There was little sign of rejoicing on Israeli streets this week as Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, in Cairo, signed the agreement for implementing Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.
Scores of youths belonging to the B’nei Akiva youth movement converged on Jericho on the eve of the signing, intent on defying an army order that called for closing the ancient synagogue in Jericho.
The Israel Defense Force had an active night chasing the youths, who had come into town by back roads.
Many of the group held a sit-in near the synagogue. In tears, they protested that Israel had been “sold to that arch-murderer Arafat.”
Some 200 of the group were taken away from the site by military police.
The IDF later blamed National Religious Party Knesset member Hanan Porat for instigating the youngsters’ protest.
Speaking at a press conference at the Knesset, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu said of Gaza and Jericho, “They are cancerous cells. Our first job will be to stop that cancer spreading. The second is to replace this government of failure as soon as we can.”
A CALL FOR EARLY ELECTIONS
Netanyahu vowed to have his supporters out on the streets signing up the public in a mass petition for early elections before the next scheduled voting in 1996.
As a first step in that direction, the opposition planned to submit a bill to dissolve the Knesset and call elections within 100 days.
Fifteen Knesset members joined Netanyahu in a protest staged Wednesday at the ancient Jericho synagogue, where they signed a covenant pledging to do whatever is legally within their power to prevent the concession of territory to the Palestinians.
The group defied an IDF order to leave the area, claiming their right of parliamentary immunity.
Following discussions between Netanyahu and the IDF commander in charge of the central sector, Gen. Ilan Biran, the group agreed to return to Jerusalem after signing their document.
On Arab streets within Israel, there were mixed reactions to the Cairo ceremony, despite the joy that prevailed among Palestinians in Gaza and Jericho.
In Jerusalem, there seemed to be a sense of disappointment. Two former members of the Palestinian delegation to the peace talks, Faisal Husseini and Dr. Haidar Abdel Shafi, said of the document that was signed in Cairo, “This is not the agreement to which we had been looking forward.”
But for some 1,000 Palestinian families in Gaza and throughout the territories, today was a holiday no matter what their view of the future, as their relatives were released from the Ketziot prison camp in the northern Negev.
None had Jewish blood on their hands, but among those released were two members of the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement and two members of Islamic Jihad.
They were released after they signed statements expressing their support for the peace process.
Under the terms of the Cairo agreement, Israel will release a total of 5,000 prisoners within two weeks.
Israel also allowed on Wednesday the return to the territories of 14 Palestinian deportees.
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