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NEWS & LETTERS, December 2001Column: Our Life and Times by Kevin A. Barry and Mary Holmes
Israel, Hamas attacks
In December, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon got what he had been hoping
for since Sept. 11: suicide bombings by the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas
movement that killed 25 innocent civilians. With U.S. support, Sharon could now
launch a full-scale attack on Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) for
"harboring" terrorists.Here is how Sharon provoked these attacks: On Nov. 22, an army land mine
accidentally killed five young Palestinian children. As demonstrations mounted,
rather than apologize, Sharon picked this tense moment to assassinate Mahmoud
Abu Hanoud of Hamas. On Nov. 24, after seven more Palestinian protesters had been killed, a Hamas
rally for Hanoud drew 60,000. The anti-Semitic Hamas, which needed no excuse to
kill Jews, had desisted from big terror attacks since Sept. 11 under pressure
from the PA. But it now had enough popular support to defy the PA. Hamas and
Sharon could work in tandem toward the war they both wanted. |
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