(Jerusalem Post) Arieh O'Sullivan - A senior military source told the Jerusalem Post Wednesday: •"Arafat thinks that by demographics and terrorism there will be one state and it won't be Jewish." • The IDF is ready to carry out the cabinet's decision to remove Arafat the moment the orders are given. •The near constant deployment of forces in the territories over the past three years was not fatiguing the troops. "The battalions are strong and have high standards and are working well. Every four months new soldiers are added to the fighting and commanders are rotated. The standing army can keep this up for years." •"Israel has significant deterrence over Syria today. We see it. We struck at a terrorist target in Syria and there is embarrassment there. If we had not been deterring the Syrians and Hizballah, then I think that the northern front would have been a lot hotter." "If they felt the Syrian army was strong [enough] to stand up to the IDF, [Syria] would have let the Hizballah to be more daring. They prefer the Palestinian front and are responsible for a lot of what is happening here. They prefer this because they thought we would not link the two fronts." •Acknowledging the August report that an IAF fighter buzzed Assad's palace, the senior officer described what transpired: "Imagine this F-15 flying 50 meters above Assad's palace at 1 a.m. in the morning, with all of its thrusters directed exactly over the palace, and no one even detected it until it was over the palace. This is embarrassing, not to mention unpleasant."
2003-10-23 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive