PA calls for civil disobedience [barf alert]

Arab News ^ | 2 jul 02 | Nazir Majally

[white trash redneck]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 2 July — Threatening with more bloodshed, the Islamist Hamas organization yesterday vowed revenge for the assassination of its West Bank leader, while Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer praised the killing as “the most important military operation in the past two months”.

The call for revenge came as Palestinian Authority Cabinet’s Secretary-General Ahmed Abdel Rahman called on Palestinian residents to engage in “civil disobedience” to protest the Israeli takeover of seven West Bank cities over the past two weeks.

Speaking on Israel Radio, Ben Eliezer called Muhaned Taher, 26, the commander of Hamas’ military arm in the West Bank, a “murderer, planner and engineer”, who had been “very high” on Israel’s list of wanted militants. Hamas said in a statement that the targeted killing would “only strengthen its determination to resist and wage holy war”.

An Israeli commando unit stormed Taher’s Nablus home on Sunday night and killed him and his helper, while injuring a third man. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, however, condemned the assassination and said that since the intifada (uprising) broke out 22 months ago, Israel had committed 77 “assassination operations” in which 126 Palestinians were killed, 87 of whom were “targeted” activists and 39 were bystanders. Extrajudicial killings are illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention, it charged.

Israel yesterday morning temporarily lifted a curfew in all West Bank cities under its control, except for Tulkarm and Nablus.

But Israeli troops earlier entered 10 villages, including Salfit, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah and began searches for weapons, explosives and suspected persons, in an expansion of the military reoccupation of the Ramallah area.

Residents in Jenin, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron poured into the streets to visit friends and relatives and to stock up on food, while high school students sat their matriculation exams. Israeli tanks maintained a presence in the cities, Palestinians said. The curfew was reimposed in the afternoon. In Bethlehem, the curfew was lifted for the third day in a row in what Palestinians said could indicate a new policy.

The hawkish Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon said yesterday morning that he had given the Israeli Army “very clear instructions on how to ease” the suffering of the Palestinian population in the West Bank, as part of what he called the first phase in the implementation of a speech by US President George W. Bush.

“A withdrawal from the (West) Bank cities will be possible only when quiet and security return,” Sharon, however, told reporters after meeting with Israeli President Moshe Katsav.

Bush devoted most of his speech on the Middle East last week to condemning corruption in the Palestinian Authority and called on the Palestinians to elect new “leaders not compromised by terror”. But he also said that “as violence subsides, freedom of movement should be restored, permitting innocent Palestinians to resume work and normal life”.

[white trash redneck]

"Civil disobedience" my eye! If the Palesterrorists think that their atrocities amount to "civil disobedience," Gandhi is probably spinning in his grave.

[rageaholic]

Civil disobedience? How will that differ from before? Will pali meat bombs handcuff themselves to the bus before they blow it up?

[The Iceman Cometh]

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights

Now there is an oxymoron if I have EVER seen one.

[ClearCase_guy]

I wonder if Thoreau honed his bomb-making skills while camping out at Walden Pond.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Israeli answer: armored D-10 bulldozer.