Word: rantisi
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...Palestinians killed, 14 were civilians, including the wife and baby daughter of Yasser Taha, whom the Israelis described as a Hamas activist. The death toll might have been higher; on June 10 an Israeli missile attack on vehicles in Gaza wounded but did not kill Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a longtime leader of Hamas, which, according to Israeli figures, is responsible for the deaths of 287 Israelis since September...
...outcome some-times best delivered with a mailed fist. Since Bush has staked his reputation on being evenhanded between the Israelis and Palestinians as they progress along a road map toward the establishment of a Palestinian state, Sharon's actions are a challenge. After the attempt to kill Rantisi, which left two dead in Gaza, Bush went further than ever before in criticizing Sharon's actions. "I am troubled by the recent Israeli helicopter gunship attacks," said Bush. "I regret the loss of innocent life. I also don't believe that the attacks help Israeli security...
...toughness of Bush's statement, according to U.S. and diplomatic sources, was easily explained. By attempting to kill Rantisi, they say, Sharon had violated an undertaking that he had given Bush before Aqaba and reiterated there. Sharon, say these sources, had indicated that henceforth Israel would commit assassinations only in the case of a "ticking time bomb"--understood, on the American side, to mean a terrorist on his way to an attack. Administration sources doubt that Rantisi filled the bill. "Sure, we'll stipulate the guy's a terrorist," says a White House official. "Was he going to be responsible...
After a suicide bomber in Jerusalem killed 17 people the day after the failed hit on Rantisi, Sharon told his Cabinet ministers, according to Gissin, "Jewish blood can't come cheap. We aren't going to be put on the altar of the road map." Gissin maintains that Sharon's revulsion to terrorist attacks on Jewish civilians dates from the 1950s, when there were frequent lethal penetrations of Israel from the West Bank, then controlled by Jordan. Sharon, a young army officer, took command of Unit 101, a counterterrorism outfit that launched reprisal attacks on Palestinian villages there...
Criticism from outside Israel, however, has rarely deflected Sharon from his chosen path. For the Prime Minister and Avi Dichter, head of the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic-security service, there is no contradiction between espousing the road map and hammering Hamas. Leaders of Hamas--like Rantisi--rejected the road map and vowed to continue the fight against Israel. If they make that decision, Sharon will see that they pay the consequences. The security forces of the Palestinian Authority--divided between those who support the road map and those who do not--are, as yet, too weak to control Hamas...