeld
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
John Wilner
Joel Beinin
posted by R7 | 9/27/2004 10:28:00 AM
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