Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2001 13:04:17 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Amnesty's limited monitoring


Two comments on Amnesty's press release:
1. Why is it that this highly respected international
human rights organization omits international law
rhetoric and clings on American(Mitchel report)/CIA
(Tenet document) terms of reference? (does a powerless
official Palestinian signing on American-Israeli
impositions sufficient for such an organization?)

2. Amnesty, unlike HRW, is still silent on the issue
of Palestinian complaints against Sharon for his
responsibility to the Sabra and Shatila massacre.


* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat
of Amnesty
International *

4 July 2001
MED 15/063/2001
114/01


"The decision by Israel's security cabinet today to
expand its
targeting of Palestinians is a further dangerous step
in its
policy of state assassination," Amnesty International
said.

     The new guidelines reportedly allow Israeli
security
forces to take action against " known terrorists" even
if they
are not on the verge of committing an attack.
According to media
reports, Israel's intelligence and military
authorities have
drawn up a hit-list of Palestinians to  be
assassinated.

     "The Israeli security forces who carry out the
extrajudicial executions offer no proof of guilt, no
right of
defence," said Amnesty International. "The Israeli 
authorities
are showing an utter disregard of the right to life."

     The organization reiterated its condemnation of
this
liquidation policy and called on the Israeli
authorities to stop
it immediately and to restore the right to life by
investigating
every killing.

     In the most recent cases, Israel killed three
Islamic
militants, Mohammed Besharat, Sameh Nuri Abu Hameish
and Walid
Sidqi Besharat, in an helicopter missile attack in the
area of
Jenin, in the West Bank, on Sunday July 1.

     A week earlier, Usama Fathi Jawabra, a Fatah
faction
member, had been killed in an explosion in a public
telephone
booth in the West Bank city of Nablus.

     Both the report of the investigation committee
chaired by
US former senator George Mitchell and the cease-fire
agreement
mediated by CIA director George Tenet and signed by
Israel and
the Palestinian Autority have called for an end to
extrajudicial
killings.

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