Violence... The story so far

1 A copy of the statement is attached.

2 Copies of the President's letters are attached.

3 When informed of the planned visit, Ambassador Dennis Ross (President Clinton's Middle East Envoy) said that he told Israeli Minister of Interior Shlomo Ben-Ami, "I can think of a lot of bad ideas, but I can't think of a worse one." See Jane Perlez, "US Envoy Recalls the Day Pandora's Box Wouldn't Shut," The New York Times, January 29, 2001.

4 U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2000 (Israel), Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, February 2001, http://www.state.gov

5 Government of Israel, First Statement, 28 December 2000 (hereafter "GOI, First Statement"), para 187. B'Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) reported that 70 police were injured. See Events on the Temple Mount - 29 September 2000: Interim Report, http://www.btselem.org

6 Disturbances also occurred within Israel's Arab community, resulting in thirteen deaths. These events do not fall within the mandate of this Committee and are the subject of an official GOI inquiry.

7 GOI, First Statement, para 118.

8 Id., para 110. According to the GOI, the Palestinian Minister of Posts and Telecommunications declared at a rally in Lebanon in March 2001 that the confrontation with Israel had been planned following the Camp David Summit. See Government of Israel, Second Statement, 20 March 2001 (hereafter, "GOI, Second Statement"), para 2. The PA provided the Committee a translation of a letter from the Minister, dated March 12, 2001, in which the Minister denied saying that the intifada was planned, and that his statement in Lebanon was misquoted and taken out of context. We were told by an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) intelligence officer that while the declaration itself was not definitive, it represented an "open-source" version of what was known to the IDF through "other means"; knowledge and means not shared by the IDF with the Committee.

9 Palestine Liberation Organization, Preliminary Submission of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the International Commission of Inquiry, December 8, 2000, p. 10. Note: submissions to the Committee from the Palestinian side were made by the PLO.

10 Palestine Liberation Organization, A Crisis of Faith: Second Submission of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the Sharm El-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee, December 30,2000 (hereafter "PLO, Second Submission"), p. 16.

11 See GOI, First Statement, para 286.

12 Palestine Liberation Organization, Third Submission of The Palestine Liberation Organization to the Sharm El-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee, April 3, 2001 (hereafter "PLO, Third Submission"), p. 51.

13 GOI, Second Statement, para 4.

14 GOI, First Statement, para 19.

15 PLO, Third Submission, p. 25.

16 Id., pp. 46-50.

17 Id., pp. 27-28.

18 PLO, Second Submission, p. 14.

19 Id., pp. 14-15.

20 GOI, Second Statement, para 82.

21 GOI, First Statement, para 99.

22 GOI Second Statement, para 19, referring to the Exchange of Notes Between the Prime Minister of Israel and the Chairman of the PLO, 9- 10 September 1993.

23 Id., para 21.

24 Testimony before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, 102nd Congress, May 22, 1991.

25 On March 21, 1980, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, speaking on behalf of the Carter Administration, stated: "U.S. policy toward the establishment of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories is unequivocal and has long been a matter of public record. We consider it to be contrary to international law and an impediment to the successful conclusion of the Middle East peace process."

On September 1, 1982, President Ronald Reagan announced what came to be known as The Reagan Plan for the Middle East, stating that: "[T]he immediate adoption of a settlements freeze by Israel, more than any other action, could create the confidence needed for wider participation in these talks. Further settlement activity is in no way necessary for the security of Israel and only diminishes the confidence of the Arabs that a final outcome can be freely and fairly negotiated."

On December 16, 1996, at a press conference, President Bill Clinton stated: "It just stands to reason that anything that preempts the outcome [of the negotiations] ... cannot be helpful in making peace. I don't think anything should be done that would be seen as preempting the outcome." Asked if he viewed the settlements as an obstacle to peace, President Clinton replied, "Absolutely. Absolutely."

On April 5, 2001, a U.S. State Department spokesman, speaking for the current administration, stated: "Continuing settlement activity does risk inflaming an already volatile situation in the region"; he described that activity as "provocative."

26 There are 400 settlers in the "H2" sector of central Hebron, and 6,000 in the Kiryat Arba settlement on the eastern edge of the city. See "An Introduction to the City of Hebron," published by the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, http://www.tiph.org/.

27 Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook 2000, http://www.cia.gov

28Ha'aretz, English Language Edition, April 10, 2001, p. 5.

29 GOI, First Statement, para 286.

30 Id., para 189.

31 B'Tselem, Illusions of Restraint: Human Rights Violations During the Events in the Occupied Territories, 29 September-2 December 2000, December 2000, p. 4.

32 GOI, First Statement, para 306. "The stated policy of the IDF is that whenever a Palestinian in the Occupied Territories dies at the hands of a soldier, an investigation is to be made by the Department of Military Police Investigations (MPI), except in cases defined as 'hostile terrorist activity.'" See B'Tselem, Illusions of Restraint, p. 24. See also, Alex Fishman, "The Intifada, the IDF and Investigations," Yediot Aharonot (in English, Richard Bell Press, 1996, Ltd.), January 19, 2001.

33 GOI, Second Statement, para 69-80.

34 PLO, Third Submission, p. 69.

35 Id., p. 60.

36 GOI, Second Statement, para 78.

37 GOI, First Statement, para 305.

38 Israel Defense Forces, The Ethical Code of the Israel Defense Forces, http://www.us-israel.org/

39 See, e.g., U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2000 (Occupied Territories), http://www.state.gov/. See also, B'Tselem, Illusions of Restraint, pp. 15-16, reporting on the alleged practice of separating rubber bullets into individual rounds, as opposed to firing them properly in a bound cluster of three. Separation increases range and lethality.

40 GOI, Second Statement, para 92.

41 Id., para 89.