Lulua
11-09-2002, 04:44
Israelis' lives poisoned by "new form of terror" in restaurants
September 10, 2002, 12:41 PM
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Just as Israelis start returning to their cafe terraces after a lull in suicide bombings, a new and entirely unexpected threat appears -- Palestinian militants infiltrating a restaurant kitchen in a bid to poison Jewish clients.
"It's something completely new, we don't know how to handle it yet. We have to get used to another kind of terror," says Ronen Rimon, whose Jerusalem restaurant is at the centre of the latest scare.
Utman Said Kianyah, together with two other east Jerusalemites suspected of links with the radical Islamist group Hamas, was arrested last month for plotting to poison the food served in Rimon's cafe.
Cafe Rimon and its huge sunny terraces sit on the corner of a pedestrian street in west Jerusalem's Ben Yehuda area, a popular spot with tourists and the city's youth, but also with Palestinian suicide bombers.
The crowded neighbourhood has been hit several times since the beginning of the bloody 23-month-old intifada, and Rimon is pondering what measures to take to improve security in his cafe, which already has guards -- uniformed and plain-clothed -- and 12 security cameras.
"I don't want to hire any more Arabs and the seven or eight who already work in the kitchens will have to be watched very closely," he explained, adding that he is planning to upgrade his closed-circuit surveillance system.
Kianyah's indictment by a Jerusalem district court says he was planning to pour a colourless, odourless and taste-free poison concocted from a muscle-relaxing medicine into patrons' drinks, and had even suggested testing it on cats beforehand.
The cell was busted when Israeli police intercepted e-mails which also included plans for carrying out suicide bombings.
All three members were from the Arab Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan, and the arrests came against a backdrop of already strained relations between the disputed city's Arab and Jewish communities.
Three weeks ago, another east Jerusalem cell linked to Hamas was cracked and found to have planned and carried out several of the deadliest anti-Israeli attacks over the past few months, including the bombing of Jerusalem's Moment cafe.
"Many people called Moment this morning to ask if we employed Arab cooks. I'm sure lots of them did not come after we answered them that we did," said Elan, a Jewish waiter at the cafe where 11 people were killed in March.
"Terrorists are inventive. We can have security guards, cameras, we could even have bullet-proof windows, but this is something new. There are Arab employees in every single cafe and restaurant in Jerusalem," he added.
"In a way, it's good for us. Nobody will want to hire Arabs anymore and there will be more jobs for Jews. But at the end of the day, it's bad for the business. Employers will have to offer higher salaries for non-Arabs, and the clients will have to pay more for their cup of coffee."
As the news of the "poison terror plot" was splashed across the front pages of every single Israeli newspaper Tuesday, most customers refused to believe in the worst-case scenario of an invisible enemy invading their daily lives right into their plates and drinks.
"What can you do? If you start thinking that way, the Arabs could sabotage your car, put cyanide in the water pipes, poison the food in supermarkets and so on and so forth. This is how terror works," says Samuel Epstein, a US student who settled in Jerusalem only a few weeks before the uprising broke out.
"All we can do is carry on as usual and wait for this situation to end."
Sitting with his friends in the trendy Jerusalem neighbourhood of Emek Refaim, he laughed before taking a bite off his cheeseburger: "I can't afford to have my private taster anyway."
http://www.arabia.com/afp/news/mideast/article/english/0,10846,285080,00.html
September 10, 2002, 12:41 PM
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Just as Israelis start returning to their cafe terraces after a lull in suicide bombings, a new and entirely unexpected threat appears -- Palestinian militants infiltrating a restaurant kitchen in a bid to poison Jewish clients.
"It's something completely new, we don't know how to handle it yet. We have to get used to another kind of terror," says Ronen Rimon, whose Jerusalem restaurant is at the centre of the latest scare.
Utman Said Kianyah, together with two other east Jerusalemites suspected of links with the radical Islamist group Hamas, was arrested last month for plotting to poison the food served in Rimon's cafe.
Cafe Rimon and its huge sunny terraces sit on the corner of a pedestrian street in west Jerusalem's Ben Yehuda area, a popular spot with tourists and the city's youth, but also with Palestinian suicide bombers.
The crowded neighbourhood has been hit several times since the beginning of the bloody 23-month-old intifada, and Rimon is pondering what measures to take to improve security in his cafe, which already has guards -- uniformed and plain-clothed -- and 12 security cameras.
"I don't want to hire any more Arabs and the seven or eight who already work in the kitchens will have to be watched very closely," he explained, adding that he is planning to upgrade his closed-circuit surveillance system.
Kianyah's indictment by a Jerusalem district court says he was planning to pour a colourless, odourless and taste-free poison concocted from a muscle-relaxing medicine into patrons' drinks, and had even suggested testing it on cats beforehand.
The cell was busted when Israeli police intercepted e-mails which also included plans for carrying out suicide bombings.
All three members were from the Arab Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan, and the arrests came against a backdrop of already strained relations between the disputed city's Arab and Jewish communities.
Three weeks ago, another east Jerusalem cell linked to Hamas was cracked and found to have planned and carried out several of the deadliest anti-Israeli attacks over the past few months, including the bombing of Jerusalem's Moment cafe.
"Many people called Moment this morning to ask if we employed Arab cooks. I'm sure lots of them did not come after we answered them that we did," said Elan, a Jewish waiter at the cafe where 11 people were killed in March.
"Terrorists are inventive. We can have security guards, cameras, we could even have bullet-proof windows, but this is something new. There are Arab employees in every single cafe and restaurant in Jerusalem," he added.
"In a way, it's good for us. Nobody will want to hire Arabs anymore and there will be more jobs for Jews. But at the end of the day, it's bad for the business. Employers will have to offer higher salaries for non-Arabs, and the clients will have to pay more for their cup of coffee."
As the news of the "poison terror plot" was splashed across the front pages of every single Israeli newspaper Tuesday, most customers refused to believe in the worst-case scenario of an invisible enemy invading their daily lives right into their plates and drinks.
"What can you do? If you start thinking that way, the Arabs could sabotage your car, put cyanide in the water pipes, poison the food in supermarkets and so on and so forth. This is how terror works," says Samuel Epstein, a US student who settled in Jerusalem only a few weeks before the uprising broke out.
"All we can do is carry on as usual and wait for this situation to end."
Sitting with his friends in the trendy Jerusalem neighbourhood of Emek Refaim, he laughed before taking a bite off his cheeseburger: "I can't afford to have my private taster anyway."
http://www.arabia.com/afp/news/mideast/article/english/0,10846,285080,00.html