Conference taveng::bagels

656.0. "Habash, on Terrorism" by TAV02::FEINBERG (Don Feinberg) Wed Mar 08 1989 02:58

Here's something you probably won't read in the Boston Globe...(from the
Jerusalem Post, 8 March, 1989.  For those of you that don't know, the
J. P. is a distinctly left-wing paper.)

/don feinberg
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                   Habash Says He'll Step Up Attacks on Israel



                              Calls Arafat a Traitor





       DAMASCUS (AP) - George Habash, leader of the Popular Front  for  the

       Liberation   of   Palestine,  vowed  yesterday  to  escalate  border

       operations agains Israel,  saying  that  such  operations  were  not

       included in the PLO's renunciation of terrorism.



       Speaking at a news conference, Habash said:  "There is no resolution

       (by  the  Palestine  National Council) ...  providing for a truce in

       South Lebanon between us and the Israelis."



       Habash also attacked Arafat as a "traitor"  and  said  that  he  had

       deviated from the Palestinian consensus in his recent declarations.



       Habash said that  the  group  "will  not  only  keep  up  the  armed

       struggle,  but  will  also  escalate  it and diversify its forms and

       methods." He did not elaborate.



       Habash reportedly dismissed two senior members of  his  organization

       recently  after  they  expressed  sympathy for Arafat.  The Lebanese

       paper "Al-Bana" said that the two were  the  editor  of  the  PFLP's

       weekly  "Al-Hadaf", Amad Rahaime, and a member of the PFLP political

       department.



       Arafat, too, has said that military operations  agains  Israel  were

       not  considered  terrorist  acts.  But he recently indicated that he

       would be willing to negotiate, through intermediaries,  a  truce  in

       South Lebanon.



       Since December, terrorists hace clashed three  times  with  IDF  and

       South  Lebanese  Army  troops  in Lebanon while trying to infiltrate

       into Israel.  Ten terrorists have been killed.

    Don,
    
    You're scratching up a touchy one, you are! Watch out for ratholes
    and windups!
    
    Whilst arguments follow each other endlessly on the West Bank
    occupation issue, it remains undeniable that South Lebanon is "South
    LEBANON". Israeli soldiers are an occupying force, there.
    
    The issue of terrorist attacks in an occupied (part of a) country has
    to be valued differently than terrorist attacks against civil targets
    in- and outside of Israel.
    
    While Habash is definitely not one of my buddies, it is difficult not
    to admit that every people has the right to fight a military occupant,
    to regain independence.
    
    Personally, I fear that this topic will be turning again into an
    endless "Palestinian vs. Israel" bashing note.
    
    Differentiatingly yours,
    
    Chris

Re:.0

The Jerusalem Post is hardly what I would describe as a leftist newspaper.  They
have a distinct bent towards the Maarach, but if that is what you call left, 
than you adhere to more liberal definitions than I do.

Re: .1

True, Zahal is in South Lebanon, however I could guarantee you 100% that the 
destination of his "guerillas" was not Marjayoun.

David

    Sentiments expressed in .0 and .1 indicate how different the middle
    east is from the rest of the world, and how yardsticks that may
    apply elswhere, cannot be appied here.
    
    .0 notes that (as reported in the JP), Arafat "would be willing
    to negotiate a truce ... in South Lebanon."
    
    .1 notes that "every people has a right to fight a military occupant
    to regain independence."
    
    But here we are in Lebanon!  How is it that Lebanon does not negotiate
    the truce?  Of course we know why it cannot.  But who is Arafat
    that he would negotiate a truce with a foreign occupier in a state
    that gives him no official standing?  Madness, of course.  
    
    In recognition of such madness, and to give some stability to an
    extremely fragile situation, Israel establishes its security zone.
    Imagine what the border would be like without it.