Killing as campaign strategy

By Khaled Amayreh
In an apparent effort to woo right-wing voters one month ahead of Israel's prime ministerial elections, Prime Minister Ehud Barak has once again resorted to saber-rattling. But this was not the only goal of Barak's pugnacious behaviour: it was also calculated to increase pressure on Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to accept recent American proposals on a prospective final status deal.
On 2 January, Barak instructed his army to "shake off the dust" and get ready for a the possibility of a war in the region, the likelihood of which he said would increase significantly if the current diplomatic efforts are unsuccessful.
Barak also decided to renew the stringent measures imposed on the Palestinian self-rule areas. This included blockading all Arab towns and villages, closing all crossing points into the PA enclaves and withdrawing VIP cards from a number of PA officials.
Barak's decisions came during an emergency meeting of his security cabinet Monday night, a few hours after a car-bomb explosion rocked the Jewish town of Netanya, 80 kilometres north of Tel Aviv. Scores of Israelis sustained minor injuries in the incident, for which Israeli officials laid the blame squarely on Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and his Fatah organisation.
Fatah had threatened to retaliate for the cold-blooded murder by Israeli undercover agents on 31 December in Tulkarm of Dr Thabet Thabet, the movement's secretary-general and a senior official at the PA's health ministry.
Thabet, an erstwhile peace supporter who had initiated "the Palestinian committee for dialogue and understanding with the Israeli people," was shot outside his home by a sharp-shooter poised on a military truck about 200 metres from his house, located on a main road south of Tulkarm. Thabet, 50, was reportedly hit by three to four bullets in the chest, and eventually succumbed to his wounds on the way to a hospital. During his funeral on 1 January, thousands of Fatah activists demanded retaliation, shouting "revenge, revenge, sooner rather than later."
The "liquidation" of Thabet, as the Israeli army referred to the murder, coincided with a new round of blood-letting by Israeli occupation soldiers and settlers following a period of relative calm during the Eid Al-Fitr holiday.
The bloody rampage, which in several instances took the form of blanket artillery bombardment or random shooting at Palestinian civilian neighbourhoods in Hebron and Nablus, and to a lesser extent in the Gaza Strip, killed at least six Palestinians. Among the victims were two children, 10-year-old Mouath Abu Hadwan in Hebron, and four-year-old Abdel-Rahman Ikhdeish in Nablus. Both were inside their homes when they were killed by shrapnel from Israeli shells.
A 22-year-old man, identified as Tahrir Suleiman Rizk, was also killed on 21 December. Shooting erratically, heavily armed Israeli settlers entered the village of Hizma, to the north-west of Jerusalem. In the midst of this fire, Rizk was killed instantly. The settlers fled the village, reportedly under the protection of the Israeli army.
Two more Palestinian security officers were also murdered near Tulkarm during the night of 31 December, apparently after they had been kidnapped and tortured by undercover Israeli soldiers. Palestinian sources said the victims' bodies, which were found naked, bore the marks of such treatment.
Another ugly incident, which speaks volumes, took place in Hebron on 1 January, when Israeli occupation soldiers shot an elderly Palestinian man without the slightest provocation. They even prevented Palestinians from giving him first aid or taking him to a hospital. According to eyewitnesses, Israeli soldiers stopped Jadallah Jabari and while they were talking to him, one soldier suddenly and nonchalantly shot him in the leg, which later had to be amputated.
The incident, say Palestinians, underscores the contempt that Israelis have for Palestinians' lives. It also highlights the urgent need for the international protection they have requested. Such wanton savagery and repression, they emphasise, occur regularly even though only a small portion finds its way to television screens around the world.
Central Hebron, where the shooting occurred, has intermittently been under curfew since the outbreak of the Intifada more than three months ago. However, the 24-hour curfew doesn't apply to Jewish settlers, who attack Arab homes and vandalise their property, often in full view of Israeli occupation soldiers.
This latest bloody rampage against Palestinian civilians followed the killing by Palestinian assailants on 31 December of Benyamin Zev Kahana, the leader of the extremist Jewish group known as "Kahana Hay." This group openly calls for the expulsion and/or extermination of Palestinians in the territories delineated by the British mandate in 1920. Palestinian guerrillas, believed to be affiliated with either Hamas or the Islamic Jihad, attacked Kahana's car near the Jewish settlement of Ufra in the early morning with automatic weapons, killing him, his wife and injuring his five children who were in the car.
The slain terrorist is the son of the late Rabbi Meir Kahana, founder of the Jewish Defence League and the Kach terrorist group, responsible for numerous murderous attacks on Palestinian and Arab targets in Palestine as well as the United States.
An Egyptian-born American citizen, Sayed Nuseir, killed Meir Kahana in New York in November 1990. The sinister ideology of the Kahanas found expression in several books written by Meir Kahana, including his infamous book They Must Go published in New York in 1981, in which he urged the Israeli government to expel the Palestinians to ensure the racial purity of the Israeli state. The killing of the son came only a few days after his followers celebrated the 10th anniversary of the father's assassination.
Another Kach terrorist, Baruch Goldstein, murdered 29 Arab worshipers on 25 February 1994 while they prayed at dawn in the Ibrahimi Mosque located in downtown Hebron.
In 1983, Kach terrorists attacked the campus of Hebron University, killing two students and wounding fifteen others. Three years earlier, they were responsible for placing time-bombs in the cars of three Arab mayors, seriously injuring one of them, former Mayor of Nablus Bassam Al Shaka'a. The killing of Kahan Jr has set off alarm bells in the Israeli security establishment which warned that Jewish terrorists might now carry out "qualitative attacks" on "qualitative targets" such as the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem and commit massacres against Palestinians similar to that by Goldstein at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron nearly seven years ago.
Talking peace, readying for war
Between right and realisation
Grief overshadows holiday season 28 Dec. 2000 - 3 Jan. 2001
The American bridge 28 Dec. 2000 - 3 Jan. 2001
Mission impossible? 21 - 27 December 2000
Palestinian red lines 21 - 27 December 2000
See Intifada in focus
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