EU warns Israel not to launch an assault on Yasser Arafat`s compound in Ramallah

Excite ^ | April 21, 2002 | Reuters

[Democrats are liars]

MADRID (Reuters) - The European Union has warned Israel not to assault Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's West Bank headquarters and called for a peaceful solution to a standoff at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

In a statement issued by EU president Spain, the 15-nation bloc issued "a serious warning against any act of force carried out against the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, which could endanger the physical security of President Arafat and the (other) people there."

The statement, published on Spain's EU presidency Web site on Sunday, carried Saturday's date.

The EU also said it was ready to help find a legal solution "to the question of the people detained by the Palestinian Authority who are inside the Palestinian presidential complex" -- a reference to suspects that Israel wants handed over.

The EU requested that medical and humanitarian organizations be allowed immediate access to Palestinian towns and it stressed the importance of a United Nations mission to probe Israel's assault on the Jenin refugee camp.

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Friday for a fact-finding mission on the devastation in Jenin.

Israeli tanks rumbled out of two West Bank cities on Sunday after a crushing three-week occupation but kept up sieges of Arafat's headquarters and the Bethlehem church, one of Christianity's holiest sites, where gunmen are holed up.

Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Israeli forces would stay outside Arafat's compound until three men accused of killing an Israeli cabinet minister last year were turned over.

Israel also wants the handover of Arafat's chief financial officer, Fuad Shubaki, whom it suspects of trying to smuggle arms from Iran into the Palestinian territories.

Arafat has offered to put Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi's suspected assassins on trial in a Palestinian court.

The EU asked "all parties involved to do everything necessary to find a peaceful outcome to the siege of the Church of the Nativity" in Bethlehem.

Israeli troops remain locked in a stalemate with wanted Palestinian militants trapped with more than 200 policemen, clerics and civilians inside the church, revered as the birthplace of Jesus.

Spain hosts a meeting in Valencia this week of foreign ministers from EU and Mediterranean states, which Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is expected to attend.

[DETAILER]

The EU asked "all parties involved to do everything necessary to find a peaceful outcome to the siege of the Church of the Nativity" in Bethlehem.

That's a load of bull!

The coward Pali's went into the church HIDING IN FEAR of the IDF, and the Israelies, out of respect for the church, are waiting for them to grow some guts and come out and face what they have rightfully got coming for them. There is no "seige". Screw the EU and it's propoganda.

[Chad Bagwell]

TURKEY!? Big-brown-pile-of-poopoo I trusted Turkey. Dang Turks.

[Light Speed]

Still a difficult call at this point ...Ezekiel may have been speaking to the breadth of the Babylonian empire..which did in his day encompass part of present day Turkey,..I suspect so.
The weight is more upon Iran..Iraq and Syria.
The Turks would have to do a 180 ..and break with Nato..maybe they will..time will tell.
I believe we are still early in things prophetically..if one Hebrew source is accurate..we only just entered the phase of the last time..the appearence of the last anti-christ.
This time line is roughed out to 27 years..we entered into it in the mid 90's.
For those of us living in North America..our warnings come via the mark of the beast system...which is still developing.
When they corner you to taking a sub-cutinous implant...then..its down to within 7 years.
Until then..wars and rumours of wars.