Israeli and PLO negotiators worked to put their talks back on track late Wednesday after an off-duty Israeli soldier sprayed a crowded Arab market in Hebron with gunfire, wounding six Palestinians in an attempt to thwart a peace accord.
President Clinton joined Israeli and Palestinian leaders in condemning the attack. Both sides urged their people to remain calm after the shootings touched off stone-throwing and tire-burning by Palestinian youths in the volatile West Bank city, which is occupied by Israel. Nine Palestinian protesters were beaten by Israeli soldiers trying keep the crowd at bay.
A New Year’s Day summit between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, which had appeared imminent before the shootings, was again delayed as Clinton’s Mideast envoy, Dennis Ross, labored to mediate an agreement on the long-delayed withdrawal of Israeli troops from most of Hebron.
The attack underscored the precarious state of the Mideast peace process even as a Hebron agreement seemed finally within reach. For the Palestine Liberation Organization, the city has become a litmus test of Netanyahu’s intentions toward that process. For Israelis, the shootings emphasized the bitter divisions in their society over the government’s attempt to turn 80 percent of Hebron over to Palestinian self-rule.
Leaders on both sides said the shootings demonstrate the urgent need to conclude a deal on Hebron before more violence erupts, and negotiators resumed their talks Wednesday night at the residence of U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk near Tel Aviv.
Clinton, vacationing in Hilton Head, S.C., condemned the attack as a “cowardly” attempt to block a peace deal and telephoned Arafat to express condolences at the wounding of civilians. Netanyahu called the attack “a despicable crime.”
Across Israel, television viewers watched replays of a video capturing the dramatic footage of an Israeli officer wrestling the gunman to the ground as he tried to load a second clip into his M-16 rifle. A local TV news crew happened to be filming in the market when the shooting started nearby.
The Wednesday morning shootings summoned painful memories of an earlier carnage in Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs a few blocks away. The tomb, a site holy to Jews and Muslims, is believed to be the resting place of the biblical Abraham. A Jewish settler opened fire there in February 1994, killing 29 Arabs as they knelt in prayer in the tomb’s Ibrahim Mosque.
“Abraham bought the Cave of the Patriarchs for 400 shekels of silver and nobody will give it back,” declared Wednesday’s assailant, Noam Friedman, 22, a soldier from the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim outside Jerusalem, referring to a passage from the Book of Genesis.
“Hebron is ours, past and future,” an unrepentant Friedman told Israel Television before he was driven away in an Israeli police van. “I do not regret it,” he said, referring to the shootings. “It’s trying to kill haters of Israel. . . . This is what is good for the country.”
The gunman recently was expelled from a Jewish seminary and reportedly had been advised to seek psychiatric help. Israel TV reported he had been drafted into the army despite a psychiatrist’s recommendation against it.
Friedman told reporters he was “completely normal,” and wasn’t sorry. Asked why he shot at innocent Palestinians, he said: “They’re not innocent. They hate the Jews.”
Netanyahu has delayed the Hebron redeployment since taking office in June, trying to get more security concessions from the PLO to protect Hebron’s enclave of about 400 Jewish settlers living among more than 100,000 Palestinians in the city.
Netanyahu said Wednesday the shooting underscored his concerns for security in the troubled city. But he vowed he is committed to completing an agreement and such criminal acts would not deter him.
Arafat has refused to renegotiate the 1995 accord he reached with the previous Israeli government.
The deal calls on Israel to turn over all major West Bank Arab cities and hundreds of villages to PLO self-rule. Under that accord, Israel was supposed to have withdrawn from 80 percent of Hebron last March, but the pullback was delayed after Muslim suicide bombers killed 59 Israelis last winter.
Extremists on both sides have threatened to use violence to disrupt an accord on Hebron, the only West Bank town where Jews and Arabs live in such close proximity. Negotiators were said to be very close to a deal prior to Wednesday’s attack.
An outraged Arafat expressed fury over the shootings, declaring they were intended to cause a military conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and prevent the redeployment in Hebron, PLO sources said. Arafat’s view is that an immediate deal on Hebron would be a fitting response to “crazy” people who try to destroy the peace process.
Friedman, wearing the skullcap and tasseled undershirt of a religious Jew, was seen on Israel Television smirking and shaking his fist defiantly after his arrest. It was the same smug behavior exhibited by another Jewish zealot, Yigal Amir, following his assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995.
Amir confessed to killing Rabin in an effort to stop the U.S.-mediated land-for-peace plan. The plan involved turning over to the Palestinians occupied territories many religious Jews believe God gave the Jewish people in the Bible.
Witnesses said Friedman fired 10 shots from his army-issued rifle into the terrified crowd in Hebron’s bustling Arab Casbah section at about 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, wounding men, women and a youth. The incident occurred in the vegetable market on Martyrs Street.
As Palestinians dove for cover, Israeli soldiers converged on the area, thinking Jews were under attack. Reuters news agency reported that some soldiers thought they were being targeted and opened fire, wounding a Palestinian man.
An Israeli officer, Lt. Avi Buskila, realized what was happening and grabbed Friedman as he tried to reload, wrestling him to the ground and disarming him with the help of two other soldiers as he prepared to fire again.
Hebron’s Arab Mayor Mustafe Natsheh said the shooting shows that the security responsibility in Hebron should be turned over to the Palestinian police. Hebron political leaders issued a statement asserting there could be no peace in Hebron as long as the Jewish settlers live in the city and calling for the evacuation of “these fanatics.”
Israel’s response was to pour soldiers into the city and station armored personnel carriers on surrounding hills to prevent reprisals.
“We all have to do whatever we can to restore calm and tranquility, law and order, to Hebron,” Netanyahu told the nation after calling Arafat to express his shock over the shootings. The prime minister condemned it as a criminal act carried out by someone who does not reside in Hebron and whose confessed aim was to derail a Hebron accord.
“I call on all the residents of Hebron, Jews and Arabs alike, to act with restraint and responsibility,” he told Israel Radio. “There have been over the recent times acts of violence on both sides and against both sides. There were Molotov cocktails thrown (against Jewish homes). There was physical aggression (against Arabs). All of this must stop.”
After Palestinians called a recess in the peace talks to protest the shootings, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai resumed talks with PLO leaders Wednesday night.
Officials said early Thursday that the negotiators had resolved most remaining issues but did not set a date for a summit to seal an agreement.
“Only one issue is left, and after that a summit meeting will be set,” said chief Palestinian negotiator Mahmoud Abbas, referring to a meeting between Arafat and Netanyahu.
Earlier, Netanyahu had said after the shootings: “We have to start a new era of peaceful coexistence with security in Hebron. I think the agreement that we have been laboring on for several months has been designed to prevent precisely such acts of violence.
“I have said repeatedly that undue delay in its conclusion and its implementation creates a twilight period of uncertainty and instability that induces, or could induce, the kind of attacks that we’ve seen today. And that is why we are committed to the speedy resolution of this agreement, properly concluded, and no crime will stand in our way.”
In Hilton Head, S.C., White House spokeswoman Mary Ellen Glynn said Clinton still hopes the two sides can reach an agreement soon and that Ross had spoken to both Netanyahu and Arafat Wednesday. Glynn promised the two leaders would have “America’s unwavering support as they pursue that goal.
“The best answer to this action would be for the two sides to close the remaining gaps and move forward with the hard work of forging a durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” she said.
