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Analysis: Violence Between Israelis and Palestinians Continues
Weekend Edition Sunday: November 17, 2002
Hebron
LIANE HANSEN, host:
From NPR News, this is WEEKEND EDITION. I'm Liane Hansen.
The Israeli Cabinet today discussed Israel's response to Friday's attack that killed 12 Israelis in the West Bank city of Hebron. Israeli troops have retaken the city and placed it under a strict curfew. Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today repeated his call for Israel to expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. NPR's Linda Gradstein reports.
LINDA GRADSTEIN reporting:
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today toured the site of Friday's attack with his defense minister and chief of staff. Sharon said Israel should establish territorial continuity between the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba and the Jewish enclave in Hebron where about 500 Jewish settlers live among more than 100,000 Palestinians. Analysts say that would mean taking more Palestinian land. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz yesterday telephoned Secretary of State Colin Powell and told him Israel must respond to the attack. At the Cabinet meeting, several ministers called for a harsh Israeli military response. Foreign Minister Netanyahu said all of the agreements signed with the Palestinian Authority should be canceled. Netanyahu told Israel Radio that when he was prime minister there were few Palestinian attacks.
Mr. BENJAMIN NETANYAHU (Israeli Foreign Minister): (Foreign language spoken)
GRADSTEIN: `The reason it was quiet is that I warned Arafat that if the terrorism continued, he and his people would be exiled,' Netanyahu said. `Now Arafat thinks he has immunity and this must be changed. We should exile his regime,' he said.
Prime Minister Sharon has promised the Bush administration that he will not expel Arafat. But Friday's attack has chilled the Israeli public. David Horowitz, the editor of The Jerusalem Report magazine, says that's partly because of the circumstances surrounding it.
Mr. DAVID HOROWITZ (Editor, The Jerusalem Report): Obviously, Hebron is a tremendously symbolic place and these were people who were coming back from prayers and it was a Friday night. It was the Sabbath evening, in other words. They were attacked as they were walking to their homes.
GRADSTEIN: Hebron is the only West Bank city where Jewish settlers and Palestinians live in such close proximity. For both, the focus is the burial place of Abraham, which Jews call the Machpelah cave and Palestinians the Ibrahimi Mosque. In 1994, Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein shot dead 30 Muslim worshipers at the site and since then Jews and Muslims cannot pray there at the same time. Settlers often recall the event in 1929, when Arabs killed a few dozen Jews in Hebron. Horowitz says each Palestinian attack makes Israelis more hard-line. Friday's ambush comes less than two weeks before the Likud Party holds primaries to choose its candidate for the January elections, either Prime Minister Sharon or Foreign Minister Netanyahu. Horowitz says Netanyahu could now get a boost.
Mr. HOROWITZ: Netanyahu is trailing Sharon in the polls within the Likud. He knows that time is running out for him to try to overhaul Sharon and he also has for a long time stuck to a harsher line than Sharon has been following. He is again demanding and has been demanding that Arafat be exiled. If that resonates more strongly in the wake of this kind of attack, it may be that it will earn him more support in the Likud, but it's really very speculative to say that.
GRADSTEIN: Meanwhile, Israeli troops today destroyed the homes of six suspected militants in the Hebron area. Among them, the home of the Islamic Jihad activist who Israel says was responsible for Friday's attack. Linda Gradstein, NPR News, Jerusalem.
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