Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin told the Knesset yesterday that Jordan has become a center of terrorist activity where recent terrorist acts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were planned.
Rabin spoke for the unity coalition government in defense against a non-confidence motion introduced by the Tehiya party which accused the government of softness and complacency in face of escalating terrorist attacks on Jewish settlers in the territories. The motion was defeated.
Nevertheless, the Ministerial Defense Committee of the Cabinet met in special session today to discuss the worsening situation on the West Bank, where two Israelis, one of them a soldier, were killed in the past week. No decisions were reached and the deliberations will continue at a later session.
Most of the ministers supported a firm and unequivocal policy in the territories. Several of them want to investigate the security and legal aspects of present punitive measures. Likud ministers demanded tougher laws allowing harsher sentences for anyone who breaches law and order in the territories.
REJECTS TEHIYA’S CHARGE OF SOFTNESS
Rabin in his defense of government policies, rejected Tehiya’s charge of softness and cited examples of stiff jail sentences imposed on Arab youths who threw Molotov cocktails at Israeli vehicles. It was one of those homemade gasoline bombs that fatally burned David Pinhas last week when it hit the vehicle he was driving in Kalkilya.
On Monday, an Israeli reserve soldier, Corp. Aharon Avidor, was murdered by a lone gunman as he stood guard at the gate to the government offices compound in downtown Ramallah. Avidor was buried yesterday at the military cemetery on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem.
SECURITY FORCES MUST BE MORE VIGILANT
After citing Jordan as the place where terrorist acts against Israel are being initiated, Rabin said “I will not try to obscure the gravity of recent acts of terrorism or to pretend that terror can be eradicated by military means alone.” He said the security forces will simply have to be more vigilant.
Chief of Staff Gen. Moshe Levy presented statistics showing a drop in terrorist incidents in the administered territories. But, he told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, the recent wave of attacks made those statistics problematic.
Premier Shimon Peres, meanwhile, accepted an invitation to visit Jewish settlements in the Jordan Valley after meeting with their representatives at his Jerusalem office. The settlers complained they were being discriminated against compared to settlers elsewhere.
Peres asked the Minister of Economic Planning, God Yaacobi, to review the allocation of resources between settlements in the Jordan Valley and those in the West Bank. Peres stressed that the settlements on the banks of the Jordan River must be developed because of their economic and security importance.
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