Prophecy and Current Events

In light of the terrorist alert, the Israeli army is being beefed up around several Palestinian-ruled towns. Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, has been virtually sealed off from surrounding Arab zones. Reports say army forces are digging a security trench around the town of Kalkilya, located due east of the Israeli town of Kfar Saba--targeted by Palestinian terrorists several times earlier this year. Army forces are maintaining their airtight closure of the Bethlehem area as well. Officials say the military actions will continue until Yasser Arafat keeps his June commitment to American CIA chief George Tenet to arrest leaders of the two Islamic terrorist groups. Arab nations, who have strongly protested the army moves, have announced that they will convene an emergency meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo next Wednesday. Arab League head Amr Moussa said the officials would discuss "stepping up their support for the Palestinians, who are suffering repeated attacks and continued aggression from Israeli occupation forces." Moussa said the meeting was requested by Arafat earlier this week. Israeli officials believe the Palestinian leader is trying to deflect any more Israeli army moves by threatening a major Mideast war, along with possible United Nations intervention. The UN Security Council is expected to hold a public debate on the regional crisis next week.

American President George Bush phoned Israeli PM Ariel Sharon late yesterday to express his concern over the explosive Mideast situation. After passing on condolences over the heinous Palestinian terrorist blast in Jerusalem last week that left 15 people dead and over 100 wounded, Bush reportedly urged Sharon to "exercise restraint" in further attempts to halt such suicide attacks, fearing that the tense Mideast could erupt into war if Israel acts too decisively. Sharon reportedly replied that he has "no intention to lead the region to war," but reaffirmed his determination to protect his citizens from escalating suicide attacks. The Israeli leader also thanked the President for putting verbal pressure on Arafat to end Palestinian terror attacks, along with media incitement to further violence. The two leaders also discussed Israel's seizure last Friday of Orient House, the Palestinian government center that has been functioning illegally in eastern Jerusalem since the mid-1990s. Sharon's office said the PM told Bush he is "working to ease the situation for uninvolved Palestinian residents of the territories."

DAVID DOLAN.

Jerusalem

Israeli military forces remain poised today to enter the Palestinian-ruled town of Bethlehem and two nearby villages if shooting attacks resume against the south Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo. Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer told Israel radio that he would not order the massed military forces to pull back to their previous positions until it becomes clear that frequent armed attacks upon the southern rim of Israel's capital city from the Bethlehem area have come to a complete end. Saying that the government is establishing "new red lines that the Palestinians must not cross," he confirmed media reports that an army operation would automatically begin if Arab shooting resumes. Still, he insisted that the government has no intention of permanently re-occupying land handed over to Yasser Arafat's control as part of the shattered Oslo peace accords. He said any further army operations into Palestinian-ruled zones would only be designed to improve Israel's security situation and end ongoing Palestinian attacks.

The decision to position Israeli forces just outside of the Bethlehem area came after heavy Palestinian fire was directed at Gilo on Tuesday morning. Israeli officials said the attack was at a higher level of proficiency than ever before, indicating that professional Arab sharpshooters had been brought into the fray. Israeli Communications Minister Ruby Rivlin said that Egypt and the United States had pressured Yasser Arafat to stop the attacks. He also confirmed earlier media reports that senior government leaders have approved a plan to order the army into all areas under Arafat's control if Palestinian terrorist and shooting attacks continue. The goal of such an operation would be to arrest wanted terrorist suspects, but Israeli leaders are said to privately acknowledge that it could end with the dismantling of Arafat's autonomy government. The main concern is that such an operation could also spark a new regional war.

A Jerusalem city worker was shot in the chest near the eastern Jerusalem suburb of Ma'ale Adumim last night. The attack took place while the 42 year old sanitation worker was sitting in his city-owned garbage truck on a public road, waiting for a co-worker who was buying food at a roadside store. Doctors say the Jewish victim is in fair condition today at Jerusalem's Hadassah-Mount Scopus hospital. Another Israeli was lightly injured last night when rocks were hurled at his car in the nearby Arab village of Abu Dis. Two Palestinian mortar bombs were fired this morning at the Jewish community of Morag in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, but no Israeli casualties were reported. Gunfire was also reported this morning in the divided town of Hebron.

At the request of Yasser Arafat, the United Nations Security Council will convene on late Thursday or Friday in New York to discuss the deteriorating security situation and the PLO demand that foreign "peacekeeping forces" be rushed to the region. Arafat, who has been angling to involve such a world force in his armed uprising against Israel, said earlier this week that international troops are needed to "protect my people from stepped up Israeli aggression." He indicated he intends to travel to New York to address the Security Council during the special debate. Israeli leaders see Arafat's demand as an attempt to secure world intervention in the hopes that such armed world forces will eventually be ordered to help the Palestinian secure total control over the eastern half of Jerusalem, and to help enforce the evacuation of all Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. The emergency UN debate comes at the request of around 50 Muslim countries, acting on Arafat's behalf. The United States blocked an earlier Palestinian attempt to secure UN backing for such an international force.

Iraqis turned out in large numbers Wednesday afternoon to participate in pro-Palestinian rallies sponsored by the Iraqi dictatorship. Among the demonstrators were gun-totting members of the supposed "seven million volunteer force" that the regime claims are being prepared to fight in a pending jihad holy war against the Jewish State. News reports showed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis burning Israeli and American flags and chanting anti-Israel slogans during the demonstrations, which were ordered to take place by dictator Saddam Hussein on Tuesday night. Extensive reports on the rallies were broadcast on Palestinian television stations last evening, with one Arab commentator saying they showed that the Palestinians "are not alone in our struggle to liberate our occupied land."

Israeli security officials have confirmed that they have tightened security around various senior officials, including Prime Minister Sharon and Defense Minister Ben Eliezer, following renewed threats by anti-Israel groups to assassinate them. Meanwhile the Sharon government is set to grow stronger today with the expected inclusion of the five-seat Center party in the broad unity coalition. Center party leader Dan Meridor, a former Likud party politician, will join the inner security cabinet and be put in charge of the National Security Council. Sharon has been eager to secure the support of the small party in case Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and some of his left-wing allies leave the government, as a few have threatened to do. Analysts say the inclusion of the Center party in the coalition will strengthen Sharon's ability to order a major army operation against Arafat if he deems it necessary.

DAVID DOLAN.

Jerusalem

A tense standoff is continuing today between Israeli troops and armed Palestinian forces around the town of Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem. Israeli armored forces moved to within striking distance of the biblical town last evening after a day of heavy Palestinian armed attacks upon the south Jerusalem Gilo neighborhood, which left one Israeli civilian wounded in the eye from flying bullet fragments. Ever since the Palestinian uprising began last September 28, Arab gunmen have repeatedly attacked homes in Gilo which face toward Bethlehem. The unprovoked assaults have mainly come from the nearby Arab town of Beit Jala. Israeli media reports say the government decision to put off the anticipated raid came after urgent telephone calls pleading for "Israeli restraint" came from senior American officials. Bethlehem and surrounding Arab towns were handed over to Yasser Arafat's total control in late 1995 as part of the preliminary Oslo peace accords.

Israel radio reports that the Israeli government decision to postpone the dramatic military advance came after Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat pledged to halt armed attacks upon Gilo. Whether or not the Israeli forces are being pulled back to their normal positions is not yet clear. Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer denied press reports that he had agreed to call off the expected raid due to pressure from the White House and from the leader of his Labor party, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. He said his decision came amid consultations with PM Sharon, with the two leaders reviewing "certain intelligence information" that he said he could not detail. Israel has insisted that all armed Palestinian assaults, along with ongoing suicide terrorist attacks, be completely halted before moves to implement a US-brokered ceasefire, arrived at in June, can get off the ground. Instead, hundreds of Palestinian attacks have been launched every week since the ceasefire plan was initialed by Arafat, climaxing in two suicide terror attacks in Jerusalem and Haifa over the past week that left over 15 civilians dead and nearly 150 wounded.

In response to the Haifa attack, Israel launched the first full ground raid into a major Palestinian-held town early on Tuesday. Army tanks rolled into the center of the Arab town of Jenin and destroyed the local police headquarters. At least eight suicide attackers have come from the town, located near Mount Gliboa just a few miles south of Israel's Jezreel, or Megiddo Valley. Israeli officials, who say the suicide raids were mostly planned in coordination with Arafat's security forces, announced today that they had arrested a number of Islamic Jihad activists in the town during Tuesday's pre-dawn army operation. They said the suspects admitted to planning another suicide attack in a Haifa suburb. At the same time, an Israeli undercover unit shot dead a wanted Palestinian gunman today, described as an activist in Yassar Arafat's Fatah movement. Officials charged that he had carried out a number of armed attacks against Israeli civilians. The so-called "targeted assassination" occurred in the Judean town of Hebron. Armed Israeli-Palestinian clashes also broke out today along the Gaza Strip border with Egypt.

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has ordered his people to take to the streets today to support the ongoing Palestinian "jihad for Jerusalem." The demonstrations are supposed to take place throughout the country this afternoon. In a statement read out over Iraqi state television on Tuesday evening, Saddam repeated his contention that he has "seven million volunteers" in what he called "the army of Al-Quds" (Jerusalem). Iraqi media reports say that the "volunteers" are engaged in regular military exercises in preparation for a looming "war to liberate the holy city from Zionist occupation."

DAVID DOLAN.

Jerusalem