Home > Worse than a crime
March 22, 2004 Tel-Aviv
GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 -
[] Uri Avnery on the assassination of Sheikh Yassin []
Translation of Gush Shalom press release - sent out
early morning [] Our call to join today’s Peace Now
protest
[] Uri Avnery on the assassination of Sheikh Yassin
Avnery: "It is Worse than a Crime, it is Stupid!"
"This is worse than a crime, it is an act of
stupidity!" commented Gush Shalom activist Uri Avnery
on the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
"This is the beginning of a new chapter of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It moves the conflict
from the level of a solvable national conflict to the
level of religious conflict, which by its very nature
is insoluble.
"The fate of the State of Israel is now in the hands of
group of persons whose outlook is primitive and whose
perceptions are retarded. They are incapable of
understanding the mental, emotional and political
dimensions of the conflict. This is a group of bankrupt
political and military leaders who have failed in all
their actions. They try to cover up their failures by a
catastrophic escalation.
"This act will not only endanger the personal security
of every Israeli, both in the country and around the
world, but also the existential security of the State
of Israel. It has grievously hurt the chances of
putting and end to the Israeli-Palestinian,
Israeli-Arab and Israeli-Muslim conflicts."
Avnery mentioned that in the early 1980s the occupation
authorities encouraged the founders of Hamas, hoping
that they would create a counter-weight to Yasser
Arafat and the PLO. Even after the start of the first
intifada, the army and the security services gave
preferential treatment of Hamas. Sheikh Yassin was
arrested only a year after the outbreak.
"There seems to be no limit to the stupidity of our
political and military leaders. They endanger the
future of the State of Israel."
[] Translation of Gush Shalom press release - sent out
early morning
The assassination of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, with its
concomitant careless killing of passers-by, is a mad
provocative act by a governnment which lost all
restraint. It is the act of a pyromaniac fireman whose
method of putting out the fire of terrorism is to pour
barrels of gasoline upon it, an act which might cost
the life of dozens or hundreds of Israeli citizens in
the near future. Prime Minster Sharon’s talk of
"withdrawal from Gaza", which had caught the headlines
in the past months, is now revealed to be no more than
meaningless chatter. Far from seriously meaning to
evacuate even a bit of occupied territory, this
bankrupt prime minister - faced with police
investigations into a myriad of corruption concerning
himself and his sons - seems determined to bequeath to
his country a legacy of eternal war with the
Palestinians and the entire Arab and Muslim World.
Every day that this man remains in power poses a grave
danger to the future of Israelis and Palestinians
alike. Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace Bloc, calls upon
all sane and responsible forces left in the
international community to intervene, urgently and
forcefully, to save our region at the edge of the abyss
and halt the monstrous cycle of bloodshed which now
threatens to engulf us.
For further information call Adam Keller, Gush Shalom
Spokesperson, at +972-3-5565804 or +972-56-709603