Senior Israeli Pilot condemns Air Strikes that hit Civilians by Mark Willacy ABC Online: AM 3:29pm 21st Oct, 2003   Tuesday, 21 October , 2003  ( Published by ABC Online: AM)    HAMISH ROBERTSON: Israeli F-16 warplanes and Apache helicopters have been busy over the skies of Gaza, launching four separate strikes against Hamas targets in the space of a few hours.    The attacks have killed at least six people, including two Hamas militants and a civilian bystander, and wounded more than 30 others, including a baby and several young children.    In an interview with AM, one of Israel's most decorated fighter pilots has condemned air strikes which hit innocent civilians as "immoral" and "unlawful".    Reserve Brigadier-General Yiftah Spector is the most senior of 27 Israeli airmen to sign a petition in which they say they no longer want to "obey illegal and immoral orders" or to take part in raids against populated civilians centres.    Our Middle East Correspondent, Mark Willacy, reports from Jerusalem.    MARK WILLACY: A casualty of Israel's first missile strike, this two-year old Palestinian girl was hit in the head by shrapnel. Also wounded in the F-16 attack were three other children and a 70-year old woman. An hour later another missile slammed into a car being driven through downtown Gaza.This strike killed two Hamas militants and a civilian bystander.    YIFTAH SPECTOR: First, it is unlawful and immoral to attack innocent civilians. Two, the situation of us oppressing another nation leads us to such unlawful, immoral situations.    MARK WILLACY: Yiftah Spector is one of Israel's most decorated fighter pilots. Credited with 15 kills against enemy planes, Brigadier-General Spector is a veteran of the 1967 and Yom Kippur Wars, and he commanded Israel's 1981 bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor. But after four decades in the Air Force, he's been stood down from his job as an instructor for signing a petition in which he and 26 other Israeli airmen say they'll refuse to take part in raids against populated civilian centres.    YIFTAH SPECTOR: It is unlawful to hit innocent people, full stop. What I'm saying is that the situation should be solved politically so that we are not standing before such dilemmas every other day.    MARK WILLACY: How does Israel fight a war against an enemy that buries itself amongst a civilian population? Obviously Israel, to this point, believes that air strikes are a weapon to use in that situation.    YIFTAH SPECTOR: That's not the way to go. It brings us to disaster, including to immoral, unlawful, according to our own law, occurrences every other day. So I'm talking to the Government. My feeling is that this Government is working on one thing and this is to survive, for many reasons, and being deaf, blind and stupid, as it is, she chooses stupid, blind and deaf conclusions and decisions.    MARK WILLACY: Yiftah Spector acknowledges that in the current climate of killing, the chance of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is non-existent.    YIFTAH SPECTOR: What should be done is disengagement, separation, with a border that should be as legitimate as possible, doing unilaterally by us because we are the stronger party and because this is my government that should be the wiser and more moral.    MARK WILLACY: But there's no sign that the Israeli Government will change tack. Like Yiftah Spector, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is also an old general, but one with a history of using an iron fist against Israel's enemies.    October 20, 2003. (Published by Inter Press Service).    "Moderates Present a Way Forward" by Ferry Biedermann    JERUSALEM - Moderate Israelis and Palestinians have started drumming up support for a draft peace agreement they reached last weekend after years of negotiating.    The deal does not have official standing but the Palestinian Authority (PA) has not rejected it out of hand. On the Israeli side, opinion polls show around 40 per cent support.    "We knew there would be an asymmetry," says Shlomo Brom, an Israeli participant in the talks. He is a reserve army general and an analyst at the prestigious Jaffee Center for Strategic studies in Tel Aviv.    From the Palestinian side, he says young leaders as well as senior politicians with ties to the PA participated in the last round of talks. The Israeli side comprised mainly left-wing politicians, academics and writers, none of whom wield political power.    Brom believes that on the Israeli side it is mainly the political echelon that needs convincing; among the Palestinians it is the wider public opinion.    The talks have been held at different locations over several years. The final draft was approved in Amman in Jordan. Several dozen people from each side participated.    The deal itself is still under wraps. It is set to be unveiled in all its details at an official launch in Geneva, maybe as early as next month.    The Swiss government has helped the parties negotiate the agreement. This has greatly angered the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.    The Israeli right calls the negotiators traitors. Minister Uzi Landau from Sharon's Likud party said on television that most countries have laws against any unofficial representatives negotiating with the enemy, and he would introduce such legislation in Israel too.    But the main aim of the negotiations, participants in the talks say, is to show both sides that in spite of governments and militants, there is 'somebody to talk to' on the other side.    Daniel Levy, an Israeli left-wing activist deeply involved in drafting the peace plan says it will "re-invigorate the Israeli left."    Both sides are believed to have gone much further on the most sensitive issues, which everybody agrees are the Palestinian refugees and control of Jerusalem. The negotiators have nailed down ground-breaking proposals on these issues that will now need to be absorbed by both parties.    At the heart of the deal there seems to be a trade-off between the virtual ban on the return of refugees to Israel, and the establishment of Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif, or the Temple Mount in Jerusalem which is holy to both Muslims and Jews.    The question of right of return of refugees will not be mentioned in the text, sources associated with the talks say. Israel would get in effect a veto right over anybody who wants to settle in the country.    It is estimated that a proposed formula will lead to the return of just several tens of thousands of refugees. The number of registered refugees runs into millions.    The text includes several key phrases to ensure that after implementation the two sides will have no more claims on each other. The agreement would replace all previous agreements and United Nations resolutions.    "I cannot say that this agreement, especially on the issue of the refugees, fulfils everything that I have dreamed about," says Zuheir Manasra, a Palestinian participant and former head of the Preventive Security Service.    "But it does not fulfil all the Israeli dreams either, and I will tell our people that this is the best that can be achieved," he says. "I will fight for this proposal because it is the only alternative to continuing as we are."    Manasra recognizes that a period of peace and stability would help get the Israeli public to accept the proposals. But he refuses to countenance a unilateral Palestinian cease-fire. "That is up to Sharon," he says.    He is aware that militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad will oppose any deal along the lines of the agreement, but he does not believe the PA should crack down on those groups. "Everybody always underestimates the ability of the Palestinian society to work these issues out in a democratic and peaceful way."    Daniel Levy on the Israeli side hopes that the very existence of the agreement will contribute to a lessening of violence. "We offer hope and that is something that has been absent for years now. The absence of hope has contributed to the violence."    Kadura Fares, a Palestinian leader of the 'young guard' who is close to the jailed Intifadah leader Marwan Barghouti says he will do his best to get the proposals accepted widely among his people.    The political echelon in his Fatah movement and in the PA will follow, he says. "If the people don't accept the agreement, then the political leadership will denounce us as traitors; if the public reacts positively, the politicians will appropriate the plan and say that we could not have done it without them."    Copyright 2003 Inter Press Service Visit the related web page
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