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Arrests Show New Israel Line Against Hamas

(New York Times) Steven Erlanger - Israel arrested a third of the Palestinian cabinet and 23 Hamas legislators in the West Bank on Thursday, a move that Israeli officials said indicated a significant change in Israel's policy toward the Hamas government. The arrests are partly intended to warn Hamas leaders that they could lose their power and liberty unless they act to release a captured Israeli soldier, a senior Israeli military official said. But Israel has also concluded that Hamas, which had largely kept to a cease-fire before, is now openly engaged in violent acts against Israel and must be treated differently. Israeli officials said Thursday that they had agreed to let Palestinian parliamentary elections go ahead five months ago, despite the participation of Hamas, under American pressure. "So long as they were smart enough not to openly exercise terror, no one touched them," said the senior Israeli military officer. "But now they've gone back to it, so we have the right to deal differently with this terrorist government and try to remove them." The Israelis cited Hamas' firing of Kassam rockets beginning this month, its public declaration that the cease-fire with Israel was over, and its open involvement in the raid into Israeli territory Sunday that resulted in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers and the capture of a wounded corporal, Gilad Shalit, 19. The arrests of the Hamas political leaders, under criminal law, for alleged membership in a terrorist organization and involvement in terrorist acts, were approved this week by the attorney general, Menachem Mazuz, "because he agreed that the public interest has changed, and there are moments a state can say, 'We have a public interest in activating the criminal law,'" said Jacob Galanti, the Justice Ministry spokesman.
2006-06-30 00:00:00
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