Subject: Israel in the News - June 29-30, 1998 (Jerusalem Post)
Date:    Wed, 1 Jul 1998 00:54:20 +0000
To:      "Arutz-7 List"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>

 

Monday, June 29, 1998       5 Tammuz 5758 
Jerusalem Post - Internet Edition


                    PM: Pullout deal by July 29 

                    By HERB KEINON and news agencies 

                    JERUSALEM (June 29) - Negotiations with the
                    Palestinians over the second withdrawal will be
                    concluded by July 29, when the Knesset recesses
                    for the summer, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
                    said yesterday.

                    "I think this issue will be concluded by then," he
                    told Israel Radio, adding, "I can't say for sure,
                    because I can't tell the Palestinians what to do.
                    If they don't give suitable answers, they will
                    determine the fate of the process."

                    Netanyahu said it is the issue of reciprocity, and
                    not the depth of the next withdrawal, that is
                    holding up the peace process.

                    "There are still gaps in negotiations over the
                    second withdrawal," Netanyahu said. " But we are
                    not dealing with that. Now we are trying to arrive
                    at solution on issues of reciprocity. We are not
                    willing to accept an agreement that is not an
                    agreement."

                    Meanwhile, at a ceremony in Jerusalem marking the
                    arrival of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria
                    Aznar, Netanyahu said that once the negotiations
                    with the Palestinians are concluded, he would like
                    to see an international conference convened to
                    deal with wider, regional issues.

                    In raising this controversial issue in the
                    presence of Aznar, Netanyahu stressed that such a
                    conference would not be a substitute for direct,
                    bilateral talks with the Palestinians.

                    "After we finish [the negotiations]," Netanyahu
                    said, "I would be happy if an additional
                    international conference for regional issues would
                    convene. This is not a substitute, and does not
                    replace bilateral negotiations that must be held
                    directly between the sides."

                    Netanyahu added that he would be very happy if
                    such a conference were held in Madrid, as was a
                    1991 Mideast peace conference.

                    "I am very fond of that city," he said as he
                    welcomed Aznar.

                    Aznar was receptive to the idea.

                    "If, at a certain time, there is a need for Madrid
                    to serve as the venue for a peace conference, rest
                    assured that we will be willing to make this
                    possible," Aznar said.

                    Netanyahu also urged Spain to help break the
                    deadlock in negotiations with the Palestinians.

                    "Spain has excellent relations with the
                    Palestinians and the Arab world," Netanyahu said,
                    "and if Spain uses its influence, if you, sir, use
                    your influence, I hope one more push will get the
                    wagon out of the mud in which it is stuck and lead
                    us toward a peace with security and reciprocity."

                    Netanyahu's clarification of his proposal for
                    another regional conference came after a day of
                    searing criticism of the idea from everyone from
                    Labor Party leader Ehud Barak to MK Yossi Beilin
                    and Education Minister Yitzhak Levy.

                    "It's another hot-air balloon intended to divert
                    public opinion from the crucial issues, the
                    failure to advance the peace process and implement
                    the pullout," Barak said.

                    Meretz Party leader Yossi Sarid said that
                    "there'll be snow in Jerusalem in July before
                    we'll see a Madrid 2 conference. It's another
                    manipulation by Netanyahu, who gets up every
                    morning throwing unfounded things into the air.
                    There isn't a country in the world which would
                    come to Madrid or any other place, when the
                    negotiations with the Palestinians are in a deep
                    crisis."

                    Beilin told Israel Radio that the proposal for an
                    international conference, like the referendum idea
                    of last week that has currently been put on hold,
                    is just an attempt to stall.

                    "I think that the prime minister is willing to do
                    everything to do nothing," he said. According to
                    Beilin, the proposal is a way of diverting the
                    public's attention away from the central issue -
                    "implementing of the diplomatic process."

                    And even Levy said it was not clear to him what
                    the purpose of an international conference would
                    be.

                    Netanyahu deflected the criticism, saying it stems
                    from a basic misunderstanding that such a
                    conference is only intended to deal with regional
                    issues, such as water, transportation,
                    environment, and trade, and not with bilateral
                    territorial and security issues.

                    In an Army Radio interview, Netanyahu took
                    Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to task for
                    criticizing before clarifying what was being
                    proposed.

                    "It would be better if Egypt... would exercise
                    caution and check matters before commenting," he
                    said.

                    Netanyahu added that if Egypt really wants to help
                    move the process forward, it would use its
                    considerable influence in the Arab world and on
                    the Palestinians to get them to live up to the
                    Oslo Accords and the Hebron Agreement.

                    (Michal Yudelman contributed to this report.)

************************************************************************

Monday, June 29, 1998       5 Tammuz 5758 
Jerusalem Post - Internet Edition


                    PA dismisses plan for international parley 

                    By STEVE RODAN and news agencies 

                    GAZA CITY (June 29) - The Palestinian Authority
                    yesterday dismissed Prime Minister Binyamin
                    Netanyahu's proposal to hold an international
                    conference to discuss Middle East peace as an
                    Israeli attempt to avoid implementing the
                    redeployment.

                    "First of all, he has to respect what has been
                    done since [the 1991] Madrid [peace conference],"
                    PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, returning from a trip
                    to Qatar and Bahrain, told reporters in Gaza. He
                    defined the main principle of that conference as
                    trading land for peace.

                    The Israeli proposal for another Madrid-type
                    conference, Arafat added, is meant to torpedo the
                    principles set in Madrid to stall the
                    implementation of the interim accords.

                    Other Palestinian officials called the proposal a
                    delaying tactic.

                    "It is futile for the Palestinians to respond to
                    every new idea he comes up with, because he does
                    not mean it and does not take it seriously,"
                    negotiator Hassan Asfour said. "The only thing he
                    takes seriously is killing the peace process."

                    "If Netanyahu wants an agreement, he can have it
                    today by saying yes to the American proposal,"
                    Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator,
                    said.

                    Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmed
                    Qurei agreed.

                    "We don't see any need for this conference," he
                    said. "This is merely another element for delay."

                    Qurei, in an interview with PA radio, said the
                    Oslo Accords are the only agreements between the
                    Palestinians and Israel.

                    He said the principles of the 1991 Madrid
                    conference, echoed in Oslo, are staged Israeli
                    withdrawal and exchanging Israeli-held land for
                    Arab peace.

                    Qurei warned that the Oslo Accords will not last
                    forever. He said in May 1999 the interim period
                    will expire. At that point, he said, the
                    Palestinians will act on their own.

                    He said the Palestinians will not withdraw their
                    effort to obtain a UN condemnation of Israel for
                    its plan for expanding Jerusalem's municipal
                    jurisdiction. He said the US must support the
                    Palestinian effort, as President Bill Clinton
                    signed an agreement that Jerusalem is a
                    final-status issue that cannot be the subject of
                    changes during the interim agreement.

                    "The issue for us is one of life and death," Qurei
                    said. "It is about the change of geography and
                    demography in Jerusalem."

                    Meanwhile, Palestinian sources reported that
                    Arafat continues to face difficulties in
                    persuading opposition movements to join the PA.
                    The latest refusal came from the Democratic Front
                    for the Liberation of Palestine, regarded as the
                    closest of the opposition groups to the PA. DFLP
                    representatives said although they don't oppose
                    Palestinian negotiations with Israel, they cannot
                    support the current US-mediated process. They
                    criticized the US bridging proposals as being
                    inadequate and a reflection of Israeli positions.

***********************************************************************

Tuesday, June 30, 1998       6 Tammuz 5758 
Jerusalem Post - Internet Edition


                    PM urges US to veto UN resolution 

                    By MARILYN HENRY and news agencies 

                    NEW YORK (June 30) - Prime Minister Binyamin
                    Netanyahu said yesterday that the US should "do
                    the right thing," implying it should thwart a UN
                    Security Council resolution that would condemn
                    Israel's plan to expand Jerusalem's boundaries.

                    However, there was increasing speculation that the
                    US would support a softened version of the council
                    resolution when the UN Security Council begins its
                    debate today.

                    If the Security Council votes to condemn Israel,
                    it would be the first time in four years, since
                    Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinian
                    worshipers on February 25, 1994.

                    The council voted on March 18, 1994, to "strongly
                    condemn the massacre in Hebron and its aftermath
                    which took the lives of more than 50 Palestinian
                    civilians and injured several hundred others."

                    The Jerusalem expansion plan has drawn sharp
                    American, European and Arab criticism. The US
                    State Department has described it as
                    "provocative."

                    The US, which has veto power on the 15-member
                    council, previously had been reluctant to condemn
                    Israel in the UN, arguing that disputes between
                    Israel and the Palestinian Authority must be
                    resolved in talks between the parties.

                    At the Israeli Mission to the UN, a spokesman said
                    Israel and the PA should engage in bilateral
                    talks.

                    "Instead, we repeatedly witness Palestinian
                    political exercises that abuse the UN by forcing
                    it to intervene in the bilateral negotiating
                    progress."

                    The Security Council debate is expected to last
                    for several days.

                    A separate measure - to upgrade the PLO's observer
                    status at the UN - is scheduled for a vote next
                    week in the General Assembly.

                    Last spring, the US twice vetoed a resolution in
                    which the Security Council would have opposed the
                    Israeli plan to build 6,500 housing units at Har
                    Homa.

                    In non-binding votes, the General Assembly
                    condemned Har Homa and subsequently convened a
                    series of extraordinary emergency sessions that
                    both denounced Israeli expansion plans and
                    assailed the "paralysis" of the Security Council.

                    Washington cannot afford to veto a condemnation of
                    Israel, observers suggested. The previous American
                    vetoes have cost the US some of its political
                    capital and left it unable to muster support when
                    it tried last week to delay a council session on
                    the Jerusalem expansion.

                    In the Security Council, a draft resolution which
                    began circulating last week would condemn the
                    Jerusalem expansion plan and demand it be
                    rescinded.

                    It also calls on Israel "to refrain from all
                    actions of measures, including settlement
                    activities, which are illegal" and could interfere
                    with future talks on the status of Jerusalem.

                    The draft also calls on the parties to fulfill
                    their obligations and commitments under their
                    existing agreements.

                    At a news conference in Jerusalem with Spanish
                    Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, Netanyahu said:
                    "I didn't ask the United States to impose a veto.
                    I expect the United States to do the right thing,
                    and it knows what the right thing is."

                    Observers suggested that even if the US ultimately
                    vetoes the resolution, the Palestinians will have
                    won a significant propaganda victory.

                    More than 60 nations are expected to take part in
                    the debate, and virtually all are expected to be
                    critical - some mildly, others emphatically - of
                    Israel.

***********************************************************************

Tuesday, June 30, 1998       6 Tammuz 5758 
Jerusalem Post - Internet Edition


                    Weizman calls for early elections 

                    By MICHAL YUDELMAN 

                    JERUSALEM (June 30) - In a planned, unprecedented
                    and highly contentious move, President Ezer
                    Weizman yesterday called for early elections,
                    citing the state of the peace process and the
                    failure of the initiative to hold a referendum on
                    a new pullback from the West Bank.

                    In media interviews yesterday, Weizman voiced
                    thinly-veiled criticism of Prime Minister Binyamin
                    Netanyahu, thus bringing the rivalry between the
                    two to new peaks. "The peace process is limping,"
                    Weizman said yesterday morning. "It's not
                    progressing. There are no contacts with the
                    Palestinians or the Americans. If the prime
                    minister isn't going for a referendum, he must
                    hold early elections - the sooner the better," he
                    said.

                    Netanyahu immediately rejected the call, saying
                    the elections will be held as scheduled, in two
                    years' time. on time, and Weizman, speaking later
                    on Channel 1's Mabat, responded in a dismissive
                    manner: "So he [Netanyahu] said! He also said
                    there would be a referendum." In a interview later
                    to Channel 1's Mabat news, Weizman said Netanyahu
                    had told him again and again the pullout was a
                    matter of a week or two. He then stated he would
                    not help Netanyahu any more. "[If he didn't mean
                    to implement the pullout] why did he ask me to
                    talk to US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,
                    to special envoy Dennis Ross, to influence King
                    Hussein, to try to talk to [Palestinian Authority
                    Chairman Yasser] Arafat, to go twice to [Egyptian
                    President Hosni] Mubarak and once to call Mubarak
                    to ask him to receive him [Netanyahu] nicely -
                    which I didn't do - and to talk to MKs Dan Meridor
                    and David Levy?" Weizman asked.

                    He stressed that his call for early elections was
                    not a slip of the tongue. "Understand, once and
                    for all, there are no slips of the tongue. I've
                    been planning it for some time and waited for the
                    appropriate opportunity," Weizman said.

                    He said it was the prime minister's right to raise
                    the referendum idea and drop it, but if he really
                    wants to know what the people think, he must hold
                    elections.

                    The confrontation continued on Channel 1's news
                    last night, when Weizman was asked to comment on
                    Netanyahu's reaction regarding the elections.
                    Weizman said "so he said. He also said there'd be
                    a referendum."Weizman estimated the elections
                    would take place before the year 2000.

                    Asked whether he trusted believed Netanyahu,
                    Weizman responded, "...that's not a nice question.
                    What's between myself and the prime minister is my
                    business." He then said there are "personal
                    problems" between himself and Netanyahu, noting
                    that for the past four weeks they had not talked
                    to each other, even by telephone.

                    He denied bearing a grudge against Netanyahu
                    because the latter had campaigned against him for
                    presidency, saying, "He made a mistake. The proof
                    of that is, he lost. "It wasn't pleasant for me to
                    contend against the prime minister, but I don't
                    bear a grudge. I remember it, though." Weizman
                    said he now expects the parties to pick up the
                    baton and act to advance the elections. As for the
                    confrontation with Netanyahu, he said, "I'm a
                    veteran warrior. A few shots have been fired. When
                    the dust settles down, we'll see what's happening.
                    If I decide I have do something more, I will." On
                    Channel 2, Weizman was asked what would happen now
                    that he had "thrown this bombshell." Weizman
                    replied: "What bomb? I threw a hand grenade."

                    Beit Hanassi director-general Arye Shumer said the
                    president is worried about the peace process and
                    his statements express and reflect the prevalent
                    feelings among the public.

                    Netanyahu did not mention the president's name in
                    his response. After consulting with his advisers,
                    he decided not to comment directly on Weizman's
                    statements.

                    He called his advisers and they decided not to
                    comment on Weizman's statement and Netanyahu did
                    not mention the president's name in his response.

                    Netanyahu stressed he is acting day and night to
                    formulate a good agreement with the Palestinians,
                    one that would ensure the security of Israel's
                    citizens. No person or pressure would would divert
                    him from this goal, he said.

                    "It's possible to reach an agreement, even soon.
                    But only when both sides fulfill their
                    commitments," he said.

                    "But the Palestinians aren't ready at this stage
                    to do their part. Actually they're not ready to
                    give real peace to the State of Israel....This is
                    what's holding up the process," Netanyahu said.

************************************************************************

Tuesday, June 30, 1998       6 Tammuz 5758 
Jerusalem Post - Internet Edition


                    Settlers' council fails to agree on whether to
                    topple government 

                    By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH 

                    JERUSALEM (June 30) - An emergency board meeting
                    held by the Council of Jewish Communities in
                    Judea, Samaria and Gaza yesterday, called to
                    decide whether to try and topple the government,
                    failed to produce any results except to highlight
                    members' frustration over the current situation.

                    The meeting was held at the protest tent city set
                    up by settlers outside the Prime Minister's
                    Office.

                    Some council members straying from the agenda
                    voiced their outrage over President Ezer Weizman's
                    remarks calling for new elections and demanded he
                    resign. Others demanded to do away with the
                    presidency altogether.

                    While making no decisions on how to proceed, the
                    majority agreed that any council-sponsored
                    measures must be non-violent.

                    Prior to the meeting, National Religious Party MKs
                    met with council members at the site, which they
                    visited to show support for the families there.

                    Council members had expected the MKs to express
                    staunch support for the current campaign calling
                    on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to demand
                    Palestinian compliance before agreeing to any
                    withdrawal.

                    But instead, they were greeted with an array of
                    reactions that only accentuated the party's
                    confusion, with some calling to topple the
                    government and others took a "wait and see"
                    stance.

                    Meanwhile, the recently established organization
                    Tekumah, set up by Beit El Mayor Uri Ariel, Rabbi
                    Menahem Felix and Ya'akov Katz declared its
                    intentions to run in the next Knesset elections if
                    any redeployment takes place.

                    Their declaration was aimed at the NRP, which,
                    they said, should threaten to leave the government
                    instead of dallying, and also directed at the
                    council, which, they said, should take a harsher
                    stand against the government and call to topple
                    it.

                    "It is regrettable that among us are extremists
                    threatening to establish an alternative party,"
                    said NRP MK Shmaryahu Ben-Tzur.

                    MK Avner Shaki, however, declared that the members
                    came to the tent site to declare their staunch
                    support and strengthen the settlers.

                    "The NRP will stand firmly behind you [the
                    settlers] in your struggle; there is no other
                    party who played such an important role in getting
                    Netanyahu elected," he said.

                    He warned that if the government decides to go
                    ahead with a second withdrawal the NRP will not
                    remain in the government.

**********************************************************************