ETERNAL VIGILANCE

Shin Bet Sabotage to Blame for Scuttling
Secret Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreement

Israeli and Palestinian Sources Concur: Israel Made War Inevitable

By Jim Betker

Word comes today from the Omega Institute in Brighton, UK and its Director, Graham Ennis in a memorandum first sent to The Independent that Shin Bet, Israel's Internal Security forces, were responsible for scuttling an historic peace agreement which would have been announced at a major press conference attended by Palestinian Ministers and Israeli religious leaders the day before the IDF invasion of Gaza.

Ongoing negotiations had resulted in a breakthrough peace "understanding" which was to be announed in Jerusalem to mark the launching of an extraordinary peace initiative. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert had been briefed extensively about the initiative by Yitzhak Frankenthal, founder of the Arik Institute.

Also due to attend the press conference were Khaled Abu Arafa, the Palestinian Cabinet Minister for Jerusalem, Sheikh Muhamed Abu Tir, senior Hamas Member of the Palestinian Parliament, and other senior Palestinian delegates.

Arthur Nelsen, an Israeli journalist, described the events leading up to this promising peace initiative organized by Frankenthal, Rabbi Menachem Froman and MK Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsour, Chairman of the Islamic Movement, who were to be joined by Hamas leaders and together would have called for the release of the captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit:

"The day before the tanks rolled into Gaza, Froman had been due to launch an extraordinary peace initiative at a news conference in Jerusalem with Muhamed Abu Tir, the Hamas MP, Khaled Abu Arafa, the Palestinian minister for Jerusalem, and three Israeli rabbis.

"The panel was to have made a collective call for the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit, the beginning of a process to release all Palestinian prisoners, and the immediate start of negotiations with Hamas on the framework for a peace deal based on 1967 borders.

"They would also have announced that Jewish and Muslim religious leaders could achieve peace where Israel’s politicians had failed.

"But the response from Israel’s security establishment was crushing.

"Hours before the meeting was due to start, the Shin Bet detained Abu Tir and Abu Arafa and warned them not to attend the meeting. The news conference’s organisers were forced to contact the other rabbis — who were already on the road to Jerusalem — and tell them not to come.

"Instead of a triumphant statement of mutual respect and dialogue, a subdued and gently defiant three-man panel fended off aggressive questioning from an unruly Israeli press pack."

Israeli hardliners continue to maintain that the peace process is more dangerous than Hamas as Ted Belman wrote for Israel National Radio's Arutz Sheva website,

"...the threat of rockets raining down on Israel from Gaza isn't nearly the threat that the peace process was and is.

"To avoid this fate, the violence in the territories would have to continue at tolerable levels, but that doesn't solve the problem."

Belman's conclusion was that the Palestinians needed to be provoked.

Froman was a co-founder of Gush Emunim, the messianic settlers movement from which he split after Baruch Goldstein's Hebron massacre. As Richard Silverstein wrote of Froman on Tikun Olam,

"Despite this past history, he has very close relationships with Hamas. In fact, he negotiated for the release of Sheik Ahmed Yassin (later assassinated by Israel) from an Israeli prison, later becoming fast friends with him. He’s met with Mahmoud al-Zahar and the group’s leaders seem to like and genuinely trust him. He is a key figure in Jerusalem Peacemakers whose goal is to create an interdenominational dialogue involving spiritual dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"All of these qualities make Froman a very dangerous guy to Israeli intelligence."

In an interview with the Jerusalem Post Froman said, "Secular leadership is perceived by the Hamas as a group of Zionist apostates that are a spiritual danger to Muslims. I believe that a dialogue between religious Jews and Muslims can be productive."

Froman subscribes to the premise "that for Jews to live in all of Eretz Yisrael, they have to create a network of life with the Arabs."

It should be noted, however, that Froman believes that Jerusalem should be the seat of the United Nations' cultural bodies, human rights organizations and scholarly forums.

We see in this that Froman is indeed and ardent Zionist (and perhaps is calling for Jerusalem to be the seat of world government), though perhaps not one of the same stripe as is so prevalent in the Israeli government.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed writes that during all of this activity in Gaza,

"Israel simultaneously began conducting covert incursions on to Lebanese territory, provoking Hizbollah’s capture of two IDF soldiers. Credible sources confirm that the soldiers were not abducted on Israeli territory, but inside Lebanon. Like the scuppered peace negotiations, Western officials have ignored this, and misinformed the media. However, some reports corroborate the sources. Israeli officials, for instance, informed Forbes (12.7.06) that 'Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel.'"

The Israeli covert incursions took place near the Shebaa Farms, which is a disputed area of Lebanon occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War and supposedly taken from Syrian troops. Evidence points to the farms being Lebanese territory and an Israeli researcher proved it to be true by going to Paris and looking up records and maps from the period of the French Mandate.

A simple truth that is kept hidden from view concerning the reasons for the renewed violence in and around Israel is that Zionist provocations are to blame as OI Director Graham Ennis has written,

"The revelations show that Palestinian and Lebanese actors were not principally responsible for the escalation of the current conflict. Contrary to the misinformation disseminated by the Whitehouse and Whitehall, Israel vetoed unprecedented peace proposals that would have initiated a promising new framework for serious negotiations, and went on to provoke Palestinian and Lebanese groups into retaliations, that now threaten to escalate into a dangerous regional conflict."