NATO gives Palestinians observer status

By Tom Regan

In a move little noticed by Western media, on Tuesday the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) granted observer status to the Palestinians at its parliamentary Assembly, held this week in the Slovenian capital city of Ljubljana.

GEO World News reports that the NATO assembly's delegates also voted in favor of "granting Palestine the status of participant during the next session of the Parliamentary Assembly in November."

he Jerusalem Post reports that Israeli officials have reacted "coolly" to the announcement. But at the same time Israel, along with "Algeria, Jordan and Mauritania joined Morocco as Mediterranean Associates of the Assembly."

NATO officials said the decision reflected the widening role NATO parliamentarians are playing in security issues outside the Alliance's traditional area of operation. According to a NATO press release, MK [Member of Knesset - Israel's parliament] Joseph Paritzky welcomed the involvement of the Palestinians and other Arab states in the work of the Assembly, which is made up of 248 delegates from 26 member countries. "This shows that we [Israel] belong to the parliament of the most important and biggest defense union of the world, and the decision is highly appreciated," Paritzky was quoted as saying.

The Post noted that the decision to grant the Palestinians observer status did not catch Jerusalem off-guard, but "questioned whether it was the right time to be handing out carrots to the Palestinians."

"Played at the right time it could have given the Palestinians the encouragement they needed to take steps against terrorist infrastructure which they have yet to take," said one [Israeli] official.

Palestinians hailed the decision.

"This is a very important decision as for many years European countries have only heard the Israeli voice in these groupings. For peace to become a reality and agreements to be fully implemented, we need to be able to tell our side of the story too," said Hassan Khreisheh, the first deputy speaker of the Palestinian body and one of the two Palestinian delegates.

The BBC reports on a situation that could provoke tensions between the Israeli army and the Palestinians.

Two Israeli soliders have alleged that they were "ordered to carry out revenge attacks on Palestinian police after six of their comrades were killed." The soldiers made the allegations to the Israeli peace group Breaking the Silence, an organization composed of former Israeli soldiers that gathers evidence on Israeli army abuses.

The Guardian reports that according to one soldier, after the Israeli troops were killed, the unit was called together, and told that six Palestinians needed to be killed to avenge their comrades.

"The idea was simply to kill them all. Whenever they arrived we would kill them, regardless whether armed or not."

The soldier went on: "The first firing was ineffective and missed ... We got up and fired, hitting two of theirs. I think we hit one in the shoulder and one in the leg and they escaped. I shot one in the head as he was running while another was crawling behind.

"We got up and started chasing them. It was ... really ... I really enjoyed it. It was the first time we were in an advance storm situation like in our training exercises. And we acted flawlessly. We performed superbly." The wounded policeman escaped into a hut which the soldiers fired at, blowing up a gas cylinder and starting a blaze. According to the witness, none of the Palestinians was armed.

A second soldier told the Guardian a similar story, saying "that he was told to attack three checkpoints in the Nablus area and simply shoot at police. It was clearly a revenge attack, he said."

The Israeli army issued a statement about the allegations. While it did not deny the attacks, it said it targeted Palestinian police who were aiding militants by allowing them through checkpoints to attack Israeli civilians and soldiers. But the two soldiers who made the allegations say, when the attacks occurred, they had no evidence that the 15 policemen killed were involved with the militants.

Finally, Ha'aretz reports that the Israeli government has also evacuated almost all its personnel from its embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, after receiving terrorist warnings. Only Ambassador Ami Mehl, and some security guards, remain at the embassy. Just last month, a security guard killed a suspected suicide bomber as he approached the embassy.