JERUSALEM -- Islamic extremists threatened Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat yesterday, demanding that he halt a crackdown against them or face dire consequences.
In a leaflet faxed to news organizations, the military wing of the radical Islamic group Hamas accused Arafat of having "reached the point of treason" by moving against Hamas and called for an immediate end to the crackdown in order to spare Palestinians "the horrors of civil war," and Arafat's camp the "fires of revenge."
Hamas' threat appeared to be its first against Arafat's government.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrilla group in Lebanon went further yesterday and singled out Arafat for attack. Its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, called for the assassination of Arafat for signing the latest interim peace deal with the Israelis.
In the U.S.-brokered peace accord, Arafat pledged to aggressively fight terrorism in exchange for more of the West Bank now occupied by Israeli troops. Since the agreement was reached at the Wye Plantation on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Arafat's Palestinian authority has rounded up scores of extremists.
The Islamic threats were matched by heightened concern among Israelis that a political assassination could again take place in the Jewish state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the hard-line politician who won election in 1996 on a pledge to slow down the peace process, has been called a liar and traitor by ultra-nationalist groups for agreeing to give the Palestinians more territory, and left-wing hecklers shouted him down yesterday at a memorial ceremony marking the third anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who started the land-for-peace process.
As Netanyahu placed a wreath on Rabin's grave, the protesters shouted, "Inciter, inciter of murder!" It was a reference to Netanyahu's anti-government rhetoric in the months preceding Rabin's death. Some Israelis, including Rabin's widow, blame Netanyahu for creating an atmosphere of hate that prompted a right-wing religious student to kill Rabin.
Yesterday was the first nationwide memorial to Rabin as flags flew at half-staff and radio stations played mournful music.
Netanyahu, who denied any responsibility for Rabin's death, acknowledged the rift that remains in Israeli society.
"I pray that we can extend a hand to one another and together extinguish the fires of hatred, without blurring the differences among us, because peace is made first among brothers," Netanyahu said in an address to a special session of Israel's parliament.
Netanyahu sought to qualify the harsh criticism of his decision to move ahead with the peace process.
"A tiny, tiny minority is expressing these violent threats," Netanyahu said last week. "I don't think that reflects on the majority. As far as these kinds of threats, I think no leader of any nation should start calculating his own personal security."
But a recent Gallup poll of 566 Israelis for the Israeli daily newspaper Ma'ariv found that 60 percent feared that right-wing extremists would try to kill Netanyahu.
Israel's secret service advised the prime minister to reduce his public appearances, and security for him has been increased.
Ehud Sprinzak, an Israeli expert on the right wing, said the invective directed at Netanyahu comes from the same camp that opposed Rabin's decision to make peace with the Palestinians. But he doesn't believe the threat is as great now as it was then.
"There was a sense of desperation" among the Jewish settlers in the West Bank, said Sprinzak, a political scientist at Hebrew University. "The intensity of the protest, the intensity of desperation and the degree of danger are much, much smaller today."
Trouble from the fringe
But political commentator Yosef Lapid, writing in Ma'ariv, cautioned the prime minister to address the extreme right's concerns. Netanyahu was elected in part on their votes because he vowed not to compromise their dream of a greater Israel, which would encompass the occupied territories of the West Bank.
"It is from this fringe that trouble may come -- extreme behavior could happen, unless the far right isn't spoken to, if attempts are not made to placate it and to show sympathy for the loss it now feels," Lapid wrote.
For Arafat, the Hamas threat followed by several days the arrest of dozens of Islamic activists by Palestinian security forces. The Palestinian authority also placed the Hamas spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, under house arrest. The authority initiated the arrests after a Hamas suicide bomber tried to blow up a school bus carrying 40 Israeli children in the Gaza Strip last week.
None of the children was injured, but an Israeli soldier died when the suicide bomber's car rammed into a jeep that was escorting the bus.
"The Palestinian authority's continued repressive techniques and its insistence on hitting the sons of Hamas and the Qassam brigades may push many of the sons of Hamas and its military wing to direct their war and guns, out of necessity, against the authority's security apparatus," said the statement faxed to news agencies in Jerusalem. The Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigade has carried out a series of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks in an effort to sabotage the peace process.
The school bus attack occurred as Arafat and the Palestinian authority were drafting a security plan that is to be presented to the peace process' U.S. sponsors today. Israel has delayed the new peace accord until it sees that plan. Israel won't carry out its promised withdrawal of troops from West Bank land unless the Palestinian authority combats terrorism.
Hopes for 'a passing crisis'
Imad al-Falouji, a minister in Arafat's Cabinet and a former Hamas member, said he hoped the challenge by Hamas was "a passing crisis." He met Saturday with Yassin while the Hamas founder was confined to his house during the recent crackdown. Falouji said Yassin wanted to discuss the present situation with Palestinian leaders.
Khalil Shikaki, a Palestinian political analyst, characterized the Hamas statement as an attempt by the group to get Arafat's attention as opposed to a declaration of war. If the peace process moves ahead, Shikaki expects Arafat to try to reach a political compromise with the Islamic group.
"People want the peace process to move forward," Shikaki said. "Public opinion is going to be on Arafat's side."
He said he didn't expect Hamas to act on its threat unless the Palestinian authority tried to kill some of its leaders or "go after" their fighters. "That would compel the Hamas leadership, and particularly, the military wing to resort to violence," he said.
Consistent with criticism
Shikaki characterized the Hezbollah threat against Arafat as consistent with the criticism of the Wye accord voiced by its Iranian patrons.
Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, accused Arafat of being a traitor. He called on Palestinians to follow the example of the Egyptian militant who assassinated President Anwar el Sadat for making peace with Israel in 1979.
"We call on the Palestinian people, the Arabs and Muslims to topple Arafat before he implements the accord," Nasrallah said to hundreds of supporters who attended a rally to protest the new Palestinian-Israeli deal.
Hezbollah's comments mirrored those issued Friday by Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians' chief peace negotiator, denounced the Iranian statements. "We believe this is a direct intervention of the Palestinian people's attempts to liberate their land. And we hope the linkage will be without credibility," he said in an interview yesterday on CNN.
Pub Date: 11/02/98