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Avnery on 'this week's round'

The Editors

Uri Avnery on the assassination of Zuhair al-Qaisi:

Al-Qaisi was in his position as leader of the “Popular Committees” only since the assassination of his predecessor in similar circumstances. A replacement will easily be found. He may be better or worse, but will hardly make much difference.

The Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, gave a strangely convoluted explanation for the assassination: “(al-Qaisi) was one of the heads of Popular Committees who were, it seems, busy preparing a large attack. I cannot yet say whether this attack was averted.” It seems. I cannot say.

Unofficially it was said that al-Qaisi may have been involved in sending a group of militants from Gaza to the Egyptian Sinai, to attack Israeli territory from there. Last year there was such an attack near Eilat, with several Israeli dead, al-Qaisi’s predecessor was blamed for that and killed before an investigation had even started.

So was it worthwhile to endanger the lives of so many people, send a million people to the shelters and spend tens of millions of shekels on such grounds?


Comments


  • 19 March 2012 at 4:53pm
    Geoff Roberts says:
    Whenever the Palestinians are told to negotiate, there are always those pre-conditions that the Israeli government likes to put up ahead so that there will be only 'talks about talks.' We only have two pre-conditions. the Palestinians have to accept that existence of Israel and promise to stop bombing us. We don't promise anything except that we will consolidate the status quo (i.e. completely dominate West Jordan) and keep on building settlements for the orthodox communities.
    Why is it that nobody in Israel (who counts) sees that there is an enormous opportunity right in front of them if only they would take it? Because they'd rather bomb Iran? To quote Abba Eban on the PLO, (the Israelis) never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.