Posted on 08/01/2002 9:57:08 AM PDT by Momaw Nadon
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - President Bush ( news - web sites) said on Thursday he was "furious" about a Palestinian bombing that killed five Americans and two Israelis in Jerusalem but he still believed peace was possible in the Middle East.
"I'm just as angry as Israel is right now," Bush told reporters in Washington before meeting Jordan's King Abdullah. "I'm furious that innocent life was lost. However, through my fury, even though I am mad, I still believe peace is possible."
Bush's remarks followed scathing condemnation by U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer of Wednesday's attack, which he said marked "a new depth of depravity" for Palestinian militants waging a 22-month-old uprising against Israeli occupation.
Seven people were killed and more than 80 hurt when the lunchtime blast tore through a cafeteria at Hebrew University, one of the few places in Jerusalem where Arabs and Israelis still studied and lived peacefully together.
U.S. officials identified four of the dead as Janis Coulter, 36, Benjamin Blutstein, Marla Bennett and David Gritz. Gritz also had French citizenship. Israeli police identified the fifth American as Dina Carter, 37, who also had Israeli citizenship.
The two Israelis killed were identified as David Ladovsky, 29, who had recently joined the diplomatic corps, and Levina Shapira, a 53-year-old student counselor.
Hamas, an Islamic militant group dedicated to Israel's destruction, said it carried out the attack to avenge an Israeli air strike in Gaza last week that killed its military leader, his lieutenant and 13 others, including nine children.
The attack was the bloodiest in Israel since June 19 when a bomber killed seven Israelis at a Jerusalem bus stop, and was unusual because of the high toll of foreign victims.
It further dented hopes of an early breakthrough to end violence since Palestinians rose up against Israeli occupation in September 2000 after statehood talks deadlocked.
Asked if he supported Israeli military retaliation for the latest bomb attack, Bush said Israel had a right to defend itself "but I say to all parties involved, we must keep the vision of peace in mind."
ISRAELI SHOT DEAD
In new violence, an Israeli man was found bound and shot dead near Israel's border with the West Bank on Thursday.
The Israeli army accused Palestinian gunmen of shooting the man at close range at the Buds of Peace industrial zone near the West Bank city of Tulkarm after going there to make deliveries.
A senior Israeli security source said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ( news - web sites) had decided in consultations with Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer to "retaliate strongly against Hamas targets for what happened."
But the government did not say exactly how it would respond to the blast, which was condemned by the Palestinian Authority ( news - web sites) and which followed a suicide attack that wounded four people in Jerusalem on Tuesday.
In Beit Jala near Bethlehem in the West Bank, witnesses said Israeli forces blew up the home of Hazim Saras, who carried out that bombing.
It was not clear whether Israeli pledges to ease the hardship of 700,000 Palestinians living under Israeli military curfew in the West Bank since mid-June would be affected.
Laying a wreath at Hebrew University a day after the blast, U.S. Ambassador Kurtzer demanded immediate action by the Palestinians and Arab states to end the violence.
"The terrorist murderers, those who sent them and those whose action and inaction contributed to this despicable act, have descended to a new depth of depravity," Kurtzer, a former student at the university, said.
CONDEMNATION BY "QUARTET"
Washington's partners in the 'Quartet' leading efforts to revive peacemaking -- Russia, the United Nations ( news - web sites) and the European Union ( news - web sites) -- also condemned the bombing.
"Terror has brought death and suffering in...a lively center of culture, of communication and of learning where students of different nationalities and ethnic origin work closely and harmoniously together, including of course Israelis and Palestinians," EU Commissioner Michel Barnier said.
At least 1,473 Palestinians and 574 Israelis have been killed in the violence, including a 63-year-old Gaza man who medical officials said died on Thursday of earlier wounds.
Suicide bombings have continued despite a six-week Israeli offensive in the West Bank launched in late March.
A U.N. report on Israel's assault on the Jenin Palestinian refugee camp during the offensive criticized all sides, saying Israel endangered civilians by using heavy weapons in heavily populated areas while 200 Palestinian fighters used the camp as a base.
The report by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan ( news - web sites) avoided the word "massacre" and dismissed Arab claims that 500 Palestinians died in Jenin during Israel's "Operation Defensive Shield."
It said there were cases when Israeli forces did not respect the neutrality of medical and humanitarian workers, and that 52 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers died in Jenin over 10 days.
The last thing ISRAEL wants is Arafat dead. If you want to call a leader a coward and idiot point that finger right at Sharon. He is the Prime Minister of a supposedly sovereign nation that has the 2nd most powerful military, thanks to us, in the world. He uses that force to surround Arafat every other week and push down a few buildings. The man is a traitor to his own country but you and other idiots on this thread want to blame someone else.
Yeah, they all went to Lucianne.com
Absolutely. And he has the might and power of a HOLY and JUST God behind him.
The 'evil doers' will regret that they angered this man, and the military might which will carry out his plan.
People being blown up and killed is a delicate issue?
Why did Sharon let this happen?
Are you old enough to remember the peace symbol? It was a circle that had an upsidedown Y?
I remember George Wallace called it the track of the American Chicken.
LOL!
Okay, what can our President do about Hamas in time? It's not like we can carpet bomb them or anything like that.
I am sorry but I think I have read on these threads that Bush told Israel to not hurt him.
Maybe I got it wrong.
What does that tell you about Sharon assuming that is true? Israel and every prime minister for the last 30 years has known the exact whereabouts of Arafat right down to the room he is sleeping in. NONE of them have even attempted to take him out. He is breathing because of ISRAEL NOT BECAUSE of a president halfway though his first term in office.
I don't know. Maybe because President Bush told him to give peace a chance.
In fact many Palie's would have to move to Jordon, Syria, or Lebanon, if we did a simple thing like STOP FEEDING THEM.
Our continued feeding and support of this manufactured terrorist society allows them to stay in Israel where they are totally dependent on the welfare of other countries to even exist. Cutting off their paycheck will force them to abandon the area and that will put a stop to the trouble they make.
As it is we promote a totally socially engineered created culture that has no history, no validity and no way on earth to support itself financially, the very basic requirements to form a society the Palis do not possess on their own, they are supplied in order to exist. We need to put an immediate stop to our part in it.
Hi Harpo ! Thanks !
What amazes me is how Israelis allow Sharon to remain in power after Defensive Shield proved absolutely useless and costly in IDF lives. Truly amazing.
The best response to 100 dead or injured would be to unleash more F16's with 1000 pound bombs on the crowd in the Gaza Strip as they dance the night away.
Gone are the days that an army could just wipe out an entire civlization and thus there would be no more threat to the occupying force.
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