Getting an earful ... loudspeakers held up near the Nativity Church pump out the noise. Photo: AFP,
Posted on 04/16/2002 1:49:54 PM PDT by history_matters
By Alan Philps in Jerusalem
April 16 2002
Daily Telegraph, London
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Getting an earful ... loudspeakers held up near the Nativity Church pump out the noise. Photo: AFP, |
The Israeli Army is broadcasting ear-splitting screeches and wails at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, traditional site of Jesus' birth, to force out 200 Palestinians besieged there.
Troops brought in a crane to hoist loudspeakers over the ancient basilica, one of the holiest shrines in Christendom, as part of what one person inside called "psycho terror". One of the noises sounds like a car alarm.
Camped outside the church, the army estimates there are about 50 wanted Palestinian militants inside, with clergy and civilians.
The Israeli Government offered a deal on Sunday under which the wanted men would be given a choice between permanent exile and trial before a military court. "If they leave, it's for good but, if they stay, then they will have to stand trial in Israel," said a spokesman for the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. The offer was put by the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, to the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, during talks on Sunday.
Palestinian negotiators immediately rejected it, saying the men would not accept exile, and if they were to be judged it should be before a Palestinian court. But they would accept any deal that Mr Arafat approved.
In an appeal on Friday the trapped Palestinians called for United Nations intervention to save them from "a slow death".
They have been deprived of food for almost two weeks, and the army has shot at Palestinian youths lobbing bags of bread into the compound.
"We are hearing loud whistles and screeches in the daytime and now at night," said the Governor of Bethlehem, Mahmoud Madani, who is inside the church. "They want to destroy our morale, but the only solution is a negotiated settlement."
The church has responded to the caterwauling by ringing its bells.
In a major blow to the Palestinian resistance, Israel last night arrested Marwan Barghouthi, a leader of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction in the West Bank and regarded by Israel as the top militant in the area, Israeli security sources said.
Barghouthi, sought by Israel since it launched a West Bank offensive on March 29, was arrested in the city of Ramallah, the sources said.
Thank you for sharing your asinine opinion.
</double irony>
Kinda makes it hard to sort them out.
Unfortunately, this whole "spies like us" (security council like us, capitalists like us, democrats like us, yada yada) has ended up with our resembling the Evil Empire far more than the old "former Soviet" types (and their progeny in Israel -- as outfitted with the rope Uncle Sam sold them to hang himself on) resemble us.
Useful idiots and all that rot:
Given the footprint of the jackboot tactics of terror, coercion, intimidation and "pragmatic" targeting of civilians toward some Greater Goods in death ... who can argue that we're all on the same side now?
In 1989 edition of the National Drug Control Strategy, President Bush made it official:'We must be prepared to share our knowledge and our concern with the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations and be willing to engage them in cooperative counterdrug activities". (36)In this strategy document, there was no recognition of the role of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe countries in drug-trafficking and in creating the very sickness the strategy was designed to cure.Towards the end of 1989, the DEA made a formal proposal to the Soviets for the DEA to conduct 'advanced narcotics investigations' for about 30 anti-narcotics professionals from Soviet customs, the Ministry of Interior and the KGB. As one DEA official, Paul Higdon, explained: 'We're looking at them as policemen - these guys are cops with a mission similar to ours'. Not to be outdone, US Customs is proposing a formal information-sharing agreement, similar to the ones we have with most of our Western allies'
Hear No Evil -- Part II Case in point (for comparison purposes): Vladimir Meciar's Dawn Arrest
Case in point (for comparison purposes): Modesto Boy, 11, Shot By SWAT Team
The Elian Snatch and What It Could Mean for You.
If the Compassion and Clean Hands of Population Control are less sensational than the ski masks and jackboots with which our leaders address only the illegal Drug Trade they've enabled my entire lifetime, perhaps it's because they took such care to remove the SENSATIONALISM .
We're looking at them as policemen - these guys are cops with a mission similar to ours
That we're NOT all on the same side now.
World revolution by proxy, comrade. LET'S ROLL.
Because so far, I'm unimpressed with Israel's ability to distinguish militants from innocent civilians.
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