International Middle East Media Center – 2005-01-20 12:37:50
http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/edit/index.php?op=edit&itemid=1925
(October 6, 2004) The United States on Tuesday vetoed a resolution demanding that Israel stop the invasion of the Gaza Strip that has cost at least 90 Palestinian lives.
A total of 11 nations voted in favor of the Arab block initiated resolution. Britain, Germany and Romania abstained.
The draft resolution, submitted to the council in an emergency meeting convened at the request of Arab nations on Monday, calls for an immediate halt to the offensive and calls on Israel and the Palestinians to immediately implement the internationally-backed road map peace plan.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman expressed his happiness.
US Ambassador to the UN John Danforth described the resolution as “lopsided and unbalanced”
Algeria’s UN Ambassador Abdallah Baali said: “It is a sad day for the Palestinians and it is a sad day for justice,”
Earlier, the US rejected a Russian-sponsored compromise to condemn both Israel, for its invasion, and Hamas, for firing rockets inside Israel.
On Monday, Arab nations submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council calling Israel to immediately halt its invasion of the northern Gaza Strip. The United States indicated it would veto the submitted resolution.
Israel declared that the operation aimed at preventing the firing of Qassam rockets at Israeli targets inside the Gaza Strip and at the southern Negev Israeli towns.
The draft resolution calls for an immediate halt to the major Israeli offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, and calls on Israel and the Palestinians to immediately implement the internationally backed road map peace plan.
Algeria’s U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Baali requested the Security Council emergency meeting on behalf of the Arab nations UN block.
“Taking into account the gravity, the urgency of the situation, the seriousness of the situation, we need to have the Security Council take a decision quickly – and quickly means Tuesday at the latest,” Baali said.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted an American diplomatic source in Washington as saying that the United States would veto the resolution if proposed during Monday’s meeting.
US Ambassador John Danforth described the drafted resolution as “one more step on the road to nowhere,”
“That is not the way to peace. That is not the road map to peace,” he added.
The United States expressed hopes that Israel will quickly end its massive offensive in Gaza without expanding the operation, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Monday.
“I hope it does not expand and I hope whatever he does is proportionate to the threat that Israel is facing and I hope that this operation can come to a conclusion quickly,” Powell told reporters aboard his plane as he flew to Brazil.
The US apparently is buying more time for Israel to peruse the objectives of the military operation; therefore it signaled a veto warning against the proposed Monday voting.
Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinians’ UN representative, told the council that Israeli reacted to an attack by a “rudimentary” rocket by sending 2,000 troops, 100 tanks, more than 100 other armored vehicles and bulldozers and helicopter gun ships into the strip, focusing its sights on the Jabalya refugee camp.
“These forces deliberately destroyed just about everything in their way, including nurseries and grammar schools,” Al-Kidwa said.
“Now there are hundreds of Palestinians without shelter as a result of that total demolition or partial demolition of their homes, tens of thousands without water or electricity and suffering from severe shortages of food and medicine, precipitating a genuine humanitarian tragedy,” he added.
“There is absolutely no justification for this Israeli hysteria, this widespread killing…there is no justification for this state terrorism.” He concluded.
The Real Intention Is To Freeze The Peace Process
IMEMC Staff & Agencies
(October 6, 2004) — A top Israeli Prime Minister’s aid said Tuesday that the aim of advancing unilateral disengagement is to freeze the peace process, prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and push aside debates about refugees, Jerusalem and borders, with all achievements happening with the approval and blessing of the United States.
“The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process,” Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s senior adviser Dov Weisglass told Haaretz, in an interview for its Friday Magazine.
Weisglass, one of the architects of disengagement, added: “And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda; and all this with authority and permission; all with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress.”
“The disengagement is actually formaldehyde,” he said. “It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.” He added.
Asked why the disengagement plan had been hatched, Weisglass explained that his government was worried that even when the Americans blamed Palestinians for the lack of progress, they and the international community would finally come after Israel, that with the Geneva initiative, with increasing refusal to serve in the Palestinian territories, and that with the deterioration in the economy, it was important for Israel to present a different plan that totally pushes Palestinians out of the political seen.
Weisglass affirmed that the main achievement of the Gaza pullout plan is the freezing of the peace process in a “legitimate manner.”
“That is exactly what happened,” he said. “You know, the term `peace process’ is a bundle of concepts and commitments. The peace process is the establishment of a Palestinian state with all the security risks that entails. The peace process is the evacuation of settlements, it’s the return of refugees, it’s the partition of Jerusalem. And all that has now been frozen”
To stress his point, Weisglass noted that the disengagement plan managed to preserve 190,000 settlers out of a total of 240,000. [Apparently he excluded East Jerusalem settlers from the count]
It is the first time in which a top Israeli official publicly declares that disengagement was presented to bring an end to the US brokered road map peace initiative.
Being the closest politician to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, and a senior architect of the disengagement plan, Weisglass frankness about the aims of disengagement should ring a red bell about the future of the Middle East.
Defenders of disengagement were less vocal about the aims and benefits of disengagement, fearing international angry reactions, yet in the midst of the heat of the American presidential election campaign, it is likely that such statements will pass unnoticed in Washington.
A Chronology of Chaos
October, 6, 2004 22:34
Workshop shelled in Jabalia
October, 6, 2004 22:10
Four residents apprehended in Khan Younis
October, 6, 2004 17:06
Tens of residents withheld on a checkpoint, west of Ramallah
October, 6, 2004 16:54
Clashes reported in Betunia between tens of youth and soldiers after raiding it
October, 6, 2004 16:52
Army raids Betunia, west of Ramallah,
October, 6, 2004 14:49
Aged woman critically wounded in Beit Lahia
October, 6, 2004 14:23
Eight residents, including six brothers apprehended in Hebron
October, 6, 2004 14:12
One resident shot dead near Tulkarem, army claims he attempted to hurl a cocktail bombs at the soldiers
October, 6, 2004 13:22
Agricultural fields bulldozed, west of Khan Younis, in the south of the Gaza Strip
October, 6, 2004 12:52
One resident apprehended north of Qalqilia
October, 6, 2004 12:32
Four homes leveled west if Khan Younis
October, 6, 2004 11:46
Army raids several villages near Ramallah, arrests five residents
October, 6, 2004 11:32
Resistance exchanges fire with the army near Kfar Darom settlement in the Gaza Strip
October, 6, 2004 11:07
Special army units break into two houses in the village of Seida , north of Tulkarem and turned them into military posts
October, 6, 2004 10:52
One Palestinian and his son killed as a tank shell exploded in their home
October, 6, 2004 10:41
One resident shot dead in Jabalia, on Wednesday at dawn
October, 6, 2004 10:12
Soldiers tightens closure over Hebron
October, 6, 2004 10:03
Army apprehends 16 Palestinians in the West Bank on Wednesday at dawn
October, 5, 2004 13:39
One resident severly clubbed in Nablus, sustains several bruises
October, 5, 2004 12:31
One youth apprehended in Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem
October, 5, 2004 11:47
Two youths apprehended in Hebron
October, 5, 2004 10:42
13 years old girl shot dead in Tal Al-Sultan in Rafah
October, 5, 2004 10:31
Soldiers impose curfew over Qabatia, near Jenin
October, 5, 2004 10:05
Hamas activist shot dead in Hebron
October, 5, 2004 09:42
Military operations continue in Gaza for the seventh day
October, 5, 2004 09:31
Eight residents apprehended in the West Bank this morning
October, 5, 2004 09:23
One killed several other wounded east of Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip
October, 5, 2004 09:17
One soldiers shot dead in Ramallah, after army raided it
