SIMONA SHARONI
Sharoni is professor of peace and conflict studies and Middle East politics at Evergreen State College and executive director of the Consortium on Peace Research, Education and Development. An Israeli Jew who served in the Israeli army, she said today: “Sharon will probably do as much damage as he can before Powell gets to Israel next week, the same way he did before Zinni’s trip. Israel’s leaders have proven that they can go into the West Bank towns anytime they want. There should be an inquiry commission to investigate allegations of war crimes committed by Israel in the last week.” [On an August 3, 2001 news release from the Institute for Public Accuracy, Sharoni said: “The targeted assassinations campaign against Palestinian leaders is likely to provoke a violent response. In fact, one wonders if Israel is using these illegal attacks to provoke such a response and then use that as a pretext to reoccupy the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip.” Today she added: “Sharon’s continuing military offensive is far from being a spontaneous response to the suicide bombings. Rather, it is part of a broader master plan long in the making. The plan, designed to impose a new political reality on the Palestinians, is now clear: to destroy the Palestinian Authority, militarily reoccupy most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and create small and disconnected Palestinian ‘Bantustans’ forced to make their own separate deals with Israel on Israeli terms.”]

FRANCIS BOYLE
Professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law and legal adviser to the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace negotiations from 1991 to 1993, Boyle said today: “We must abandon the fiction that the U.S. government is an ‘honest broker’ in the Middle East…. It has invariably sided with Israel against the Palestinians, as well as against the other Arab states. We need to establish some type of international framework to sponsor these negotiations where the Palestinian negotiators will not be subjected to the continual intimidation, bribery, and outright deceptions perpetrated by the U.S. and Israel.” Boyle, who was General Agent for the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina before the International Court of Justice against the Milosevic regime, added: “Milosevic is on trial at The Hague for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, whereas Sharon is on trial in Belgium for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.”
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STEPHEN SHALOM
Professor of political science at William Paterson University in New Jersey and author of Imperial Alibis, Shalom said today: “Bush has been criticized for operating at arm’s length, but the problem is not ‘arm’s length’ — it’s arms shipments. The U.S. has been militarily, economically and diplomatically supporting the Israeli occupation for 35 years. It has blocked and vetoed action at the UN that might have addressed the situation.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; Norman Solomon, (415) 552-5378