Gush Shalom, August 20, 2003
The horrifying suicide bombing in Jerusalem, in which dozens of innocent civians were killed and wounded,
deserves to be condemned in the sharpest terms. We offer our condolences to all the bereaved families. But
it is imposible to avoid also considering how did this come to happen.
The renewed cyce of bloodshed has begun with the decision of the political and military echelons to implement – in the middle of the Hudna (cease-fire) – a series of “targeted liquidations”, knowing full well that that act would lead to retaliation bombings and to the breaking of the Hudna.
The perpetrators of the bombings came from Nablus and Hebron, two cities under full control of the Israeli army, and their deed of blood was committed in West Jerusalem, where the Israeli police is in charge. In none of these places does the Palestinian Authority exercise any measure of real control, and its police has no ability to operate there.
The real immediate solution is to remove the IDF from the Palestinian territories and hand over full control to the Palestinian Authority – as was laid out in the Road Map.