<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1255"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2600.0" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Well the retaliation everyone was expecting (especially Sharon, his cabinet and the Army Generals) has hit big.  After all, why would the Israeli gov. have chosen to up the intensity of assasinations (especially Abu Hannoud, one of the heads of Hamas) days before Zinni was to come to Israel, if not to have some well timed terrorist attacks to point to as to why it is impossible to have negotiations with the Palestinians.  And as the international pressure for negotiations increases, so also does the need for grusome acts of Israeli civilian deaths to negate that possibitlity increase.  </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">10 dead (so far) and 150 wounded in Jerusalem, and now, as of an hour ago, ten dead (so far) and tens wounded in Haifa, plus one more bus bomb in Birkat Yarden (however only 6 were wounded lightly).  Further, there have been 3 wounded by gunfire between Beit Jalla and Gilo and one Palestinian dead near the Old City in Jerusalem after a security guard shot and killed him after some sort of argument they haven't figured out the specifics of yet (an hour ago or so).  </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">I am listening to Channel 2 (Israel) television right now, and the Military correspondent has stated twice in the last hour that Israel's retaliation will not be normal (as if that wasn't bad enough),  that more assasinations and strategic occupations of cities in Area A (Palestinian controlled areas) are obviously not working, and that there is likely to be a more total retaliation against the Palestinian Authority, of a larger scale than has been seen since the beginning of the Intifada.  Further he stated that Sharon and his cabinet were likely to make a final decision on whether Arafat and the Palestinian Authority were to be considered full enemies, with the result in the next days of an all out war with the P.A.  </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Obviously this statement (all out war) has been bandied about several times in the past and it has never come to it, but what is to come in the next days looks to be worse than the terrible last weeks in which the Israeli army occupied for weeks on end, major cities in the West Bank (in fact there was only a pull-out from Jenin 4 days ago).  </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">There is NO WAY to concieve that Sharon and his Army Generals didn't know that there would be a quick and harsh retaliation for assasinating Hannoud, and the timing is just too close to the renewed American pressure (even if it was only superficial) and Zinni's visit.  And further, there is no way that one can realistically concieve that the choice to assasinate Hannoud was done because they actually thought that it would prevent future terrorist acts, they know that the opposite has ALWAYS been true.  So this leads to the conclusion that what happened today was taken into consideration as part of Sharon's plan. Israeli Civilian casualties are the price paid for the wider security of the State of Israel in the sick cost-benefit analysis of Israeli real-politics.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">This in no way detracts from my disgust for attacks against civilian targets, and my disgust for the idiocy of Hamas and other Islamic militant groups. If they would keep to military and militant-settler targets, the international (and even Israeli) call for an immediate end to the occupation, a pull out of the settlements and more concientious objectors would increase dramatically.  And this is not even including the fact that these groups know and don't care that these actions will just lead to a harsher occupation and more poverty and death for their own people (in fact this increases their numbers so they look at this as a benefit).  </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Plus the fact (I must admit) that on a personal level, I ride those buses and I walk those very streets, and I dread going out that way.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">We shall see what results from this...sadly.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">btw...saw this published one minute ago: "<SPAN class=t12>Pedestrians and Kach activists attack Arab in Jerusalem`s Zion Square; police use force to extract him"</SPAN></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN class=t12></SPAN></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Bryan Atinsky<BR>IMC-Israel <BR>English Editorial Coordinator<BR><A href="http://www.indymedia.org.il">http://www.indymedia.org.il</A></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>