Peres calls IDF operation in Jenin a 'massacre'

Ha'aretz ^ | 9 April 2002 | Aluf Benn and Amos Harel

[Zviadist]

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres Peres is very worried about the expected international reaction as soon as the world learns the details of the tough battle in the Jenin refugee camps, where more than 100 Palestinians have already been killed in fighting with IDF forces. In private, Peres is referring to the battle as a "massacre."

IDF officers also expressed grave reservations Monday over the operation in Jenin. "Because of the dangers," they said, "the soldiers are almost not advancing on foot. The bulldozers are simply 'shaving' the homes and causing terrible destruction. When the world sees the pictures of what we have done there, it will do us immense damage."

"However many wanted men we kill in the refugee camp, and however much of the terror infrastructure we expose and destroy there, there is still no justification for causing such great destruction."

Peres, who is feeling increasingly isolated in the government - Sharon added three hardline ministers to his cabinet Monday - believes Arafat is still irreplaceable at this stage.

He does not regard the documents that Sharon presented Monday in the Knesset as a "smoking gun" that irrefutably proves that Arafat was directly linked to ordering terrorist activity. And Israel's isolation of the Palestinian leader, he believes, only enhanced his prestige and turned him into the key player.

Despite his harsh criticism, however, and his belief that Labor will not be able to remain much longer in the government, Peres is in no hurry to quit. He is telling his closest associates that after the fighting ends and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has visited, the decision will be made. If Powell presents a political plan, Labor will want to fight for it in the government.

[Zviadist]

Just another perspective.

[SunStar]

Ahh yes, Peres, another Nobel Peace Prize winner, along with Yasser Arafat.

[wardaddy]

Wasn't Peres Hagganah once upon a time?

[NormsRevenge]

Peres has gone soft with age...

[samson1]

The pictures of Dresden looked bad too. But war is hell.

[dts32041]

Yup Peres is trying to insure the Nobel committee doesn't take away his peace prize.

[mewzilla]

His peace prize became meaningless when they gave one to Arafat.

[veronica]

Like cheese, Lefties go soft when they ripen and age, and tend to give off a bad odor as well.

[Map Kernow]

Given the Haifa bus murder-bombing today, where Hamas specified that the terrorist involved was from Jenin, the IDF hasn't killed nearly enough of that rathole yet.

[sheik yerbouty]

Peres=Peretz=vulture.

[DoughtyOne]

Perez is a dove. Once a dove always a dove. He probably thinks McMillian had it right...

[luvzhottea]

This is why they either shot or beat or otherwise ran out journalists. They didn't want witnesses to the massacre.
Is this why Lebanese Elie Hobeika was assassinated? He was going to testify about Sharon's role in the massacres:

16 September 1982:

the greatest act of terrorism – using Israel's own definition of that much misused word – in modern Middle Eastern history began. Does anyone remember the anniversary in the West? How many readers of this article will remember it? I will take a tiny risk and say that no other British newspaper – certainly no American newspaper – will today recall the fact that on 16 September 1982, Israel's Phalangist militia allies started their three-day orgy of rape and knifing and murder in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila that cost 1,800 lives. It followed an Israeli invasion of Lebanon – designed to drive the PLO out of the country and given the green light by the then US Secretary of State, Alexander Haig – which cost the lives of 17,500 Lebanese and Palestinians, almost all of them civilians.

...I do not remember any vigils or memorial services or candle-lighting in America or the West for the innocent dead of Lebanon; I don't recall any stirring speeches about democracy or liberty. In fact, my memory is that the United States spent most of the bloody months of July and August 1982 calling for "restraint".

--Robert Fisk writing in the London Independent

[A Vast RightWing Conspirator]

...I do not remember any vigils or memorial services or candle-lighting in America or the West for the innocent dead of Lebanon

Where the Americans dancing in the streets and passing candy after hearing the news?

[pabianice]

Revisionist crap.

[Bagehot]

Robert Fisk is a communist. The 'Independent' is such a misnomer, it's entertaining. It used to be apolitical, but was so dull they had to switch, and they went......left with the rest of the journalist herd.

[rbmillerjr]

Robert Fisk....LOL, hey Beavis he said Fisk uh hu uh hu hu hu, uh hu.

No doubt the the uncivilized Arabs will be saying in 2022 that the deaths were 800,000

[steenkeenbadges]

Shimon Peres may go the way of that other traitor, Itzak Rabin. Since when is a war fought or won by appeasing the aggressors with land? Hitler was the master at this and look what it cost Czeckoslovakia and the rest of the civilized world. Same scenario brewing here.

[Ancesthntr]

"However many wanted men we kill in the refugee camp, and however much of the terror infrastructure we expose and destroy there, there is still no justification for causing such great destruction."

How about self-preservation? Does Peres mean to say that no war in history was justified, simply because it caused a lot of destruction? Sorry, butthead, but sometimes the only way to survive is to destroy your enemy and his home. Rome fought 3 wars with its mortal enemy, Carthage, and finally brought an end to the danger to itself by destroying every structure and salting the earth there. America, Britain and the Soviets laid waste to Germany, because Germany was a menace to the world. Well, guess what schmuck, the PLO, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. are a menace to Israel in the same way.

Peres is a traitor to Israel, and has been since he started his career. His words should be listened to, if only so that sensible and moral people can do the opposite.

[dighton]

Like cheese, Lefties go soft when they ripen and age, and tend to give off a bad odor as well.

There are worse things, trust me. Ever been around an ancient møøse?

[veronica]

--Robert Fisk writing in the London Independent---

Like cheese Lefties tend to, well, you know. It's always so informative what people link to and such. Especially when it's drivel by Fisk, who can be found at the most Leftwing sites.

We Are The Criminals Now

'No one should be surprised that Mr Bush--a small-time Texas Governor-Executioner--should fail to understand the morality of a statesman in the Whitehouse. What is so shocking is that the Blairs, Schröders, Chiracs and all the television boys should have remained so gutlessly silent in the face of the Afghan executions and East European-style legislation sanctified since 11 September.'

Bashing our President. Tsk tsk.