The Israeli Communist Forum lays upon the shoulders of the Israeli government the responsibility for the vicious blare-up, which took place in the Occupied Palestinian Territories since the provocative visit of MP Ariel Sharon on the Temple Mount (Haram A-Sharif), which was conducted with the approval of prime minister Ehud Barak. Until now more than 100 Palestinians were killed, among them dozens of children, and more than 1,000 were injured. All this is a result of a predominated policy in the framework of which the Israeli military forces were instructed to cause the death and injury of many Palestinians by using snipers' units, live ammunition, cannons and even missiles which were shot from helicopter gun-ships. During these events several Israeli soldiers and civilians were also killed and wounded. They too paid the price for the military enthusiasm of the Barak government.

This government didn't contend itself with killing Palestinians in the occupied territories. It conducted the cruelest so far onslaught upon the Arab population of Israel since dozens of years. 13 Israeli Palestinian citizens were killed and hundreds were injured. It was a criminal reaction to the legitimate protest of the Arab population in Israel against the massive killings of Palestinians in the occupied territories, and as an expression of natural feelings of solidarity with their brothers and sisters in the occupied territories. The state that claims for itself the title of "the sole democracy in the Middle-East", cold blooded shot to death its own citizens and injured hundreds of them. Cases of pelting stones on cars and on stores, which accompanied part of the acts of protests and deserve criticism, do not, in any case, justify the use of live ammunition and killing those who took part in them. By the way, most of the victims had not been involved in any violent activity, as, for example, in Nazareth, where people were shot to death just because they came to assist their fellow citizens to rebuff the pogrom perpetrated by Jewish hooligans from neighboring Upper Nazareth.

The Israeli Media “distinguished” themselves by one-sided reports and comments which supported almost without any reservation all the measures which were taken by the Israeli government, as well as conducting a vehement instigation campaign against the Palestinian Authority and against the Arab population in Israel. It is worth mentioning too that, during all those days of unrest, the Israeli Media ignored the acts of solidarity with the Palestinians which took place amongst the Jewish population, and this in spite of the fact that vigils and other manifestations by democratic and peace loving Jewish forces took place almost every day since the beginning of the events.

The ICF criticizes the stance of Meretz party, whose main declared aim is said to be defending human rights. In its statement, which was published during the events, it first of all criticized the Arab population of Israel and not the government, which committed the killings. They only expressed some kind of slack reservations about the use of live bullets against Arab citizens of Israel. Lately, this party expressed its readiness to participate in a "National Unity Government" with Sharon's right-wing Likud party. Again it was proved that in all cases of real test, all Zionist parties, even the more moderate ones, are dragged to the nationalistic ardor, getting in lane with the militarist consensus.

We condemn the US administration for not using its influence in order to force Israel to cease the bloodshed immediately at the beginning of the murderous onslaught. It waited such a long time till the last Summit in Sharm-A-Sheikh (17.10.), at which, in his summing-up speech, Bill Clinton announced on a cease-fire and about returning the situation in the territories back to the one that prevailed before the beginning of the latest unrest. It seems that the massive protest against the mass killings perpetrated by Israel, which took place in almost all Arab countries, contributed to this, because the US started to care for the stability of the regimes in those countries, which most of them are its allies.

The Israeli Communist Forum supports the demand to form an international commission of inquiry to investigate the bloody events.

The Forum calls:

To implement the cease-fire agreements, including re-deploying the Israeli military force to the pre-events positions.