EU Slams Israel Over Threats to Attack Syria
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, September 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana Friday, September3 , slammed an Israeli threat to attack Syria over the latest double bombing, as Israel's military intelligence chief dismissed earlier claims Damascus had direct links to the Beersheva bombings.
"I don't think it's helpful to start talking about attacking new countries," Solana told reporters as he arrived in the Netherlands for informal talks with European Union foreign ministers, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The situation in the Middle East is complicated enough at this point. It is not time to complicate it more," Solana warned, adding that he did not expect Washington to back Israel over its recent threats.
His comments came a day after senior Israeli politicians threatened an attack on Syria, accusing Damascus of being implicated in a double bombing strike by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed 16 people Tuesday .
General Aharon Zeevi, however, told reporters late Thursday that Syria is not believed to have had direct involvement in the double suicide bombing at Beersheva in southern Israel.
"We have not established any direct link between the Beersheva attack and the headquarters of terrorist organizations in Damascus," Zeevi said.
Zeevi added that "there is no doubt that Hamas has broad support in Syria for its operations" in the West Bank.
"No one in Israel is at present envisaging a military campaign against Syria," he said, adding that with regard to attacks carried out by the Lebanese group Hezbollah -- which is supported by Syria and Iran -- Israel preferred a policy of limited "economic, diplomatic and military" sanctions.
Israeli army chief of staff General Moshe Yaalon Wednesday blamed the bombings on the Palestinian Authority and Hezbollah as well as on Damascus, vowing to "take care of those who support terror".
"That is those in the Palestinian Authority, the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon, in the terrorist command in Damascus, which operate with Syrian approval, and those who provide funding and weapons to terrorist organizations."
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's official spokesman, Raanan Gissin, was more forthright: "The order for the terrorist attacks comes directly from Khaled Meshaal's bureau based in Damascus."
Syria dismissed the Israeli threat as lacking in credibility and denied any involvement in the bombings.
Foreign Minister Faruq Al-Shara, moreover, denied any link to the Beersheva attacks.
"The Israeli threats against Syria are not based on any evidence and are completely lacking in credibility," he said in comments carried by the official SANA news agency Thursday.
"(Such menaces) raise tensions in the region," Shara said.
Israel carried out an air raid inside Syria for the first time in 30 years last October, bombing an alleged training camp used by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian resistance group that had claimed responsibility for a bombing attack in the Israeli port of Haifa that left 19 people dead.
Meshaal was the target of a failed assassination bid by Israeli agents in Jordan in1997 .
Settlements Slammed
Solana Friday also repeated criticism of Israeli plans to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank, denounced by the Palestinians as contrary to peace efforts.
Solana was joined by Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, whose country holds the six-month EU presidency, in criticizing Israel's plans to build new homes inside several existing West Bank settlements.
He urged Washington to put pressure on Israel to end all further settlement activity in the West Bank.
"We are very concerned today with the questions of settlements in the West Bank. We think it's contrary to the roadmap" peace plan, Solana said.
"We think that at this point, on this particular question, they (Washington) should be tougher," he told reporters.
Bot added that EU leaders broadly "oppose recent steps by Israel to resume construction in certain settlements on the West Bank."
The United States has failed to clearly condemn the Israeli plans for new settlement homes.
The internationally-backed roadmap, which aims to create a Palestinian state by next year, obliges Israel to freeze all settlement activity as well as tear down settlement outposts put up without government authorization.
The Middle East peace process is high on the agenda of talks in the southeast Dutch town of Valkenburg, with EU ministers set to reiterate their support for Israel's plans to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza.
"We want to stimulate the Israeli plans for withdrawal from the Gaza Strip on the basis of the conditions that were formulated by the European Council in March in the context of the roadmap," Bot said.
Solana added: "We cannot see Gaza as the end of the process. It is the beginning. It has to be part of a process that continues until the end of the occupation" of the Palestinian territories.