OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 10 April — Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is worried about the international reaction once the details of the Israeli Army’s operations in the Jenin refugee camp become public. In private, Peres has referred to the operation as a massacre, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported yesterday.
More than 100 Palestinians have already been killed in Jenin by Israeli forces. Some Israeli officers also expressed grave reservations Monday over the operation in Jenin. “Because of the dangers,” they said, “the soldiers are almost not advancing on foot. The bulldozers are simply ‘shaving’ the homes and causing terrible destruction. When the world sees the pictures of what we have done there, it will do us immense damage.”
“However many wanted men we kill in the refugee camp, and however much of the terror infrastructure we expose and destroy there, there is still no justification for causing such great destruction,” one army officer was quoted by the paper as saying.
Peres, who is feeling increasingly isolated in the government, believes Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is still irreplaceable at this stage.
He does not regard the documents that Sharon presented Monday in the Israeli Parliament as a “smoking gun” that irrefutably proves that Arafat was directly linked to ordering attacks. And Israel’s isolation of the Palestinian leader, he believes, only enhanced his image.
Despite his harsh criticism, however, and his belief that Labor will not be able to remain much longer in the government, Peres is in no hurry to quit.
