Remember my earlier predictions concerning Netanyahu!
The Telegraph - London - 10/18/98
By Philip Jacobson in Jerusalem
Foundation for Middle East Peace
Jerusalem Post
The Anatomy of the Arab-Israeli Conflict - Out There News
ISRAELI security chiefs have warned the country's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that he could become the target for
Right-wing Jewish extremists after making further territorial concessions to the Palestinians.
His security officials have made him wear a bullet-proof vest when visiting settlements on the West Bank. As Mr Netanyahu
continued talks with Yasser Arafat at the Middle East summit in Maryland yesterday, police and intelligence sources were
co-ordinating plans for dealing with a violent reaction by hardline settlers in the West Bank.
Security around the Prime Minister has been increased in the face of an increasingly venomous campaign against him and other
senior government figures. Posters depicting Mr Netanayahu in an Arab keffiyah and daubed with the slogan "The Liar" have
appeared in Jerusalem.
On a recent visit to the West Bank flashpoint of Hebron after the killing of a local settler by Palestinian militants, Mr Netanyahu wore
a bullet-proof vest at the insistence of his bodyguards. His predecessor Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated in 1995, always refused to do
so.
The Shin Beth domestic security agency that protects top politicians has also increased personal security for Israel's President,
Ezer Weizman, whom settler organisations have denounced as a "traitor".
Officials monitoring Jewish extremists say that they are reaching desperation point: for the first time, they are threatening Israeli
soldiers with death. According to the newspaper Ha'aretz, a group of army officers under orders to escort Arabs to their olive
plantations, backed down after being warned by hard-liners from a nearby settlement that "there are snipers in the trees and you'll
get a bullet between the eyes".
An Israeli MP who has campaigned for the demolition of the shrine erected around the grave of Baruch Goldstein, who massacred
29 Muslim worshippers at Hebron in 1994, has received repeated death threats. Earlier this month, Ran Cohen's car was set alight
outside his home: he told journalists that he believed a new "Jewish underground movement" was responsible.
In swift response, Mr Netanyahu announced that he had ordered police to give top priority to arresting those behind an act that
"endangers the existence of a society capable of conducting a legitimate discourse".
The former head of Israel's national police also emphasised the seriousness of the threat posed by the most militant and embittered
settler organisations: "We know their potential."
As tension in the West Bank continued to escalate, several Jewish activists in the Hebron region have been detained on suspicion
of planning attacks on Palestinians. There is particular concern about the risk of Jewish terrorists attempting to destroy sites holy to
Islam, such as the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, to provoke all-out confrontation between Israel and the
Arab nations.
Two months ago, Mr Netanyahu reviewed security arrangements at key sites with Shin Beth officials and there are reports that extra
precautions are already in place. |
