Close Up
1/110LENCE
who will be allowed to travel to Israel
each day.
"A substantive change is taking place
among Israelis," according to Mr. Schiff
"The general feeling, which military per-
Terrorist Killings
March 1-20, 1993
March 1 — Azariyah Natan and Gregory
Avramov were killed in Tel Aviv, near Aliyah
T JEWISH NEWS
Street, by a resident of the Zitoun
neighborhood of Gaza who was wielding a
knife. Seven others were injured.
March 2— Yehoshua Weisbord, 44, resident
of Tel Aviv, was killed in Rafiah when he made
a wrong turn into the area. Palestinian youths
began throwing stones at his car and he lost
control of the vehicle, crashing into a
telephone pole. Two wanted, armed
members of the Fatah Hawks arrived and shot
him at close range.
March 8 — Uri Magdish, 39, resident of Can
Or, was stabbed to death by Palestinian
workers he had picked up in his car to bring
to his greenhouse. The attackers left his body
in the greenhouse and fled, leaving the words
"Fatah Hawks" written on the ground.
March 12 — Simcha Levy, 50, resident of
Gush Katif, was found dead at the Morag-
Khan Yunis Junction in her minibus which she
used to transport workers. She died from knife
wounds in her neck, and blows from an axe to
the head.
w
LLJ
52
March 12— Yehoshua Friedberg, a Canadian
immigrant serving in the Palestinian IDF, was
found dead near Neve Ilan-Abu Gosh, after he
had been reported missing since March 7,
when he left Jerusalem for his base. On March
9, some of his personal belongings were found
by the side of the road. He died of gunshot
wounds to the chest and neck.
March 15 — Yaacov Bracha, resident of Har
Bracha, and Ofer Cohen, of Beersheva, were
run down by a local vehicle near Shechem. It
has not yet been determined whether this was
a purposeful Palestinian attack or an accident.
March 20 — Sergeant Yosi Shabtai, 21, of
Ashdod, was killed while on patrol in the
Jabalya refugee Camp in Gaza, from terrorist
gunfire.
March 20 — Reserve soldier Avishar Itai, 28,
of Alei Zahav, was killed by shots fired while he
was on patrol about five kilometers west of
Erie!. Two other soldiers were injured.
Source: Israeli Embassy
N
ISRAE
L
sonnel share, is that there has been a re- who was reportedly the target of
duction in Israel's deterrent capabili ty abortive Palestinian assassination an into a rival of Hong Kong or Singapore.
at- There are ambitious plans to create
against Palestinian terror in the terri to- tempt late last week, is beating the
drum a duty-free port, while measures have
ries and in Israel."
against any further participation in
At this stage in the peace process, th e talks until all of the remaining peace been advanced to liberalize the economy
name of the game is confidence-buildin g Hamas deportees in Lebanon are allo 396 with the aim of facilitating aid, loans,
wed lines of credit and tax breaks for domes-
and continued, apparently random a t- to return to their homes.
tic and foreign investors — a compre-
tacks on Jews could have serious co n- Mr. Abdel-Shaft is not alone in
sequences, compelling Israel to tak e strutting both a unilateral or negot ob- hensive package designed to encourage
harsh measures against the Palestini - ed Israeli withdrawal. Leach iat- the creation of a solid industrial base and
ans and reducing the appetite of Israe lis Palestinian analyst Abdejabbar Adw ng instill hope in this hopeless people.
an, Between the hope and the reality, how-
for territorial sacrifices.
writing in the influential Saudi d ally ever, there is a shadow which is obliter-
When Prime Minister Yitzhak Rab in Asharq al-Awsat,
urged Palestinians
decided to cut short his visit to the Uni ted to allow Israel off the Gaza hook. ' not ating Israeli optimism and amplifying
`The the counsels of despair that prospects of
States late last week, six I raelis ha
s d most useful option available to the Pal
been killed within two weeks. By th e tinians," he wrote this week, "is to expl es- a settlement with the Palestinians are
time he returned home, the toll had risen the Gaza situation in the struggle fo oit diminishing with each passing day of vi-
to 10 and passions on both sides were at comprehensive settlement in the oc r a olence.
cu-
The mainstream Palestinian negotia-
a boiling point.
pied territories."
tors appear frozen in the headlights of
Raw Israeli nerves were clearly evi -
Gaza was the epicenter of the intifa
dent in a poll published by the Hebrew - when the Palestinian uprising erup da fear. They know they must cut bait or
ted fish but also know that they are operat-
language daily Ma'ariv which showe
d in December 1987. Its squalid, ov er- ing in shark-infested waters where Is-
that 67 percent of respondents favore d crowded refugee camps have confirm
pulling out of Gaza either unilaterally o ✓ to provide the radicalizing agent, a fe ed lamic fundamentalists and Marxist
in the context of a negotiated settlement . tile seedbed in which religious extre r- Palestinians will not hesitate to express
m- their opposition through the barrel of a
That may be easier said than done, fo ✓ ism has flourished.
gun or the sharp end of a kitchen knife.
while Israel's military brass is sendin g
Yet since the early 1970s, long befo
urgent warnings that there is no long - Israeli officers declared that Gaza cool re Speaking in London last week, Israeli
term prospect of containing the violence , not be pacified through levels of force d Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin ac-
Israel's politicians are finding all diplo- ceptable to Israelis, an uncondition ac- knowledged the political and physical
al, dangers confronting the Palestinian ne-
matic paths out of Gaza blocked.
voluntary pull-out has been mooted.
gotiators.
Ironically, the obstacles to an Israeli
Gaza does not have the emotion-lade n
'They are threatened by their own peo-
withdrawal have been erected by the significance of the West Bank, which
Palestinians themselves, who are once substantial minority of Israelis believ a ple inside and outside the PLO. They are
e portrayed as traitors in their own streets.
again demonstrating their capacity nev-
e r to miss an opportunity to miss an op- to be part of Israel's divinely promise d I know the problems they face, the
legacy. Nor is it considered tenable to d e- threats to their lives.
portunity.
fend the 5,000 Israeli settlers in Gaz a
"None of us would envy them," he said,
Not only do they reject a unilateral against the 850,000 restive Palestini
an
"but
in the end they have to negotiate, to
withdrawal, but the Palestinian nego- inhabitants.
ti ators also refused to even open the en-
talk to us. We both have to pay a high
On the positive side of the balanc
elope containing the U.S.-Russian sheet, Gaza was regarded as a potent e price."
Mr. Beilin, like other Israeli doves, is
nvitation to the next round of peace model ofPalestinian-Israeli coexistence al
, aware that increasing Palestinian vio-
talks.
an example of confidence-building all lence could sweep away the voices of rea-
According to Palestinian sources, some around.
fe ar that an Israeli-free Gaza will allow
son on both sides, replacing conciliation
The "Gaza-first" proposal was per - with confrontation, handing victory to
th e Islamic Hamas movement to emerge
as the dominant factor, undercutting the ceived as an opportunity for Israelis t o the extremists and plunging Israel, the
PLO's claim to be the "sole legitimate rep- conduct a relatively low-risk territorial occupied territories and the wider region
re sentative of the Palestinian people," withdrawal and an opportunity for th e into a black hole of devastation and
while others prefer to use the rising lev- Palestinians to demonstrate that they death.
el of Israeli anxiety over Gaza as a lever could get on with the business of running
With the fortunes of the Palestinian
their affairs without threatening their religious and political radicals on an up-
to pry free the West Bank.
Israeli neighbors.
ward curve, time is against a peaceful
Chief Palestinian negotiator Dr.
Gaza does not possess a viable eco- resolution of the conflict.
Hai dar Abdel-Shafi, himself a Gazan and
a founder of the PLO, described a uni- nomic infrastructure capable of sup-
Unless U.S. Secretary of State War-
la teral withdrawal from Gaza as "a porting its existing population, but while ren Christopher is able to return the par-
rival religious and nationalist Palestini- ties to the negotiating track and produce
C r ime" because, he said, such a move
ans fight each other and the security a swift fait accompli,
WO uld be calculated to incite Palestinian-
the only certainty
forces, Israeli industrialists and coon" i. that the future wll belong to the hard
on -Palestinian bloodshed.
mists have been creating blueprints that
At the same time, Mr. Abdel-Shafi, could transform the destitute territory men of violence. El