Withdraw, U.S. Tells Israel

Withdraw, U.S. Tells Israel

NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2001

In the strongest language used to date, Washington called Monday for Israel to withdraw troops immediately from Palestinian-controlled areas.

"Israeli Defense Forces should be withdrawn immediately from all Palestinian-controlled areas, and no further such incursions should be made," State Department deputy spokesman Phil Reeker said Monday.

A State Department official said Monday that a nearly identical message was delivered to Israel's deputy foreign minister, Michael Melchoir, by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer.

Israel rejected the U.S. demand, the Israeli Ha'aretz Web site reported.

"Our stance remains the same," Ha'aretz quoted a senior Israeli diplomatic source as saying. "We will leave only when the goals of the operation are achieved, and our only priority is security. We respect the United States but are acting just as any normal state would act."

Fighting in Bethlehem

Bethlehem was a battleground again Monday as Palestinian militants and Israeli soldiers exhanged gunfire.

Gunfire echoed in the streets as fighting continued into the fourth day despite the Palestinian Authority outlawing armed wings of Palestinian organizations. At least five Palestinians were wounded in the latest fighting, hospital officials said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres justified the weekend's military action by noting that there were still gangs of terrorists in many of these areas that are not under Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's control, he said Monday.

Peres is in Washington to push Israel's cause. Other Cabinet members are scheduled to go to Washington in coming weeks and Israeli officials plan to make their case with other countries that Palestinians are to blame for the continued violence.

"Now, there are gangs of terrorists in Ramallah, in Jenin, in Nablus, some other small places." Peres said. "We are telling the Palestinians, 'Look, here are the people who are conducting the terror; put them in jail.' And again, as I have said, not for punishment but for prevention."

Arafat met Monday in Gaza with Terje Rod-Larsen, the U.N. special envoy; Miguel Moratinos, the European Union envoy; Roland Schliker, the U.S. consul general; and Andrea Vidovin, the Russian envoy.

"We urged the Palestinian Authority to take bigger steps to combat terror and enforce the PA's cease-fire orders, and the Israelis to implement the existing agreements, including the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces and security personnel from area A," Larsen said Larsen in a statement.

"We, the U.S. consul-general and the Russian, European and U.N. special envoys ... urge him [Arafat] to take vigorous steps to combat terrorism and enforce the [Palestinian Authority's] cease-fire orders," Larsen said in a joint statement.

In a leaflet issued by the Fatah-armed wing in Bethlehem that demanded Israeli troops begin a pullout, the Palestinian group said, "Palestinian mortars and gunfire will be falling on the Jewish settlement of Gilo [between Bethlehem and Jerusalem] if Israel does not get its forces out from Bethlehem immediately," adding that Palestinian militants would impose a curfew on Gilo in retaliation, "and no agreements or understandings would prevent us from doing so."

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