The Logic Off Topic list

This is a rational editorial from the New York Times today.

>http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/06/opinion/06LEWI.html?todaysheadlines 


For Israel's Sake

By ANTHONY LEWIS

The Middle East peace initiative that President Bush was planning before 
Sept. 11 is desperately needed now. It would help the international 
struggle against terrorism. But more important, it is the only hope of 
ending the ratcheting cycle of violence that afflicts Israel and the 
Palestinians.

One thing must be understood first. Our support for Israel was not the 
major factor in Osama bin Laden's decision to strike at America. His 
hatred goes far beyond any particular policy. Prof. Michael Ignatieff of 
Harvard put it well this week in The Guardian, London.

"What we are up against is apocalyptic nihilism . . .," he wrote. "It is 
absurd to believe they [the terrorists] are making political demands at 
all. They are seeking the violent transformation of an irremediably 
sinful and unjust world."

American policy on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict does negatively 
affect public attitudes in the Arab world toward the coalition's 
antiterrorism effort. Even in the pro-Western Persian Gulf states, Warren 
Hoge of The New York Times reported this week, there is a "general dismay 
about perceived American tolerance of violence against the Palestinians." 
A minister of the United Arab Emirates said that if Israeli killings of 
Palestinians continued, "most of us will certainly have to reconsider our 
role in the coalition." 

But for me the tragedy is the unraveling of all the past efforts for 
peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It is tragic because this need 
not be a situation of apocalyptic nihilism. The conflict is susceptible 
of political solution. But on both sides today the leadership lacks the 
domestic political support needed to make a deal.

The costs are terrible. Think of our ally, Israel. Week after week its 
people, innocent civilians, are killed by Palestinian bombers and gunmen. 
And the government's policy answer -- to respond with punishing military 
attacks -- is demonstrably a failure. The policy not only fails to make 
the Israeli public more secure; it arouses more anti-Israel violence.

This week two Hamas gunmen raided a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip 
and killed two Israelis. In response, Israeli tanks shelled a town, 
killing six Palestinians -- who may have had nothing to do with the raid 
-- and bulldozers destroyed Palestinian farmland. The result: more 
funerals, more deprivation, more rage. 

Then, yesterday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rebuked the United States 
for seeking Arab support for the coalition against terrorism. And a few 
hours later he sent tanks, troops and helicopters against Palestinians in 
Hebron, killing at least five. 

Mr. Sharon's coalition government has been beset by right-wing demands 
for ever stronger military action. I thought Mr. Sharon, for all his past 
acts of provocation and brutality, understood that more and more force 
could not assure Israelis a tranquil life. That may not be so. 

The Israeli government always blames Yasir Arafat for acts of terrorism. 
But it is a fantasy to believe that the leader of a non-state, beset by 
antagonistic factions and his people's desperation, can exercise that 
kind of control. When he arrested four teenage militants recently, angry 
mobs surrounded the compound where they were held.

The single Israeli action that would most effectively reduce Palestinian 
desperation and militancy would be a halt to building of settlements in 
the West Bank and in Gaza. That process of colonization has gone right on 
through all the talk of peace and cease-fires. A Peace Now survey just 
completed shows that in the last four months 10 new settlements were 
established.

Some 6,000 Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip take up 20 percent of the 
territory, with one million Palestinians crammed into the rest. Those 
settlements, provoking burning resentment, are flashpoints for violence. 
It would be logical -- and a powerful symbol -- to abandon them. But Mr. 
Sharon would do that only if the United States put heavy pressure on him 
-- and he could use that as an excuse with the far right. 

The Bush administration has been saying that it will go ahead with its 
initiative only if and when violence stops. But that won't work; the 
violence will not stop unless we act. The most effective way to ease the 
violence is for America to come forward with a plan that would make 
Israelis and Palestinians begin to believe, again, in a political cure 
for their traumas. 

----- and a bit more far fetched, but worth considering  
--------------------

"Mossad capable of US attack": US Army officials
By Barbara Ferguson

WASHINGTON, 6 October - Leading US Army analysts believe Israelis
intelligence agency, the Mossad, is iruthless and cunning,i ia wildcardi
that has (the) capability to target US forces and make it look like a
Palestinian/Arab act.

This assertion about Americais closest ally was reported in a front page
story in The Washington Times on Sept. 10 o just one day before the
attacks in America that are being blamed on iIslamic terrorists.i

The Times reported that this serious charge by US Army officers against
the Israelis appeared in a 68-page report prepared by 60 officers at the
US Armyis School for Advanced Military Studies, a training group for US
Army officers.

The US Armyis questions about possible provocation by Israel is not a
first. Back in Aug. 3, 1993, a story in New Yorkis The Village Voice
said that Israeli Mossad was perhaps involved in (or had foreknowledge
of) the previous iArab terroristi attack on the World Trade Center.

Following the Sept. 11 attacks, at least three different groups of
Israelis o some of whom are suspected of having ties to the Mossad o
were taken into custody after eye witnesses reported seeing them
celebrating in several locations across the river from lower Manhattan
in New Jersey. In two cases, the men were reportedly videotaping the
initial attack on the World Trade Center.

In a separate incident, the Israeli newspaper, Haiaretz, reported on
Sept. 18 that five Israelis, suspected of working for the Mossad, had
been arrested for what the FBI described as ipuzzling behaviori
following the attack.

The five Israelis were arrested four hours after the attack while
filming the smoking skyline from the roof of their companyis building.
It appears they were spotted by one of the neighbors shouting cries of
ijoy and mockery.i Haiaretz says the neighbors called the police and the
FBI.

Here are a few more pieces for the puzzle:

o According to a Newsbytes website report last week, the FBI is
investigating the fact that an instant message warning of the impending
attack was sent to an Israeli company in Tel Aviv two hours before the
Sept. 11 attack. Newsbytes is owned by the Washington Post Co.

o Senior officials from Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence
service, came to Washington last month to warn the CIA and the FBI that
a cell of up to 200 terrorists was planning a major operation in
America, according to a report in the London-based Sunday Telegraph on
Sept. 17.

Arab diplomatic sources told the Jordanian Al-Watan newspaper that the
approximately 4,000 Israeli citizens, who were absent from the World
Trade Center on Sept. 11, were tipped-off by Israel about the impending
attack.


http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=9627