Secret Talks - Arafat Meets Top Israelis, former heads of Army andShinbe

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Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2000 10:44:45 +0000
From: NewsFlash <MERL@MiddleEast.Org>
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Subject: Secret Talks - Arafat Meets Top Israelis,
     former heads of Army and Shinbet

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               USING AND TWISTING THE ARAFAT REGIME

MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 11/26:
The report that while denying everything to his own people Arafat met last 
evening 
with top Israelis -- the former head of Israel's Army, and the former head of 
Israel's internal intelligence service, the Shinbet -- is probably true.  This 
is how the Americans and the Israelis control the Middle East when the going 
gets rough -- in secret meetings with Kings, dictators, and "client-regimes". 
 This is precisely the reason Arafat has been put in place by the U.S., Israel, 
and the neighboring Arab "client regimes" -- to make secret and conflicted 
deals 
that must be done in private, only with the people at the top, and kept from 
everyone else.  There are no written records and when it comes to the Arabs 
there 
is no way to bring the leaders to accountability before their own people.  
Things 
leak out over time -- like Arafat's secret Tel Aviv bank account with hundreds 
of millions of dollars should he have to flee the wrath of his own people -- 
but much remains under the table and hidden from view.   The following report 
about a secret meeting at this top level is just in from Reuters...with more 
likely soon.  Meanwhile, taking into consideration Israeli threats to invade 
some Palestinian "Area A" areas -- see the story in today's Sunday Times below 
-- the likelihood is Arafat is being pressed to the wall as well as bribed big 
time, told he can either capitulate (with all kinds of face-savings gestures 
if he will) or possibly face the end of his regime.



                FORMER ARMY AND SHIN BET HEADS MEET SECRETLY WITH ARAFAT
  
JERUSALEM, Nov 26 (Reuters) - An Israeli cabinet minister and a former Israeli 
spymaster met Palestinian President Yasser Arafat secretly in the Gaza Strip 
on Saturday night to try to end two months of violence, Israeli political 
sources 
said. 

The sources said minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, a former army chief, and Ami 
Ayalon, 
a former head of the Shin Bet intelligence service known for his contacts with 
Palestinian officials, met Arafat at Prime Minister Ehud Barak's behest. 

But a senior Palestinian official said: "President Yasser Arafat did not meet 
anyone last night. Shahak came to Gaza last week, and we believe they are 
talking 
about such meetings to give the impression they are seeking an end to the 
violence." 

Asked about the report of a secret meeting, Lipkin-Shahak told Israel's Army 
Radio: "I don't intend to confirm or deny meetings." Asked what Israel would 
seek from Arafat, he said an end to the violence. 

At least 274 people, most of them Arabs, have been kiled in the two months 
since 
an anti-Israeli Palestinian uprising erupted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 




          ISRAELI TANKS PREPARE TO SEIZE WEST BANK LAND FROM ARAFAT
                           Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv 

[Sunday Times - UK - 26 November]:   ISRAELI tank and infantry brigades began 
training last week for the possible reoccupation of three areas of the West 
Bank 
ruled by Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader. 

Should the order be given, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) would move army 
units 
into Palestinian neighbourhoods that border Israeli settlements. The aim would 
be to create buffer zones to stop Palestinian gunmen attacking Jewish settlers. 

Such a move could cost both lives and international support. Palestinian police 
would defend the areas ferociously. International condemnation would follow 
because 
Israel would be recapturing territory from which it withdrew under the 1993 
Oslo 
peace agreement, brokered by the Americans.These areas are now fully controlled 
by the Palestinian Authority, led by Arafat. 

Last Thursday the Israeli cabinet authorised Ehud Barak, the prime minister, 
to take the "necessary military decisions" without calling further on the 
cabinet. 
"We must understand that we are in a state of war with the Palestinians and we 
should act accordingly," said Dalya Itzik, a cabinet minister. 
Ten thousand Israeli soldiers are already deployed across the West Bank and 
Gaza, 
more than the number of troops in southern Lebanon before Israel's withdrawal 
earlier this year. To allow the regular army time to train, thousands more 
reserve 
soldiers last week re-ceived "call-up decree number 8" papers, which are 
normally 
distributed only in emergencies. 

Soldiers in the elite Merkava tank and Golani infantry brigade, veterans of 
battles 
with Hezbollah fundamentalists in the former Lebanese security zone, have 
started 
training on replicas of the areas marked for reoccupation at a military base 
in the Negev desert. The areas the IDF has targeted are heavily populated and 
the battles could degenerate into urban warfare. 

The first, and for the military the most important, is several hundred metres 
of the northwestern neighbourhood of Beit Jallah, a Christian Palestinian town 
near Bethlehem. 
In the past six weeks Palestinian gunmen have been shooting from this area 
toward 
Gilo, a Jewish settlement south of Jerusalem on West Bank land that Israel 
seized 
in 1967. 

Palestinians consider the settlement a Jewish colony built on their land. To 
Israelis, it is part of Jerusalem. 

IDF soldiers have fired shells into frontline homes in Beit Jallah, and a 
German 
doctor was killed in one of the Israeli attacks as he ran to help an injured 
neighbour. IDF sources said the soldiers training to take over this area would 
evacuate it. Palestinians would be sure to attack the Israeli posts. 

The second area that the Israelis plan to reoccupy is an area east of the West 
Bank town of Ramallah, bordering on the settlement of Pesagot. This comes under 
Palestinian fire almost nightly. Israeli return fire has pock-marked most of 
the homes in the neighbourhood and many people move their children to safer 
places 
at night. 
Many of the inhabitants hold American passports, having returned only since the 
Oslo agreement, or work in the Palestinian Authority. They would be vocal in 
their condemnation. 

A third area earmarked for reoccupation is on the western outskirts of 
Ramallah, 
around the village of Betunia, from which there is daily firing on Jewish 
settlers. 
"The Palestinians are not a serious military force, but we must train 
seriously," 
an Israeli officer said. "If and when the order is given, the Palestinians will 
fight for their homes and it won't be a Sunday morning stroll." 

Israel is under pressure to respond to demands for more forceful action to 
quell 
the Palestinian uprising, which has lasted two months. There is no sign of the 
violence abating. 

In a telephone call brokered by Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, Arafat 
and Barak agreed on Friday to resume minimal security co-operation, but the 
death 
toll mounted. 

On the same day a Jewish settler was shot dead near the town of Nablus and two 
Palestinians were killed in clashes on the West Bank. Two Israelis were killed 
when a car bomb exploded in Hadera, north of Tel Aviv. Yesterday, three more 
Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli troops in Gaza and the West Bank. 





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