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| Africa North |
| Israel-Egypt storm brews over PoWs |
| 2007-03-06 |
| JERUSALEM: A major diplomatic row threatened to erupt between Israel and Egypt yesterday over claims that a crack Israeli unit killed Egyptian prisoners during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The claims, aired in a public television documentary in Israel, have been vehemently denied by the unit commander Benjamin Ben-Eliezer – now the Jewish state’s national infrastructure minister. But they have raised a storm of controversy in Egypt, where the affair has dominated the front pages for two days, sparked an angry debate in parliament and led the foreign ministry to summon the Israeli ambassador in Cairo. “A Massacre,” thundered Egypt’s mass-selling state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper. “The affair is in the process of becoming a major diplomatic incident,” a senior Israeli official said on condition of anonymity. “The relations between the two countries are compromised.” The row forced Ben-Eliezer yesterday to cancel a planned visit to Cairo this week, where he was due to discuss natural gas imports from Egypt, one of only two Arab countries to have signed a peace treaty with Israel. “Following unfounded information published in Egypt on this affair and the current atmosphere not being favourable, the two parties decided to postpone to another date Ben-Eliezer’s visit,” his press adviser Moshe Ronen said. “The Shaked Spirit” documentary broadcast a week ago claimed that the commando unit led by Ben-Eliezer during the June 1967 Six Day war had killed 250 Egyptian PoWs in the El-Arish area of the Sinai peninsula. Nice to see Israel's Media complex is up to international western standards of self-bashing and self-loathing, always probing that dark, dark past to ask for attonement and flagellation. Didn't uncle Gromgoru said that Israel's moonbats were the best, or the worst? On Sunday Ben-Eliezer – a Labour party minister, reserve general and former defence minister – denied the charges, saying his unit had killed Palestinian fighters in combat, not PoWs. “In fact, in one clash during this war, soldiers of a battalion of Palestinian Fedayeen operating from the Gaza Strip against Israel, particularly against the unit I commanded, were killed,” Ben-Eliezer said in a statement. “These soldiers were not executed as it was said, they were killed in combat. “Maybe the confusion is due to the fact that two days before this incident, the Shaked commando came across an Egyptian battalion that had stopped fighting, and men from the unit helped them by providing food and water,” his statement said. But Ben-Eliezer’s denial has done little to ease Egyptian rage. On Sunday the foreign ministry in Cairo summoned Israeli Ambassador Shalom Cohen to protest, and called for “clarification” about the reported events. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #5 Egypt under Sadat long ago [early 1970's] formally denied any claims of Israeli-caused "massacre" in this incident. The only thing achieved by this article is to illustrate a "generation gap" of misinformation and lack of knowledge/awareness/history between 1960's baby boomers and post-baby boom Clintonian twentysomethings. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-03-06 22:23 |
| #4 The commands came right down from the Tri-Lateral Commision who were worried about the obvious outbreak of cropcircles. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-03-06 18:38 |
| #3 F**k here we go again. The L***ty was picking up the screams of the dying E**tians and that was why it was attacked by the IDF. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-03-06 18:35 |
| #2 And this is part of the dividends of $2 billion/year aid? We are just buying the Egyptians off so they don't attack Israel. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2007-03-06 14:03 |
| #1 40 years ago, merely a blink of the eye for people who cry about slights and injustices committed millenia ago. I guess when you have nothing to look forward to, past glories and slights consume the idle mind. These folks should get a life. |
| Posted by: RWV 2007-03-06 13:08 |