Internal Dissent

Peres may be forced to resign
as cracks threaten unity government.

DAVID LANDAU

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jerusalem

A

s the latest Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire ,.
teetered this week on the brink of collapse,
tensions rose to new heights within Israel's
unity coalition and defense establishment.
Shimon Peres, the foreign minister and the senior
Labor Party figure in the government, has been at the
center of these tensions, and he may soon have to face
growing calls from fellow ministers for him to leave the
government.
Peres was quoted as faulting the army for the steep
rise in Palestinian fatalities that followed his Sept. 26
meeting with Palestinian Authority leader Yasser
Arafat at the Gaza airport, where the two sides for-
mally proclaimed the new cease-fire.
While Peres has denied the quotes attributed to
him, there is little doubt that he and his followers
are bitterly critical of what they see as the army's
trigger-happiness at this crucial juncture in the con-
flict.
While death toll figures alone cannot tell the
whole story, the fact is Palestinian fatalities rose
markedly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks against the
United States and have continued to rise since the
Peres-Arafat meeting.
Indeed, a 16-year-old Palestinian youth was killed
during a firelight between the army and Palestinian
gunmen that took place within earshot of the Peres-

Arafat meeting.
And in an incident that took place Sunday in the
West Bank, two Palestinian workers were shot dead
and six others wounded when army troops at a road-
block opened fire on a taxi they said refused orders
to stop.
After the soldiers opened fire on the vehicle, the
workers tumbled out and sought to flee. The soldiers
shot them. None of the workers was armed or had
any terrorist record or link.
According to the criticism emanating from the
Peres camp, the Israel Defense Force is not giving
the cease-fire a chance.

MENETEMEOUSWANSEIMMEWASSO.

The Violence Continues

An Israeli border police officer looks at a group of Israeli Arabs

throwing stones toward him and fellow officers at the entrance of

the- Iseh-Arab town of Umm el-Fahm on Monday. Dozens of

Arab teen-agers, some chanting "Death to Jews," threw stones at

Israeli police following ceremonies marking a year since 13 Israeli

Arabs were killed by police in large-scale protests. An 18-year-old

woman and her boyfriend were murdered Tuesday night when two

terrorists infiltrated Alei Sinai in the northwest Gaza Strip. The

terrorists wounded 14 others, including seven soldiers, before they

were killed by the Israel Defense Force. Within hours, IDF troops

killed seven Palestinians — four of them members of the Palestinian

Authority's security services — and destroyed PA military positions

in the surrounding Gush Erez area of the Strip this morning. One

of the Palestinian officers was reportedly wanted by the Israeli

security services for participation in terror activities.

10/5
2001

18

Deep Divisions

Others in the Peres camp are aiming their criticisms
at the hawks in the government.
They charge that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has
not given Peres' cease-fire effort any convincing per-
sonal and political backing.
Sharon has not, they say, acted to create an overall
atmosphere congenial to reducing the intensity of the
armed conflict and resuming the diplomatic process.
The prime minister is said to be corn between pres-
sures from his own hard-liners
Israeli Foreign
in the government and pres-
Minister Shimon
sures from Washington, where
Peres and Palestinian
the overriding consideration is
Authority leader
to put the Israeli-Palestinian
Yasser Arafat at their
violence on a back burner
meeting at the Gaza
pending the successful construc-
International Airport tion of an international anti-ter-
in Rafah on Sept 26
ror coalition that includes Arab
and Islamic nations.
The deep division in the government was dramat-
ically underscored Monday, when a car bomb
exploded in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem,
but caused no injuries. Islamic Jihad claimed
responsibility, and Peres was quick to condemn
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah as "the bin
Laden of the Middle East."
But the hawkish minister of public security, Uzi
Landau, took a far different tack. Noting that the
latest extension of the cease-fire would end in 24
hours, he said Israel would then have to act without
letup to give the terrorists no respite.
It was clear that as far as Landau was concerned,
"the terrorists" included not only the three organiza-
tions that Peres had focused on, but the Palestinian
Authority itself.
Landau and other hawkish ministers are now
openly talking of forming a Cabinet caucus whose
purpose would be to bring about the removal of
Peres from the government.

INTERNAL DISSENT on page 23

