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| Middle East |
| Israeli Prisoner Release List Angers Palestinians |
| 2003-08-04 |
| JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel on Monday published a list of 342 Palestinian prisoners it plans to free on Wednesday to bolster a U.S.-backed peace plan and reformist Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, but Palestinians cried foul. Foul! Actually they were referring to the smell emanating from Arafat and the 20 "militants" cooped up in Ramallah Palestinian officials noted that 31 men were to have completed their sentences this month anyway, and that Israeli officials said earlier 540 would be freed. Palestinians want a general release of all 6,000 of their brethren in Israeli jails. um......how about...no "This is a complete deception, a trick," said Palestinian Security Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan. "What the Israelis are doing will complicate the peace process and frustrate the peace supporters among the Palestinians." both of them? In another blow to peace hopes, the local branch of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militant group in the West Bank city of Tulkarm threatened to break a three-month truce to avenge the killing of one of its members by Israeli soldiers. The Brigades leader in Tulkarm said the local branch would otherwise stick to the cease-fire declared on June 29 by it and other Islamic militant groups. Other branches of the Brigades said they would adhere to the truce. The publication of the prisoners’ names on the Internet was aimed at giving any Israeli opposed to a prisoner’s release time to appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court to keep him in jail. Israel gave no explanation why only 342 prisoners -- 183 convicted by Israeli courts of activities ranging from stone-throwing to membership in "terrorist organizations" and 159 detained without trial -- were being released. we’re tired of feeding them, and they stink MOFAZ SAYS NO PULLBACKS BEFORE CRACKDOWN Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, responding to a Palestinian shooting attack that wounded a Jewish settler and her three children on Sunday, said there would be no further releases or West Bank pullbacks until Abbas reined in militants. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group within President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, said it was behind the attack. "For now, we will not transfer any more Palestinian cities until we see that the necessary steps are being taken against the terror and definitely against the group that carried out the shooting," Mofaz told reporters. Israeli forces quit Bethlehem in the West Bank last month under the peace plan that envisions an end to almost three years of violence and creation of a Palestinian state by 2005. Militants have said anything short of a general release of all Palestinian prisoners could jeopardize the truce. Everything could jeopardize the truce! Convicted prisoners’ sentences ranged from four months for throwing stones to 15 years in jail for "activity in Islamic Jihad." A spokesman for the Organization of Israel Terror Victims, a group representing the families of Israelis wounded or killed in Palestinian attacks, said it was "studying the list for any specific names we might object to." A statement prefacing the list on the Hebrew-language Web site at http:/list.ips.gov.il said: "It should be emphasized the list does not include any prisoners or detainees with ’blood on their hands’." In a move that could help end his confinement to the Israeli-surrounded West Bank city of Ramallah, Arafat said he intends to move some 20 militants he has been sheltering there to Jericho or the Gaza Strip. Israel has proposed the transfer in an apparent attempt to pave the way for a pullback from Ramallah, a withdrawal that would help Abbas show his people that peacemaking is working. |
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #7 Mojo - only if it covers Ramallah and Gaza at the same time. And make sure the bas$$$$ is home at the time... |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-8-4 5:26:27 PM |
| #6 sounds a lot like Schwing! (Apologies to Waynes' World™) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-8-4 2:15:16 PM |
| #5 snellenr - not to upstage P.J. (a favorite of mine), but the Arabic word is pronounced "shway" and means, approximately, relax or cool your jets - or so the contexts I've seen it used in suggested. |
| Posted by: ·com 2003-8-4 1:01:45 PM |
| #4 Pals would receive manna from heaven and cry, "Deception! Foul! It's a trick! No butter and no honey - and where's that double-latte I ordered?!!?!" The phrase "casting pearls before swine" has never, ever, been more apropos. |
| Posted by: ·com 2003-8-4 12:57:17 PM |
| #3 Gah... make that "Israeli [anything] Angers Palestinians"... gotta learn to *not* use the angle brackets for such things... |
| Posted by: snellenr 2003-8-4 12:49:07 PM |
| #2 In the sense that "news" implies something that you didn't know before, I'm not sure that the headline "Israeli "What's Arabic for 'calm down'?" I yelled. "As far as I can tell," said Miss Phillips, "there's no such word." P.J. O'Rourke, Holidays in Hell |
| Posted by: snellenr 2003-8-4 12:46:28 PM |
| #1 How about a nice Arclight to cover the withdrawal? |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-8-4 12:45:30 PM |