THE BIG PLAN
Kol Ha’ir’s Uri Blau (April 26th): In the shadow of the ongoing events and the summaries of Operation Defensive Wall, preparations continue for an expanding of the fighting on the Northern border, a firing of missiles from Iraq, and the possibility of a conquest of the Gaza Strip, Rafah and Khan Yunis. The IDF plan on the matter of the Gaza Strip was formulated at the end of last month, and almost put into operation. At the last minute the plan was frozen, apparently temporarily.
Military sources say that the main objective of the plan – the operation of which assumedly will require a broad call-up of army reserves – is defined as bringing about a collapse of the institutions of the Palestinian Authority, the terror infrastructure, and the preparing of the ground for alternate rule. What is involved is an alternative local government or international elements who will rule the Gaza Strip for a limited time period. Nonethless, it should be noted that the plan includes additional addenda on the subject of a controlling of occupied territory and directives to commanders in the occupied area.
‘We have a very interesting plan in regard to Lebanon and Hizbullah’, said last week a senior officer in the IDF Northern Command, in an officers forum which discussed the escalation on the Northern border. One reservist spoke about the combative mood among the officers.
The bureau of IDF Chief of Staff this past week discussed assessments in regard to the firing of long range rockets at Israel from the Lebanon border. A reaction to the Hizbullah provocations in recent weeks was much closer than many people think, and was halted only because it did not receive sweeping support in the inner cabinet and because of Powell’s visit, which succeeded in the meantime in calming the situation. The question of the timing of the operation at present depends on the Hizbullah activity from here onward. Among the possibilities discussed: a massive harming of Syrian forces in Lebanon and of the Hizbullah infrastructures. Hizbullah is expected to react with a massive firing of Katyushas at the North, and the IDF is deployed for this.
Meanwhile, a senior IDF forum is engaging in a penetrating of messages on subjects which are supposed to be dealt with by the political echelon. The ‘information forum’ is headed by the O/C of Operations in the IDF, Major-General Dan Harel.
The forum in the past was convened several times with the participation of military people only. This past Tuesday, a deliberation took place with the aim of formulating information messages for Operation Defensive Wall. In addition to the IDF representatives, also Foreign Ministry people were present at the meeting.
– Kol Ha’ir’s Arnon Regular (April 26th): Two weeks ago there appeared in one of the Palestinian newspapers a caricature. On one side there was seen a tank firing shells and entering into the Jenin refugee camp. On the other side was seen a tank entering into Hebron firing shekels. The caricature sought to describe the almost total quiet characterizing the city of Hebron during most of the period of the intifada, a quiet which became thunderous during Operation Defensive Wall, which gravely harmed all of the Palestinian cities except for Jericho and Hebron. In the city itsel several incidents took place, and this past Tuesday the IDF killed one of the prominent Tanzim operatives in the city, Marwan Zalum, but except for intensive activity in the village areas, the IDF refrained from entering into the city.
It is evident that this time, like in the past, the IDF has left Hebron for the end, let its residents view the enormous devastation in the other areas, and used the economic levers in order to silence them.
The heads of the big families of Hebron, a city without refugees, has a great deal to lose. Explicit threats to severely harm their economic interests produced a situation whereby the owners of the factories exerted heavy pressures on Fatah and Hamas in the city to lower profile, and not to give the IDF a reason to invade.
According to Palestinian sources, the pressures resulted in a situation whereby most of the Tanzim operatives spread out in all directions and lowered profile. Some of them even went to the area of Bethlehem, and made their way to the Church of the Nativity. Hebron remained outside of the game during the period of the intifada. The few terror attacks perpetrated by residents of the city were regional, such as the shooting from the Abu Sneina and A-Sheikh neighborhoods adjacent to the settlers homes, or shooting attacks and explosive devices on the surrounding roads. Very few terror attacks in Israeli territory were connected to the Hebron region.
Israeli sources are talking for about a month now, about a demolishing of the Palestinian Authority, its offices and institutions in all of the territories of the West Bank, and an eliminating, at least temporarily, of all of the forces organized into it. In this backdrop Hebron remained a model thoughy up by the Israelis, a kind of test case for the long term intentions of Ariel Sharon.
Among both Israeli and Palestinian elements the understanding is sharpening where the devastating of the Palestinian Authority institutions is only an introduction. The coming stages are a removal, expulsion or eliminating of Yasir Arafat. According to the plan, this stage will apparently be carried out in coordination with the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq by the Americans.
In the next stage the Palestinian matter will be taken out of the hands of the PLO and transferred into other frameworks. This model includes a turning of the Gaza Strip into a huge prison for the PLO people, and it in the future will become a canton in which will be declared a midget Palestinian state. Parallel to this, there will be established in the West Bank a kind of regime of municipalities, which will manage the civilian affairs, and in future, according to the refuted Israeli scenario, can have the responsibility over them be handed over to Arab elements, Jordanian for example.
Hebron according to this dubious model is an example. Its municipality is the only functioning municipality in the West Bank which has proven vigor and vitality. The Hebron municipality also conducted ongoing contacts with the IDF in the framework of the coordination and liaison apparatuses, which in the rest of the West Bank have become a thing of the past. It is difficult to believe, but during Operation Defensive Wall, Hebron is the only place in which visit and passage permits were given from the West Bank to Gaza, and at times even into Israel. Goods and raw materials from Israeli ports and food stuffs were inserted into Hebron in various and strange ways. The plants continue to operate and finished products are arriving at their destination in Israel.
A very influential business source in Hebron explains that Israel is mistaken if it is building on this model. The source said that the community of business people in Hebron all told sought to survive during this period and to preserve the little which remains. ‘There is not and there will never be agreement for a perpetuating of the Israeli occupation or any other kind of occupation in the city and its environ’, says the source, and adds in an apologetic tone: ‘True, this city is in a complex situation, but in my opinion as always happens here with a certain lateness, it will yet contribute its part to the struggle and will not accept the plans to change the representative nature of the Palestinians in the West Bank’.