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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: peter a. pedroli who wrote (120120)	12/30/2000 8:55:58 PM
From: peter a. pedroli	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

Clinton's idea of peace... Arafat Faction Calls for Uprising By Ibrahim Hazboun Associated Press Writer Saturday, Dec. 30, 2000; 11:03 a.m. EST JERUSALEM –– As Israel and the Palestinians hardened their negotiating positions on an American peace plan, Yasser Arafat's political faction called Saturday for a two-week intensification of the Palestinian uprising against Israel. "Let the intefadeh continue, and let the resistance escalate," Arafat's Fatah faction said in a statement that also spoke of Palestinians' "total rejection" of a U.S. peace plan. The 3-month-old outbreak of unrest has killed nearly 350 people, almost all of them Palestinians. Along Israel's tense northern frontier, Israeli troops shot a Lebanese man the army said was trying to get across the border fence. Lebanese security officials said the man, part of a crowd of stone-throwing demonstrators, died from his wounds. Elsewhere, Israel closed the border between the southern Gaza Strip and Egypt, the army said. That step came a day after Israeli authorities sealed off the West Bank and Gaza Strip, forbidding Palestinians to enter Israel, as part of a security crackdown after a deadly bomb attack. Raising the specter of a regional outbreak of fighting, Iran threatened to hit hard at Israel if it strikes at Syria or Lebanon. Iran's defense minister, Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani, was quoted by the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Watan as promising "astounding" retaliation in the event of an Israeli attack. Israel, for its part, has threatened action against Syria if the violence along its northern frontier continues. Syria is the main power broker in Lebanon, where it has some 30,000 troops stationed, and Iran is the principal backer of Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas. Meanwhile, in the West Bank town of Nablus, about 2,000 Palestinians turned out for a rally organized by the militant Islamic group Hamas to pay tribute to a suicide bomber who blew himself up in an Israeli cafe last week. More than a dozen organizers, their faces wrapped in black masks, called the rally a celebration of martyrdom, and handed out sweets to symbolize joy. The 24-year-old bomber, Hisham Najar, killed only himself in the Dec. 22 bombing of a roadside cafe in the remote northern tip of the West Bank. Three Israeli soldiers were injured. The rally came hours after both sides late Friday signaled unwillingness to compromise on crucial provisions of a U.S.-authored peace plan. Palestinians insisted after a Cabinet meeting in the Gaza Strip that they would never give up the "right of return" – the demand that millions of displaced Palestinians be allowed to return to their former homes in what is now Israel – while Israel balked at ceding sovereignty of a disputed holy site to the Palestinians. "I don't plan on signing a document that would transfer sovereignty of the Temple Mount – the anchor of our identity – to the Palestinians," Prime Minister Ehud Barak said on Israeli television, referring to the hilltop revered by Jews as the site of their biblical temples and known to Muslims as the Haram as-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary. However, Barak has not explicitly ruled out international sovereignty over the site. Currently, the Palestinians have day-to-day control over the compound. Even so, both sides left open the door to restarting negotiations. Earlier this week, Barak's government said it was willing to renew talks with the Palestinians based on the U.S. peace proposals. The Palestinian Cabinet expressed willingness to take part in "serious final negotiations during a short period." President Clinton's proposals call for a Palestinian state in 95 percent of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip. They also envision Palestinian control over Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem and the disputed shrine. In exchange, Palestinians would have to scale back dramatically their demands regarding refugees. In Gaza, thousands of people attended a funeral Saturday for Mahmoud Nasser, a 20-year-old Palestinian policeman slain a day earlier. A Palestinian police source said he was killed when Israeli soldiers fired a tank shell after their position came under repeated fire. © Copyright 2000 The Associated Press