Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s peace plan was blamed Wednesday for a firebomb attack on a yeshiva in Hebron.
No one was hurt by the explosion of two Molotov cocktails outside the Shavei Hevron yeshiva.
But Noam Arnon, a spokesman for Jewish settlers, claimed the attack was a “direct result” of Shamir’s proposal that Israel Defense Force troops be pulled out of the largely Arab-populated areas of the West Bank as part of an interim settlement.
Uri Ariel, secretary of the Council of Jewish Settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, told reporters he had no doubt that attacks would increase because of the moves proposed by Shamir.
The prime minister unveiled his peace plan in an interview published Tuesday in the Paris daily Le Monde.
He repeated his ideas, without elaborating, to reporters here Wednesday.
He called the plan very simple. It consists of two stages: an interim settlement that would include autonomy for the Palestinians, followed by negotiations, without pre-conditions, “between Israel, the Palestinian Arabs and some Arab countries, if they will join the negotiations.”
Shamir said he was sincerely convinced that “positive results will come” once negotiations begin.
He stressed, however, that Israel would never negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization and that no party could dictate the final outcome of the peace negotiations.
REJECTS RABIN PEACE PLAN
Shamir added that these principles are part of the Likud-Labor unity government’s program. He dismissed Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s recent initiatives toward the Palestinians as “certain ideas, rather than a peace plan.”
Shamir’s plan was rejected by the PLO Wednesday as “outdated and a pretext for continued occupation.”
Only scattered disturbances were reported in the territories Wednesday, but at least eight Arabs were wounded by security forces.
Meanwhile, the state attorney has ruled that the IDF’s use of plastic bullets in the territories is legal. His findings, based on the work of a team of legal experts, were presented to the Inner Cabinet on Wednesday.
In another development, security forces and police announced the capture of an A1 Fatah terrorist cell operating in the Jezreel Valley area inside Israel and the Samaria area of the West Bank.
Most of their activities involved arson. The cell was led by a resident of the Israeli Arab town of Umm el-Fahm, near Hadera, who allegedly was approached by A1 Fatah while on pilgrimage to Mecca last year.
A1 Fatah is the military arm of the PLO headed by Yasir Arafat, who announced in December that the PLO had renounced terrorism.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
