Israel vows to assassinate militia leaders
Soldiers move back into the West Bank and Gaza to hunt down Palestinian suspects as hopes for 'road map to peace' dissolve in spiralling violence

The name of the latest Israeli army operation, Fine Tuning 1, is laden with layers of meaning. In its most literal sense the 'fine tuning' refers to the assassination of militia leaders, whom the Israelis this weekend said they will now systematically kill where and when they find them unless Palestinian security forces can arrest them first.

It is a line too from a mawkish Hebrew song, but above all it is a pun on the sound-alike Hebrew for 'targeted missile'. What it really means was writ in the blood and metal of the Apache helicopter attack in Gaza last week that ripped apart the car and bodies of Hamas political leader Ismail Abu Shanab and two bodyguards. It was a response to the suicide bombing on a bus full of Jews returning from prayers at the Wailing Wall that killed 20, six of them children.
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Israeli missile attack on Hamas leader misses target and kills passerby

A Drug for the Addict
The End of the Hudna
by Uri Avnery

It was a putsch. Like any classic putsch, it was carried out by a group of officers: Sharon, Mofaz, Ya'alon and the army top brass.

It is no secret that the military party (the only really functioning party in Israel) objected to the hudna (truce) from the first moment, much as it opposed the Road Map. Its powerful propaganda apparatus, which includes all the Israeli media, spread the message: "The hudna is a disaster! Every day of the hudna is a bad day! The reduction of violence to almost zero is a great misfortune: under cover of the truce, the terrorist organizations are recovering and rearming! Every terrorist strike avoided today will hit us much harder tomorrow!"

The army command was like an addict deprived of his drug. It was forbidden to carry out the action it wanted. It was just about to crush the intifada, victory was just around the corner, all that was needed was just one final decisive blow, and that would have been that.

The military was upset when it saw the new hope that took hold of the Israeli public, the bullish mood of the stock exchange, the rise in value of the shekel, the return of the masses to the entertainment centers, the signs of optimism on both sides. In effect, It was a spontaneous popular vote against the military policy.

Ariel Sharon realized that if this went on, reality would overturn his long-term plans. Therefore, right at the beginning of the hudna, he adopted three immediate goals:

First, to topple Abu-Mazen as soon as possible. Mahmud Abbas had become the darling of George Bush, a welcome guest at the White House. The unique standing of Sharon in Washington was in danger. The pair Bush-Sharon, which was mutating into a single Busharon unit, was in danger of becoming a triangle: Bush-Sharon-Abbas. There is no greater danger to Sharon's plans.

Second, to wipe out the Road Map in its infancy. The Map obliged Sharon to remove immediately about 80 settlement outposts, freeze all settlements, stop the building of the wall and withdraw the army from all West Bank towns. Sharon never dreamt of fulfilling even one of these obligations.

Third, to put an end to the hudna and give the army back its freedom of action in all the Palestinian territories.

The question was how this could be achieved without a trace of suspicion attaching itself to Sharon. The great majority of Israelis, who had greeted the hudna, could not possibly be allowed to suspect that their own leaders were responsible for extinguishing this glimmer of hope. Even more important, it was imperative that no such pernicious idea should enter the innocent head of the good George W. All the blame must fall on the Palestinians, so that the affection for Abu-Mazen would turn into contempt and hatred.
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The Iron Wall Revisted

I don't often publicly respond to a letter I receive. But I thought this exchange might be of broader interest, particularly since it involved one of the more popular pieces I have written.
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A Jew among 25,000 Muslims
Even as a young girl in Wimbledon Susan Nathan knew she would one day move to Israel. But why did she choose to settle in the Arab town of Tamra? She explains to Jonathan Cook

She makes an incongruous figure, waiting in front of the central mosque in the northern Israeli town of Tamra. There is no danger I will miss her. She has short blonde hair, in contrast to the rest of the women who cover their dark hair with scarves, and is wearing a loose-fitting floral kaftan, better suited to the streets of Wimbledon, her former home, than here in the Middle East.

The difference runs much deeper than mere looks: Susan Nathan is the only Jew among 25,000 Muslims in Tamra, one of the country's dozens of Arab communities whose council is run by Islamic fundamentalists. She is one of only two Israeli Jews known to have crossed the ethnic divide: the other is the controversial academic Uri Davis, who lives in nearby Sakhnin.
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Largest demolition in years: Israel destroys entire commercial market in one day
Over 100 shops and 5 homes demolished in Nazlat 'Isa for the building of the wall

Marking the single largest demolition of buildings in years, the entire commercial area of Nazlat 'Isa was today raised to the ground as some 15 bulldozers, accompanied by large numbers of military and border police, entered the community at 5:00 AM and destroyed over 100 shops and 5 homes. The market, which was previously targeted in January of this year with the destruction of 82 or close to one half of its shops, has been the commercial center for the entire region.

The bulldozers began the demolitions early in the morning and continued unabated until the late hours of the night.

The commercial area, just east of the Green Line in the Occupied West Bank, has been leveled for the building of an "isolation barrier"--an extension or offshoot of the Wall--that will entrap the community and the surrounding areas between it and the Wall to ensure complete isolation. Commercial areas along the Green Line have been consistently targeted with the building of the Wall in what assures that communities trapped between the Wall and the Green Line (the Wall in this case is located 2 km inside the West Bank) will have no infrastructure for survival.
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  thanks to Cursor

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