A front-page article in today's New York Times reports, "This afternoon, in the shade cast by a building, six Palestinian soldiers drank cups of sweet Arabic coffee, a half hour after trading shots with Israeli tanks."
No explanation by the Times of what army these "soldiers" serve in, or whose command they are under.
That is a significant point, because the agreements under which the PLO operates in Hebron and elsewhere in the West bank are explicit in forbidding soldiers from any country but Israel to operate in this area. The May 4, 1994, Gaza-Jericho Agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization provides in Article IX, section 2, that "Except for the Palestinian Police referred to in this Article and the Israeli military forces, no other armed forces shall be established or operate in the Gaza Strip or the Jericho Area." The January 17, 1997, Hebron redeployment protocol incorporated by mention the September 28, 1995, interim agreement ("Oslo II"), which also said, in Article XIV, "Except for the Palestinian Police and the Israeli military forces, no other armed forces shall be established or operate in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip."
If in fact these Palestinian soldiers were the "police" referred to in the agreements between the PLO and Israel, then they are violating the agreements by "trading shots with Israeli tanks." That's not what the "police" created by those agreements were supposed to do.
Anyway, it's nice to see the Times calling these Palestinian soldiers what they in fact are, and reporting that they are firing on Israelis. But it would also be nice to see the newspaper probe a bit deeper into the operations of these "Palestinian soldiers." The Times tends to dwell much more on the rock-throwing Arab children then on the gun-toting Arab soldiers.
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