Israeli Minister Warns Attacks Breeding More Bombers
The Age
Saturday June 22, 2002
Jerusalem
Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has warned that Israel's military operations have become "an incubator of terror" that Palestinian leaders are exploiting to recruit more volunteers for suicide bombings.
His warning came as Israel began intensifying its military offensive against Palestinian-ruled areas after a series of attacks this week that have killed more than 30 Israelis.
The violence has prompted US President George Bush to delay a key policy statement outlining his view of the road to Palestinian statehood.
Mr Ben-Eliezer said that while Israeli army operations were necessary to prevent suicide bombings, they also risked establishing the conditions that Palestinian militant leaders used to encourage young people to part in terrorist acts.
"My objective is to prevent suicide bombings," Mr Ben-Eliezer said in an interview with the Hebrew daily Ha'aretz. ``That's what Operation Defensive Shield (launched earlier this year inside the West Bank) was for. That's what all the other operations are for."
He added, however, that these operations carried the risk of playing into the hands of Israel's enemies.
"Unfortunately, while the IDF is carrying out these necessary actions, the operations themselves become a hothouse that produces more and more suicide bombers," he said.
"The military actions kindle the frustration, hatred and despair and are the incubator for terror to come."
Mr Ben-Eliezer said there was a systemic network within Palestinian society with what he described as "satanic" aims. ``It operates entirely to produce human bombs," he said.
He identified the network as leaders of the two militant Palestinian groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, together with the armed wing of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction.
As soon as these organisations found people susceptible to pressure and persuasion, they trapped them like "fish in a net".
"It's the most cynical and cruel exploitation of human lives, of young people's lives especially, the weak," he said.
His remarks came as Mr Arafat distanced himself from the suicide bombings, claiming they were encouraged by what he described as ``foreign" forces who were exploiting young Palestinians by persuading them to commit attacks for money.
He said he knew of at least two families in Jenin who had received $US30,000 ($A52,000) each from foreigners, after their sons took part in suicide bombings.
It was not clear if he was referring to Iraq, which has been known to provide funds to Palestinian families.
Mr Arafat this week publicly called for a halt to suicide bombings, as a group of Palestinian intellectuals also expressed their opposition.
But Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two of the groups that have carried out such operations, vowed they would not halt their attacks.
Israeli troops entered the West Bank city of Nablus early yesterday after an attack by a Palestinian gunmen on a nearby Jewish settlement killed five people, including a mother, three of her children and a security guard at the settlement. -- with Reuters
© 2002 The Age
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