EYELESS IN GAZA: WHO BLEW UP THE U.S. CONVOY?
By Christopher Bollyn
American Free Press
The bombing of the U.S. diplomatic convoy in Gaza “hurts the
Palestinians most of all” and plays directly into the hands of “the
extremist elements in Washington” who want to put Palestinian
resistance groups in the same camp with Al-Qaida. So, why is the FBI
letting the Israelis conduct the investigation?
When a bomb, buried beneath the road, blew up under the first car in a
U.S. diplomatic convoy and killed three American security guards
entering the Palestinian territory of Gaza, blame was assigned –
immediately – to Palestinian militants. While the bombing represents a
serious setback for the Palestinian national cause and every known
Palestinian group has condemned the attack and denied responsibility,
the U.S. government and media were quick to blame the Palestinian
authority – before any investigation had even begun.
The bombing occurred on Oct. 15 as a group of American diplomats
arrived in the Gaza Strip to conduct interviews with Palestinian
students who were competing for Fulbright scholarships in the United
States.
The three Americans killed were reported to have been security
personnel working for DynCorp, a Virginia-based security firm.
Why any Palestinian group should inflict such a counter-productive
blow to the Palestinian national cause was questioned by veteran
diplomat Philip Wilcox, former U.S. Consul in Jerusalem, who told CNN,
“There is no strategic rationale for this. It hurts the Palestinians
most of all.”
In an interview with the BBC, Palestinian president Yassir Arafat said
the attack was a shameful, dirty and very serious act against friends
of the Palestinian people.
Arafat emphasized that this act was completely against the interests
of the Palestinian people and that no Palestinian group had claimed
responsibility. Without specifically blaming the Israelis, Arafat made
it clear he believed the bombing had been done by forces hostile to
any improvement in U.S.-Palestinian relations.
All Palestinian groups, including the militant wings of Hamas and
Islamic Jihad condemned the bombing and denied any responsibility.
The bombing of the U.S. convoy played into the hands of the “extremist
elements in Washington” who want to lump the Palestinian resistance
into the same “terrorist” camp with Al-Qaida, Sebastian Usher of the
BBC said.
A Palestinian source told American Free Press that the bomb had been
buried in a road in front of a filling station about a half-mile from
the Eretz checkpoint, one of the Israeli controlled gates in the wall
surrounding the Gaza Strip. The source said the Gaza bomb could have
been an Israeli act as it occurred in “an open area, which is under
the eyes and control of the Israelis… They can check the area from
many points,” the official source said.
There are several observation points from which the Israelis were able
to observe the convoy as it passed the filling station. The bomb was
detonated by remote control as the first car passed over.
While the area, known as Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, is
legally Palestinian territory, the Israeli military controls the area,
the source said.
An FBI team of investigators and forensics experts reportedly arrived
in Israel on Thursday to investigate the bombing, however, the FBI
agents did not go to Gaza immediately. Instead, the FBI will rely on
the Israelis to collect and preserve evidence, with the FBI doing the
detailed examinations of what is found, FBI officials in Washington
said.
AFP asked the FBI why Israeli police were being allowed to conduct the
initial investigation, but there was no response from the FBI by press
time.
AFP asked the White House why the president had assigned blame to the
Palestinian authority before any investigation had begun. A senior
administration official said that assumption had been made because the
“bombing occurred in the Palestinian territories” and bore the
“hallmarks” of a Palestinian attack.
Asked if the administration was mindful of previous bombings and
attacks conducted against American targets, such as the Lavon affair
in Egypt and the attack on the USS Liberty, which were perpetrated by
Israelis but designed to be blamed on Arabs, the official said these
were “suppositions”.
The official said he was unaware that the initial investigation was
being conducted by Israeli police. “We hope to get to the bottom of
this,” the official said about the investigation.
OPERATION ROOT CANAL
The bombing came after a week of massive and wanton destruction by
Israeli forces of Palestinian homes and basic infrastructure in Rafah,
in the southern end of the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli occupation force has described the operation named “Root
Canal,” in which hundreds of houses have been destroyed, as
"open-ended." The Israelis say “Operation Root Canal” is aimed at
uncovering and destroying tunnels used by Palestinian militants to
smuggle weapons from Egypt.
Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist from Olympia, Wash. was
killed by an American-made Israeli military bulldozer as she tried to
prevent similar Israeli demolitions of homes in Rafah on March 16.
The latest Israeli operation began on Oct. 10 in Rafah. Israeli forces
bulldozed and dynamited more than 250 homes during the weekend,
leaving as many as 1500 innocent Palestinians homeless.
Since the outbreak of the latest Palestinian uprising more than three
years ago, the Israeli army has destroyed or damaged an estimated
50,000 homes in what one Palestinian official has called the "widest
campaign of ethnic cleansing since the end of World War II."
The London-based Amnesty International strongly condemned the recent
destruction of Palestinian homes in Rafah, calling it a "war crime."
International observers in Gaza described the destruction as "obscene
and pornographic."
"This the most pornographic act of savagery I have ever seen in my
life," said a UN official who inspected the demolished neighborhoods.
After the bombing of the diplomatic convoy, all American citizens in
the Gaza Strip were advised to leave the area.
"Many, many houses…have been completely demolished," said Peter
Hansen, commissioner general of the UN Relief and Works Agency.
"You’re talking about a great many people, as many as 1500, have been
made homeless,” Hansen said.
ISRAELI TACTICS IN IRAQ
U.S. occupation forces are reported to be using bulldozers as they
“apply Israeli tactics” in Iraq. U.S. forces have used bulldozers to
destroy crops and fruit orchards of farmers, according to Patrick
Cockburn of The Independent (UK), writing from Dhuluaya, Iraq.
“U.S. soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from
loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as
orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of
collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about
guerrillas attacking US troops,” Cockburn wrote.
According to the farmers, 50 families lost their livelihoods. A
petition addressed to the coalition forces in Dhuluaya said: "Tens of
poor families depend completely on earning their life on these
orchards and now they became very poor and have nothing and waiting
for hunger and death."
Children lay down in front of the bulldozer but were dragged away,
according to eyewitnesses who did not want to give their names. One
American soldier reportedly broke down and cried during the operation.
When a reporter from an Iraqi newspaper tried to take a photograph of
the bulldozers at work a soldier grabbed his camera and tried to smash
it. The same paper quotes Lt. Col. Jeffrey Springman, a U.S. commander
in the region, as saying: “We asked the farmers several times to stop
the attacks, or to tell us who was responsible, but the farmers didn’t
tell us.”
Sheikh Hussein Ali Saleh al-Jabouri, a member of a delegation that
went to the nearby U.S. base to ask for compensation for the loss of
the fruit trees, said American officers said what had happened was “a
punishment of local people because ‘you know who is in the resistance
and do not tell us.'"
Asked how much his lost orchard was worth, farmer Nusayef Jassim said:
"It is as if someone cut off my hands and you asked me how much my
hands were worth."
What the Israelis had done by way of collective punishment of
Palestinians was now happening in Iraq, Sheikh Hussein said.
Asked about the bulldozing of crops and orchards in Iraq, Pentagon
spokesman Capt. David Romley told AFP, “That is not our policy. We do
not use those vehicles [bulldozers] as a means of reprisal.”
"life is like a mushroom, they feed you ***** and keep you in the dark"
.
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