The US Defense Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld today voiced support for Israel's seizure of a ship which it said was carrying 50 tonnes of munitions to the Gaza Strip on the orders of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
|
|
Mr Donald Rumsfeld
|
Mr Arafat, whose aides have denied he or his Palestinian Authority were involved, launched an internal investigation into the incident. He said any Palestinians found to be complicit would be punished.
Israel said it would release documents this week proving Mr Arafat's direct involvement in the shipment captured by Israeli commandos in the Red Sea last Thursday.
Israeli-Palestinian recriminations over the issue have dealt a blow to US-European peace efforts aimed at building on the relative calm that has prevailed since mid-December.
The US State Department said yesterday it would not rush to judgment over the shipment but would wait until it had enough information about the Israeli allegations.
But Mr Rumsfeld told a US television station Israel had been within its rights to seize the vessel, the Karine-A.
"They clearly had very good intelligence that those weapons were going to be used against them and they intercepted the ship by pre-empting that ship from landing and unloading and then providing those weapons to be used against Israel", he said. "The United States has done a similar thing with respect to various ship interceptions...and it is something I think that is not unusual or not uncalled-for when one thinks of the magnitude of the weapons stash that was on that ship."