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Israeli opposition demand PM Olmert explain Syria air strike
A member of Israel's left-wing opposition on Monday demanded that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert brief lawmakers on a still unconfirmed air strike against Syria that has sparked rampant speculation.Zehava Gal-On, an MP for the Meretz party, wrote to attorney general Menachem Mazuz in a letter, demanding that Olmert brief lawmakers on the incident in keeping with Israeli law. "In the light of foreign reports on an Israeli air attack in Syria, and the total blackout in Israel on whether anything happened or not, I ask you to make the prime minister face his obligations decreed by law," she wrote. She said Israel's basic law stipulated that the prime minister has a duty to inform parliament's defence and foreign affairs committee or one of its deputy bodies on any extraordinary military operation. "It is not possible that under the basic law and the basic principles of democracy, parliament cannot supervise beyond border military operations," the lawmaker wrote. On Sunday, military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin boasted that Israel had recovered its "deterrent capability" in reportedly alluding to the strike. Damascus said that its air defences fired on Israeli warplanes which dropped munitions on its territory on September 6, and has protested to the UN Security Council. Israeli officials have kept up a wall of silence over the incident. Foreign media reports have speculated that Israel bombed weapons paid for by Iran and destined for Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, or that the incident was related to a suspected nuclear shipment from communist North Korea to Syria. Posted by: Fred 2007-09-18 |
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