Background: Thwarted terrorist attack not expected to "count" in measure of
Palestinians violence

Aaron Lerner Date: 24 March 2002

If the 6 terrorists had succeeded today in their mission to slaughter people
in the tourist area of the southern banks of the Kinneret (within the Green
Line), it would have counted as at least one incident in the incident
"score" used to measure Palestinian violence. But since the Jordanian army
killed two of the terrorists before they even reached Israel and thanks to
Jordan's warning the IDF was on alert and killed the remaining four
terrorists near Kibbutz Haon without Israeli losses, as far as the Peres
scoring system is concerned nothing happened.

It is also not clear also how the Peres scoring system treats the murder
this morning of Esther Kleiman since she was murdered while traveling in a
bus beyond the Green Line and the Palestinians make no claim that they
oppose murdering Israelis beyond the Green Line.

Under Foreign Minister Shimon Peres' scoring system, the Palestinians can
carry out one to three attacks without this being held against them. While
Peres never made clear what the time frame is for the attack quota, Peres
dismissed a weekly timeframe when asked on Channel Two Television's Saturday
"Meet the Press" program. Instead Peres, in what appeared to be a move
towards the daily attack quota approach, said that violence had already
declined. At the time of Peres' appearance over 24 hours had passed without
the Palestinians having succeeded in murdering an Israeli - though not for
lack of effort.

It would appear from Foreign Minister Peres' remarks today that he will
press for Israel to permit Arafat to go to the Beirut Arab League Summit if
the Palestinians fail to succeed in murdering anyone the day - or at least
the hours before leaves.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director
IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-5480092
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
pager 03-610666 subscriber 4811
Website: http://www.imra.org.il