Lieberman, a member of the hawkish
National Union Party, warned that
Israel's acceptance of the Mitchell panel's
recommendations would spell the begin-
ning of the end of the unity government.
Legislator Reuven Rivlin, a member of
Sharon's Likud Party, termed the Mitchell
recommendations "a prize to terrorism."
Meanwhile, Ben-Eliezer, a member of
Labor, told the Israeli daily Ha'aretz he
would be prepared to accept a full s 1/4t.ttle-
ment freeze if it were limited to a period
of months. Significantly, the defense .
minister hinted broadly to the newspa-
per that he also would consider evacuat-
ing certain settlements, an option
Sharon has categorically ruled out.
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell said the United States-
would use the Mitchell report as a basis
to try to end Israeli-Palestinian violence.
But in an effort to soothe Israeli sensi-
tivities, Powell noted pointedly that the
call for a complete cessation of violence
was "unconditional" — in other words,
not dependent on a settlement freeze.
The Palestinians have announced
that they accept the Mitchell recom-
mendations as one integral whole, and
will make any cessation of violence
contingent on a settlement freeze.
However, in numerous previous
agreements with Israel and internation-
al summit meetings, the Palestini ns
already agreed to many of the anti-vio-
lence steps the Mit - hell report
demands 7 and have ignored them.
On Terror's Trail
The route from Palestinian Tulkarm to Israeli Netanya is hardly secure.
point, with three policemen. Two border police jeeps patrol the
area, but they can't remotely keep up with the flow of illegals.
"If they stop one of them," says a policeman at the
checkpoint, "they have to check them and take them to
the station, and by the time they get back, it'll be an hour.
In an hour, hundreds of Palestinians can cross over."
"What can we do?" he shrugs.
The soldiers and police at their checkpoints are too busy
checking the hundreds of Palestinians who come through
with legal work permits, the policeman says, to bother
with the stream of illegals.
Border Patrols
C-■
-
F-16 Strikes Criticized
The growing controversy about the
recommended settlement freeze came
as Sharon was under attack for the F-
16 strikes.
"What do we use next time," legisla-
tor Dan Meridor, a Center Party
member who is chairman of the
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee, asked this week, "if we
use F-16s this time?"
The same question was voiced by
Maj. Gen. Eitan Ben-Eliahu, a former
commander of Israel's air force.
Meridor and others noted that any
tactical advantage of the warplanes was
outweighed by the setback Israel suf-
fered in the battle for world sym athy.
The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian vio-
lence is "a war on two fronts,"
Meridor warned. "On the battlefield •
and on the TV screens."
All the major Israeli newspapers
condemned the F-16 attacks as hasty
and ill-conceived. It was the first time
since Sharon took office that his tac-
tics in fighting Palestinian violence
have been widely challenged. ❑
This simple exercise — walking over the Green Line into
Taibe and catching a 10-mile van ride — is why Netanya
has become, after Jerusalem, Israel's leading target for terror.
On the main road
between Tulkarm and
A daughter of Tersa
Netanya, a roving police
Polonski, a 66-year-old
checkpoint stops vans carry-
Israeli woman killed by a
ing Palestinian workers,
Palestinian suicide
sending back those who
bomber, throws a handful
don't have work permits, but
of earth on her mother's
this is by no means sufficient
co f fin during her funeral
to stop terrorists.
in Kfar Haim on May 20.
"If we check every car
that comes through that
road, nobody will be able to
move. And even if we just
check the vans carrying Palestinian workers, it's very easy
for them to pull off the road before the checkpoint and
take one of the alternate routes into Netanya," says Biran.
On the Tulkarm-Netanya road earlier this week, cars
were backed up for police inspection. A half-dozen or so
taxi vans carrying Palestinian workers had been motioned
over to the side.
Border policemen on horsebaCk and small tractors patrol
the orchards that stretch into the distance. But they can
only cover so much ground.
•
"The area around here is wide open. There's no way we
can close it hermetically," says a border policeman at the
checkpoint.
Biran says the only way to stop terror from reaching
Netanya is to close up the passage from Tullcarm across the
Green Line into Israel. By allowing Palestinians to pass ille
ly, at will, from Tulkarm into Israel, Biran asserts, "the army
isn't doing it's job like it's supposed to."
What's needed, he says, is a proper border, "like we have with
Egypt or Jordan," with a controllable entry-exit point, as well as
wall or fence and electronic monitors to detect infiltrators.
The army did not respond to Biran's accusation or dis-
cuss the matter.
The army spokesman's office claimed the crossing area
in question, called the Taibe Checkpoint, isn't under army .
control, but under that of the border police, even though
there is an Army checkpoint at the site.
The army spokesman's office referred the query to the border
police spokesman's office, which said that as far as could be
ascertained, the Taibe checkpoint is under army jurisdiction. ❑
LARRY DERFNER
Special to the Jewish News
Netanya, Israel
ahmoud Ahmed Marmash didn't have to
work too hard.to pass illegally from his
West Bank hometown of Tulkarm into the
Israeli city of Netanya, where he killed him-
self and five Israelis last Friday at the downtown shopping
mall. He simply caught a taxi van for the 10-mile ride to
Netanya from the Israeli Arab city of Taibe, which lies at
the bottom of the orchards.
Every morning except Shabbat, hundreds and hundreds
of Palestinians make the same trek Marmash made, pass-
ing in full view of soldiers and policemen no more than
50 yards away.
"99.9 percent of them are good people who just want to
work and feed their families," says Netanya police chief
Avi Biran, but a few Palestinians bent on terror "exploit
this opening and come into Israel with them."
Illegal Flow
The suicide bombing at the shopping mall was the fifth
terror attempt in Netanya this year, says Biran, and the
third successful one. One suicide terrorist killed himself
and three Israelis, while a car borriber killed himself and
lightly wounded a number of Netanya pedestrians. Alert
bystanders discovered two other bombs.
Alongside the orchards are an Israeli army checkpoint with
no more than 10 soldiers. Twenty yards away is a police check-
5/25
2001
17