Friday, November 22, 2002

Ordering Hunt for Bomb Plotters, Sharon Resists More Drastic Steps

Mr. Arafat today harshly criticized violence against Israeli civilians within the 1967 borders.

"Resisting Israeli occupation and settlements doesn't mean targeting the lives of the Israeli civilians who have no relation at all with occupation and settlement activity," he said through his spokesman. "They are normal people who are living their daily lives, and targeting them is a condemned act ethically and politically."

The effect of such bombings, he said, is to make even "legitimate resistance" look like "blind terrorism."

But while Mr. Arafat has recognized Israel's right to exist, at least within its pre-1967 borders, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have not. In practice, these groups make no distinction among Israelis and have repeatedly shown a determination to kill them without regard to age, occupation or geography.

At the urging of the European Union and Egypt, Mr. Arafat's Fatah faction has been negotiating with Hamas to suspend suicide bombings in pre-1967 Israel, at least during the Israeli election campaign, when such attacks are likely to aid the right wing.

But in a commentary on a Hamas Web site today, Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a political leader of Hamas, rejected that distinction as well. "I'm shocked at what I hear people keep saying, that the Likud is violent and the Labor is peaceful," he wrote. They are both violent, he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/22/international/middleeast/22ISRA.html?pagewanted=all&position=top

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