A rchive Date
[ 11-06-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/06/08/106762-ap.html
Bush scolds Israel
Tue, June 10, 2003
WASHINGTON (AP) - President George W. Bush scolded Israel on Tuesday for a helicopter missile attack on a senior Hamas political leader that killed a bystander and a bodyguard, warning that such a strike "does not contribute to the security of Israel."
The assassination attempt came less than a week after Bush launched the "road map" toward Middle East peace he helped craft at a summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.
"The president is deeply troubled by the strike of helicopter gunships that reportedly killed at least two persons and wounded 20 others," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
"The president is concerned that this strike will undermine efforts by Palestinian authorities to bring an end to terrorist attacks, and it does not contribute to the security Israel."
Abbas denounced the helicopter strike as a "criminal and terrorist" attack and asked Washington to intervene.
Bush said after the summit in Aqaba, Jordan, last week that he would seek to keep the parties on the path to peace if he saw them straying. The prepared statement issued from Fleischer's lectern seemed to be in keeping with that.
"What's important in this new environment is for Palestinians and Israelis to find ways to work together on the path to peace," Fleischer said.
"This is going to require both the Palestinian Authority and Israel to find new ways to protect the road map so it can advance, to face terrorism."
"In looking at the progress that must be made for the road map and looking at this attack, the president is deeply troubled by it," Fleischer said.
The White House has often tempered such warnings to Israel with by emphasizing that Israel has a right to defend itself, and Fleischer repeated that language Tuesday.
But, he added: "Israel has to act on that right in a manner that is consistent with larger objectives, and in this case the president views this (attack) as deeply troubling."
In Tuesday's strike, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a car carrying senior Hamas political leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, wounding him and killing his bodyguard and a bystander. More than two dozen other people, mostly bystanders, were wounded, at least three of them critically, a Palestinian doctor said.
Rantisi is the most high-profile Hamas leader to be targeted by Israel since the latest armed uprising against the Israeli occupation erupted 32 months ago.
Rantisi, who suffered a leg injury and underwent surgery, said he jumped out of his car when he heard the choppers overhead.
After the attack, Hamas threatened revenge.
"We will continue with our holy war and resistance until every last criminal Zionist is evicted from this land," Rantisi told the Arab satellite TV station Al-Jazeera from his hospital bed.
Abbas accused Israel of trying to destroy the "road map" plan to get out of its commitments.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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