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NEWS & LETTERS, December 2002
Our Life and Times
Attacks continue in Middle East, Kenya
Al Qaeda has now taken responsibility for the Nov. 28
suicide bombing at a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya which killed ten Kenyans and three
Israelis, as well as the missile attack which narrowly missed an Israeli
passenger plane carrying 271 people over Mombasa. Amidst Ariel Sharon's
call for retaliation, the Bush administration has hurriedly warned Sharon not to
take retaliatory action because it doesn't want any action to interfere with its
imminent war on Iraq. In the meantime, Palestinian and Israeli civilians continue
to suffer from the suicide bombings within Israel and the murderous policies of
the Israeli government. During the month of November, two suicide bombings took
place at a mall near Tel Aviv, and in a bus full of school children in
Jerusalem. On Nov. 10, Kibbutz Metzer, known as a fortress of Arab-Jewish
cooperation, was the target of an Al Aqsa Brigade member who shot two children
and their mother as they were sleeping in their bed. These bombings and attacks once again allowed the Israeli
army to intensify its attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Life
for Palestinians under siege has been characterized by endless arrests, deaths
of youth fired at by Israeli troops, inability to go to school, work or get
medical care or even water. The murder of a UN aid official, Iain Hook, by a
trigger-happy Israeli soldier at the Jenin refugee camp, and the army's refusal
to let an ambulance take him to the hospital before his death, reflects what
happens to Palestinians every day. The Oct. 30 breakup of the Labor-Likud coalition in Israel
has now set the stage for new elections on Jan. 28, 2003. Sharon, who won the
Likud candidacy against Benjamin Netanyahu, has for now appointed Netanyahu and
Shaul Mofaz as his foreign minister and defense minister respectively. The
Labor Party has chosen Amram Mitzna as its candidate for prime minister. Mitzna
advocates unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and only half the West Bank.
He also supports the idea of Jerusalem as an open city. Mitzna has his own
checkered past as an Israeli army general during the 1987 Intifada. --Sheila Sahar |
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