Reply #9: Top quality spin, there.

[Englander]

The abuse of history/logic/language really was a 1st class job.
Nice framing, as well, I see.

Here's some facty, rather than truthy, reporting;

'Wednesday, 17 October, 2001, 10:26 GMT 11:26 UK
Israeli minister shot dead

Israel's hard-line Tourism Minister, Rehavam Zeevi, has been shot dead by gunmen in a Jerusalem hotel.

Mr Zeevi died in hospital after being shot three times in the head and throat inside Jerusalem's Hyatt Hotel.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has said it carried out the assassination in revenge for the killing of its leader Abu Ali Mustafa, by Israeli forces in August.

>snip

The Palestinian Authority has condemned the killing, but urged Israel to halt its policy of killing Palestinians.

"We feel sorry about this assassination. We reject all forms of political assassinations. We want to put an end to this vicious cycle of killing," Cabinet Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said.

Revenge

The radical PFLP group has claimed responsibility for trying to kill Mr Zeevi saying, "we vowed to avenge the killing of leader Abu Ali Mustafa and we fulfilled our promise."

Abu Ali Mustafa was killed by Israeli forces in August.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1603862.stm

____________________________________

Obituary: Rehavam Zeevi

Rehavam Ze'evi was a highly controversial politician, even by the standards of Israel where the politics is controversial by its very nature.

He was known as one of the most hardline politicians in the country - an advocate of deporting Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to Arab countries.

His assassination came on the very day he was due to leave the cabinet, after tendering his resignation as tourism minister two days earlier.

Typically, it was not an issue involving tourism - about which he rarely spoke - which triggered the resignation, but over his brand of hardline, ultra-nationalist policies towards Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Along with ally Avigdor Lieberman of Israel Beitenu, he resigned in protest at Israel's withdrawal from parts of Hebron and plans to reduce a blockade against Palestinians.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1603857.stm

____________________________

Sharon 's 'guard dog' bares his teeth

Minister in new cabinet wants all Palestinians expelled

Suzanne Goldenberg in Jerusalem
Wednesday March 7, 2001
The Guardian

Rechavam Ze'evi, who takes his place in Ariel Sharon 's cabinet today, looked out of his office in the parliament building on to a glorious view of the hills coming alive with spring - and saw Arab armies at the gate.

"You can't defend Jerusalem from the hills. If a war was to start on the initiation of the Arabs, in three hours we would have to fight right here in the knesset," he said. "In four hours we would have to fight in Tel Aviv."

Mr Ze'evi's elevation to the cabinet has caused shivers in Israel. The former major-general, who is 74, wants the 3m Palestinians expelled from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

He considers Jordan part of Israel's birthright, and thinks that Israel's 1m Arab citizens should not be allowed to vote, because they do not serve in the army. The incoming tourist minister, he believes visitors to Israel must speak Hebrew.

Mr Sharon told the knesset yesterday that he had formed a coalition and was ready to be sworn in today.

Labour doves say Mr Ze'evi's membership of the coalition is a "nightmare", and that Shimon Peres dirtied his Nobel peace prize by agreeing to serve in the same government.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1680917,00.html

______________________________

Far-right leader who fell victim to his own ideas

Minister fought for strategy of assassination

Suzanne Goldenberg in Jerusalem
Thursday October 18, 2001
The Guardian

An ardent supporter of Israel's strategy of assassination, the far-right leader Rehavam Zeevi yesterday became the first Israeli politician felled by a Palestinian assassin since the Jewish state was created in 1948.

"It's not murder to get rid of potential terrorists, or those who have blood on their hands," Zeevi told the Guardian in an interview in March, a few days before he joined the national unity government of Ariel Sharon as tourism minister. "Each one eliminated is one less terrorist for us to fight."

Yesterday, that strategy led to Zeevi's own death. In their claim of responsibility, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist group opposed to the Oslo peace accords, said they killed the ultra-nationalist to avenge the assassination of their chief, Mustafa Ali Zibri, killed by two Israeli guided missiles while at his desk in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

For Israelis and Palestinians alike, Zeevi - universally known as Gandhi - was the icon of the extreme right, the loudest advocate for the ethnic cleansing of 3m Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, a policy known as "transfer".

"The Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza have to be transferred to their forefathers' land," he said last March. It was wrong to see this as cruel, he said. "I don't want to transfer them to live in igloos with the Eskimos. I want to send them back to live with their brothers."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,576142,00.html