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| Middle East |
| Siege of Bethlehem church ends after 38 days |
| 2002-05-10 |
| Israel's siege of Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity ended as the 123 Palestinians who had been holed up inside for 38 days left one by one after a deal was cut to evacuate them. Ten peace activists who had slipped into the church last week to serve as human shields initially refused to leave Friday, but eventually walked out. I hope sincerely that the Israelis are busy beating them at this very moment. No, my tongue is not in my cheek. With the end to the siege, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said in Rome that the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Bethlehem is now a "question of hours or days." Then Yasser can start rebuilding his offensive infrastructure. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat hailed the lifting of the siege as "a very important step". "Finally, after all the fighting and the Israeli army's hesitation about pursuing its crimes in this holy place, this is a very important step," Arafat told journalists in Ramallah. "We hope that they (the Israelis) will continue their withdrawal from Bethlehem." Bet he does. Terrible the way those Israeli gunnies and thugs invaded somebody else's church and... Oh. It wasn't them. The first Palestinians to leave the church were 13 militants on Israel's most-wanted list and described as "terrorists" who were sent into exile. They were taken to Ben Gurion airport and flown out on a British military transport to Cyprus, from where they will eventually be sent to various European countries. Last-minute snags over where they would go had delayed the end to the standoff, but Cyprus announced late Thursday it would host them until that could be sorted out. First they had to find countries where the leadership was stupid enough or could be cajoled into taking them. It was kind of embarrassing when Italy said, thanks, but no thanks, but given enough Europressure couple with State Department pressure they finally agreed to take three. Mr Solana said Spain would like three, thank you. Our friend and ally, Mr Chretien, raised his hand and said, "Ooooh! Ooooh! We'll take one!" The others have been deposited here and there in Europe, where they'll probably set up local al-Aqsa cells and start a Eurofada. They were followed by 26 more Palestinian militants, considered less dangerous by Israel, who were to be sent to the Gaza Strip. There they received a heros' welcome. Next week, while the IDF's taking Gaza apart, they can catch them again. It's getting boring now. A Palestinian official in Ramallah said the men would not be imprisoned abroad but have humanitarian status during a temporary exile. An European diplomat from Madrid told AFP the men would not be treated as prisoners. Forsooth and Fort Smith! Why would they be treated as prisoners? The very idea, treating crazed killers as prisoners. It had been previously reported that the 26 would be jailed in Gaza, but within minutes of their arrival a Palestinian security official said they would be neither tried nor jailed. "They have arrived in part of Palestine and they are free in their homeland," Colonel Salem Dardonah told reporters at the Erez crossing point from Israel. "They will not be held, not even for an hour, nor will they be judged." Yeah. No matter what kind of promises were made to spring them. Under the terms of the final agreement, the last to leave the church were the 10 foreign pacifists, members of the International Solidarity Movement. They had initially refused to budge, saying they wanted to speak to a lawyer, an army spokesman told AFP. When they walked out, they were arrested by Israeli police. According to Israeli authorities, they could possibly be charged with "entering a closed military zone" and could be expelled from the country. Yeah, the stairs are real slippery at the calaboose. They should probably do something about that... That stand-off initially prevented US ballistics experts from entering the basilica to collect weapons left by the Palestinians, the army said. But by afternoon, the Americans had begun to recover the firearms, mainly Kalashnikov and M-16 assault rifles, an Israeli military spokesman said. "Nope. No Bad Guys there. Just put-upon civilians." Kristen Schurr, a member of the New York-based group Direct Action for Justice in Palestine, is a Peace Activist™, so we can believe her. Pope John Paul II's special envoy to the Middle East, French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, welcomed the end of the tense month-long standoff. He called the ending of the siege "a great piece of news" and a "first step" along the difficult but necessary path toward "a fair and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians," according to the Italian news agency Ansa. ...he said, applying fresh lipstick in anticipation of his next date with Yasser. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |