Israel Parliament Set For Wye Vote Amid Threats
06:26 p.m Nov 16, 1998 Eastern
By Daniel Sternoff
JERUSALEM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israel's parliament votes Tuesday to ratify a new Middle East peace deal amid Israeli threats to freeze the deal over Yasser Arafat's warning Palestinians could resort to violence if peace talks falter.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to win wide parliamentary backing for the accord he signed at the White House last month with the strong support of centrist and left-wing parties.
But the right-wing leader said Monday he would halt troop pullbacks from West Bank lands as mandated under the deal unless Palestinian President Arafat retracted remarks his people could renew an armed uprising if Israel stalled on peace.
Facing Netanyahu's threat, Arafat Monday said he would not stray from a strategic choice for peace.
The United States, which is trying to keep the accord it brokered at torturous summit talks last month on track, criticized Arafat's belligerent remarks but told Israel it was obliged to carry out the deal.
Washington also rebuked Israeli Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon for ratcheting up his rhetoric by calling on Jewish settlers to ''grab more hills'' in the West Bank to keep them out of Palestinian hands.
''We are not prepared to advance under the shadow of violence and the threat of violence,'' Netanyahu said at the start of parliamentary debate on the accord Monday.
''I don't intend to carry out any redeployment under these conditions, not even the first, until this is rectified publicly and unequivocally,'' he said.
In response, Arafat told reporters in Jericho: ''Peace to us is a strategic choice and we will not shift course.''
''As we ask the Israeli government to count on us on the full implementation of the Wye River memorandum, we hope that the Israeli government will do the same,'' he said.
Arafat said a remark to supporters Sunday that ''our guns are ready'' if anyone tried to hinder Palestinian rights in Jerusalem was ''just an example in response to one of the questions, no more no less.''
Netanyahu's spokesman David Bar-Illan said Arafat's remarks were ''neither a retraction nor a disavowal.'' The Israeli leader said he would convene his cabinet Wednesday to determine how to proceed.
Parliament resumes the second day of debate on the accord at 11:00 a.m. (0900 GMT), with a vote expected in the evening.
Israel was to begin this week the first phase of a three-stage pullback from 13 percent of the West Bank in return for Palestinian security guarantees and political moves.
The deal has been delayed over Israeli demands for Palestinian security clarifications and two bomb attacks by Muslim militants opposed to the accord.
U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross is in the region to shepherd implementation of the accord.
In Washington, State Department spokesman James Rubin said there were no conditions attached to the Wye agreement.
''With respect to Prime Minister Netanyahu's remarks, let me say that the Wye memorandum was signed without conditions and it is our expectation that both sides will implement the agreement as signed,'' he said.
''There is no place...for statements which call for or suggest violent actions. These remarks were wrong and we will be raising them directly with Chairman Arafat,'' Rubin said.
''Statements such as the one made by Foreign Minister Sharon undermine the trust and confidence necessary for such an environment. And we will be raising this statement with the Foreign Ministry directly,'' he said.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited |
