Word: rabin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Israelis have tried tear gas, rubber bullets and real ones, mass arrests, imprisonment and deportations. All of those strategies have failed to stop the wave of unrest that has engulfed Israel's occupied territories during the past seven weeks. So last week Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin shifted tactics one more time. From now on, he said, his soldiers would not fire on stone-tossing protesters -- they would beat them...
...seethed and a general strike paralyzed commerce throughout the territories, the Israeli government sent in more troops, arrested more Palestinians, and cracked down on the violence harder than ever. "We must get a political solution by political means and not as a result of terror," said Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who is in charge of the occupied territories. "Arab terror will be confronted by the power of the Israel Defense Forces...
...Though Rabin for the first time acknowledged the spontaneous nature of the uprising, he and other officials still hoped to quell the rioting by acting against what officials insist are the "ringleaders" of the violence. Four such men were loaded aboard an Israeli helicopter last week and flown to a mountain road near the town of Hasbeya, in southern Lebanon. There they were handed $50 each and told not to return to their homes. To help the exiles on their way, the soldiers flagged down two Mercedes taxis and paid the drivers to take them away...
Beyond images, there was the much more substantial question of whether Israel truly understands the root causes of the riots. Rabin insisted the protests were the work of a few organized provocateurs, a view that may be shared by most Israelis. "There were instigators forcing kids to demonstrate, forcing people to close their shops," he said. "This unrest was organized by a few at the local level...
...Rabin is right, the military and judicial shows of force that brought an uneasy calm to the occupied territories last week will continue to keep the Palestinians in check. If Benvenisti and Bookbinder are right, the Israelis have only bought a little breathing space, and no amount of jail time and fines will keep the West Bank and the Gaza quiet for very long...