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03/03/2006:

"Israeli Leader Promises to Use 'Iron Fist' to Stop Terrorism"

JERUSALEM, March 2 — Israel's acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, warned Palestinians today that Israel would use "far-reaching measures" and "an iron fist against any attempt to resume terrorist activity," whether in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip.

Mr. Olmert spoke as a new opinion poll showed his Kadima party continuing to slip a month before March 28 elections, but it was still comfortably on course to form a new Israeli government. The Haaretz-Channel 10 poll shows Kadima winning 37 of the parliament's 120 seats, down two seats from last month and down seven seats from a similar poll taken at the end of January.

Mr. Olmert said at a news conference that he has personally ordered airstrikes against Palestinians involved in firing Qassam rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip. "There are no longer any restrictions on the security establishment regarding counterterrorism actions anywhere," he said. "Not a few times terrorists who were about to fire rockets were liquidated before they could fire them and it was based on my orders, sometimes my personal orders."
nytimes.com


Israeli 'ruler-in-waiting' plans to starve Hamas
She is already being spoken of as an Israeli leader in waiting. Today the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni brings to London the campaign to destabilise the incoming Hamas Palestinian government by starving it of cash.

Israel's policy - described by a spokesman as putting "the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger" - has left London feeling squeamish. Tony Blair and Jack Straw will today undoubtedly show solidarity with Israel, saying Britain is not in the business of funding terrorists. But in private there is anguish that the policy will bring malnutrition to innocent Palestinians and punish them for taking part in a democratic election. The Palestinians are completely dependent on foreign aid for their survival and Israel's campaign to put 3.6 million people on starvation rations is foreboding.

...A former Mossad officer, Ms Livni is the daughter of Zionists - classified as terrorists by the British authorities. Her father, Eitan, was the Irgun's head of operations when it blew up the King David hotel in Jerusalem in 1946, killing 28 Britons, 41 Arabs, 17 Jews and five others. The subsequent wave of terror attacks he led outraged British public opinion, leading the government to abandon the Palestinian Mandate and turn the problem over to the UN, with disastrous consequences for the Palestinians.


Mofaz: Karnei Shomron to be included in Israel's final borders
Setting a vision for Israel's permanent borders, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has said that the government plans to retain the settlements of Karnei Shomron, Reihan and Shaked in any future deal with the Palestinians.

Israel, Mofaz said, planned to retain the Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim and Gush Etzion settlement blocs in addition to the settlements of Shaked, Reihan, Karnei Shomron and Kedumim, whether under a peace plan with the Palestinians or in a unilateral withdrawal.

"When we talk about Israel's permanent or future borders, it includes the Jordan Valley, Ma'aleh Adumim, Gush Etzion, Ariel, Kedumim-Karnei Shomron and Reihan-Shaked," Mofaz said during a meeting with the residents of the settlement of Oranit late Sunday night. The defense minister made no mention of the future of the Ofra-Beit El bloc, Hebron, Itamar or Elon Moreh.

The settlements Mofaz listed went a little farther than a similar list Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert detailed three weeks ago. Olmert began to broadly draw the parameters of where he thought Israel's final border should run earlier in the month in a Channel 2 interview, saying that the Jordan Valley, Gush Etzion, Ma'aleh Adumim and Ariel settlement blocs would remain a part of the country.

"We will separate from the majority of the Palestinian population that lives in Judea and Samaria, and it will obligate us to leave territories where Israel is today," Olmert said. "We will move into central settlement blocs."