By Munir K. Nasser
Chief Correspondent, Washington, DC
Albawaba.com
The Clinton administration is working frantically to end the violence between Israelis and Palestinians urging both sides to rescue the negotiations.
The White House announced on Sunday that Israeli and Palestinian leaders have agreed to a US-mediated session aimed at preventing a recurrence of the clashes. US officials would chair a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian security officials to root out the causes of escalating violence in the West Bank and Gaza.
According to National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley, President Clinton proposed the meeting and both Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak have agreed to it. The officials will gather somewhere in the region as soon as conditions permit, he said.
Crowley said that the White House strategy is to have each of the top security advisers collect information and for Israeli and Palestinian officials to continue their discussions. American security specialists will then join them to "see how both parties can ensure that the Palestinian and Israeli people do not have to relive the terrible events of the last few days," Crowley said.
Clinton spoke to Barak on Saturday evening, and to Arafat on Sunday to express his concern about the Palestinian-Israeli fighting. Clinton also conveyed his condolences to the victims’ families and called on both sides to "to exert maximum efforts to restore calm immediately," Crowley said.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, White House national security adviser Sandy Berger and US mediator Dennis Ross also have had conversations with top-level Israeli and Palestinian officials.
The State Department called on both sides to avoid provocative action and specifically criticized Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon for visiting a holy site in Jerusalem. “We were quite concerned that the visit by Sharon to this site risked creating tensions,'' said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
ARAB AMERICANS CONDEMN BRUTAL ATTACKS
Meanwhile Arab Americans reacted strongly to violent events in Palestine and condemned the brutal attacks on defenseless civilians. Major Arab and Muslim American organizations are planning demonstrations and rallies in several American and Canadian cities to protest the Israeli massacre of Palestinians. Washington, New York, California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Connecticut, Illinois in addition to Montreal, Canada will witness the rallies.
In Washington, national American Muslim leaders will hold a news conference on Monday to express their denunciation of both the recent attack on Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem and the killing of Palestinian civilians by Israeli occupation forces.
The American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC) said in a statement that it holds the Israeli Government responsible for this latest carnage, and blames the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, for escalating tension in the Holy City and the rest of the occupied territories. "Barak should have condemned Arial Sharon for his deliberate provocation instead of blaming the victim" stated the President of the ADC, Dr. Hala Maksoud. "This renders Barak practically in tacit collusion with Sharon's recklessness."
The ADC called on the International community and the Clinton administration to take immediately the necessary measures to make Israel comply with the UN relevant resolutions. ADC also called on the Clinton administration in particular to share the world's condemnation against this latest Israeli outrage instead of its muted response to it by "calling on all sides to show constraint."
The ADC Right of Return Taskforce urged all peace and justice loving people to attend a protest against the Israeli carnage of Palestinians and the attack on Al Haram Al Sharif in a demonstration planned for Monday in Los Angeles in front of the Israeli Consulate.
Other Arab and Islamic American leaders expressed anger at the bloodshed at the hands of Israeli troops. The American Committee on Jerusalem President Rashid Khalidi stated that: “Failure to resolve this issue is a prescription for ongoing violence and insecurity. Jerusalem must be a shared and open city in order to establish a lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis, and Arab east Jerusalem cannot continue to be subject to the brutality of Israeli occupation, which we have just witnessed once again.”
American Muslims for Jerusalem (AMJ) strongly criticized Sharon's attempts to exploit local tension. AMJ said that the visit was a crude display of posturing. According to AMJ Communications Director Fahhim Abdulhadi, Sharon's actions have never revealed anything more than contempt for non-Jews.
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on all American Muslims to do what they can to alleviate the suffering of civilians in the Occupied Territories of Palestine. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said: "The events of recent days have clearly shown that there will never be peace in the region as long as Israeli forces occupy Jerusalem."
CAIR urged all its members to contact their elected representatives to demand that their tax dollars not be used to kill civilian demonstrators and urge the US government to denounce, and not turn a blind-eye toward Israeli use of excessive force against civilians.
US MEDIA CRITICAL OF ISRAEL
Major American newspapers criticized Israel’s attacks on Palestinian civilians and condemned Sharon’s provocative visit to the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. The New York Times said in its editorial on Saturday that “ the violent clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians in the center of Jerusalem's Old City yesterday were disheartening…Ariel Sharon, the Likud leader, did Israel no favor by provocatively leading his supporters to the Temple Mount on Thursday, asserting Jewish claims to the Muslim holy site at a moment when authority over the area is the most sensitive remaining issue in the peace talks. The Sharon visit led to a series of confrontations that culminated in bloodshed hours before the beginning of the Jewish High Holy Days.”
The Christian Science Monitor in an editorial on Monday titled “Finding Peace for Jerusalem” criticized Sharon’s visit to Al Aqsa and said: “Almost like a medieval knight in the Crusades, Israeli hard line politician Ariel Sharon, backed up by 1,000 soldiers, swept onto a Muslim holy site in Jerusalem last Thursday. This startling visit by Sharon ended up being a political provocation that's ignited the worst Israeli-Palestinian violence in four years. Once again, stone-throwing Palestinians
have been gunned down by Israeli soldiers, while the United States as Mideast mediator fails to bring its authority to bear. But the fact that Prime Minister Ehud Barak condoned the visit, and likely provided security, may be the most disturbing lesson from this incident.”
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