Paris, Monday, October 9, 2000
Barak Presses His Ultimatum, But Palestinians Remain Defiant
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By Keith B. Richburg Washington Post Service
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JERUSALEM - As an anxious Israel began observances on Sunday night of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Prime Minister Ehud Barak forcefully repeated his ultimatum to the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, to end an 11-day uprising that has claimed more than 80 lives, or face an escalated Israeli military response.
The Palestinian side, however, showed few signs of backing away from an all-out conflict.
Mr. Barak, speaking to reporters at Israel's border with Lebanon, held Mr. Arafat personally responsible for the latest violence, and made clear that if it is not ended by sundown Monday, the end of the Jewish Day of Atonement, then the peace effort begun seven years ago in Olso would be formally pronounced dead.
There were hints Sunday at what Israel's military response might involve. A top Israeli security official said the headquarters of ''those reponsible'' for the violence might be attacked, suggesting the army could destroy the infrastructure of Mr. Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
On what was supposed to be a quiet day of reflection and introspection, Israelis were once again on a war footing. Radio stations, that would normally be silent from sundown for the Yom Kippur observance, announced that they would keep open a special ''emergency channel'' that would come on in the event of any urgent new developments. For many Israelis, the mood Sunday evoked the trauma of 1973, when the country was attacked on Yom Kippur in Sinai and the Golan Heights.
The mood of war was reinforced as Mr. Barak spoke at a news conference from Israeli's Northern border with Lebanon, where the prime minister suddenly finds himself facing a conflict on a second front after the kidnapping Saturday of three Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerrillas. Military preparations were under way at the border for a possible retaliation, which Mr. Barak hinted may not be confined to Southern Lebanon but might even include Syria, which backs Hezbollah.
While there were some signs Sunday of progress toward calming tensions at least in Gaza - with Israeli and Palestinian military commanders announcing a truce in the fighting - the violence continued on the West Bank, with the Israelis using helicopter gunships to strafe Palestinian positions around Hebron, and continued clashes around the town of Ramallah where Palestinians reportedly fired on a nearby Jewish settlement.
There were also reports earlier in the day of Jewish settlers throwing rocks and firing shots at Palestinians on the West Bank, suggesting that attitudes were hardening and that leaders on both sides may have difficulty controlling the violence.
If the fighting does not end by Monday evening, Mr. Barak said, ''I will have no choice but to interpret it as a deliberate decision by Mr. Arafat to put an end to the negotiation and go toward a conflict, and we will know how to read the signals.''
''Once he has done it, we don't have a choice but to respond,'' Mr. Barak said. The former general, Israel's most decorated warrior, added cryptically, ''I have some experience in fighting.''
Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian official, said it was Israel that could end the violence by removing its troops from Palestinian-controlled areas. ''He should pull out of our cities and our heavily-populated areas,'' he said. ''Pull out like he did in Lebanon.''
Also, in Ramallah on the West Bank, a top official of Mr. Arafat's mainstream Fatah faction, Marwan Barghouthi, was quoted telling Reuters: ''The intifada will escalate. This is the beginning of a new phase.''
As he spoke, Fatah activists in Ramallah were distributing leaflets door-to-door calling for a ''popular war'' against Israel.
The only encouraging sign came from Gaza, where an apparent agreement Sunday seemed to end several days of fighting between Israeli troops and the Palestinian police and gunmen around the Netzarim junction. Overnight, Israeli troops blew up two high-rise apartment buildings that had been used as barracks for the Palestinian police - and which were believed to have become the principle sniper positions for the gunmen firing on Israeli positions.
Israeli also closed down the Palestinian international airport in Gaza.
An Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, reported that the Israeli command had prepared a ''sanctions package'' against the Palestinians, including a complete sealing off of the West Bank and Gaza, a freeze on all monetary transfers, and more aggressive use of armor and helicopters against armed Palestinian groups.
But on Sunday, for the first time since the violence began, Palestinian soldiers stopped children from throwing stones at Israeli positions, and there were reports that the incendiary anti-Israeli diatribes on Palestinian radio and television had ceased. Also, Palestinian schools reopened for the first time since the violence began.
But while both the Palestinian and Israeli leadership may have been looking for ways to avoid an all-out cancellation of the faltering peace effort, among many citizens on both sides, that process was already long dead. Collapsing with it are the voices of political moderation; extreme views are becoming more entrenched on both sides.
''The Palestinian leadership has tried the peace process to solve the issue, but they have failed,'' said 46-year-old Faraj Mousa, a father of five who was speaking next to a fence closing off the West Bank from Israel proper. ''The situation now is an outcome of desperation, the frustration of the Palestinian people.''
''People think an intifada, a jihad, is the only way to deal with Israel.'' Pointing to a stack of sandbags next to an Israeli checkpoint, he said, ''Look, they are preparing for a war.''
Yehuda Borer, a Jewish settler in the West Bank settlement of Bet El, called the peace process ''a sham - an absolute sham - right from the start.''
''It was the wishful thinkers,'' he added, ''the egghead professors, who thought this scheme up.'' |
