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Israel Rejects Palestinian Truce Talks Offer
JERUSALEM, Sept 10 (News Agencies) - A Palestinian proposal for immediate truce talks was rejected Monday by Israel, which described the offer as an attempt to avoid Israeli military attacks after events on Sunday.
Although Israel did not rule out the possibility of talks later in the week to try to end nearly a year of violence, it also pledged to step up attacks against the Palestinians.
The offer for Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to meet Monday in Taba, Egypt, followed a day in which seven people died and scores were wounded in two bomb attacks and the drive-by school bus shooting.
"This proposition by Yasser Arafat was made shortly after the three attacks on Sunday and was aimed at averting military retaliation. It was rejected," an Israeli official said on condition of anonymity.
"In addition, we want this meeting, which could take place in the coming days, to be held in the region, in a place such as Erez, the main crossing point between the Gaza Strip and Israeli territory," the official added.
A statement made by Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique on public television in Madrid Monday that the long-awaited official meeting between Peres and Arafat would take place Tuesday evening was amended by the Israeli government.
"We can neither confirm nor deny this information," an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on condition of anonymity.
A senior Palestinian official who also asked not to be named said, "No date or venue has been set for the meeting."
Arafat and Peres shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for an interim peace accord, but their more recent meetings have failed to stem the violence or temper the bitter discord.
Palestinians accuse Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his army generals of hindering the proposed meetings.
"Unfortunately, Peres is controlled by Sharon who has a group [of generals] like [Israeli Chief of Staff General Shaul] Mofaz standing behind him," the Palestinian representative to the Arab League, Mohammed Sobeih, said in Cairo.
The Palestinian official said the army "doesn't want peace, and believes it can dominate the Palestinian people and the Arab states with arms."
Israel responded to the Palestinian attacks with missile strikes Sunday on several targets in the West Bank, including the offices of Arafat's Fatah movement.
In further violence Monday, a Palestinian policeman was killed and three wounded in Tamoun village in the northern Jenin area of the West Bank, Palestinian sources said.
Israel confirmed the attack. It was "decided upon following the series of bombings on Sunday and the army [would] do whatever is necessary to assure the security of Israeli civilians and troops," a military statement said.
As Israel faced decisions on defense and dialogue, the attacks drew swift international reaction, with Russia suggesting they were aimed at derailing the ceasefire talks proposal.
"The intensification of terrorist actions is far from being fortuitous. The extremists are attempting to prevent the holding of a meeting between Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, however, said Washington had been given new assurances that the Palestinians were trying to stop the violence, and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he felt sure there would be meetings "in the coming days."
Solana, speaking in Brussels, skirted a question on whether Arafat and Peres would be involved, speaking only of Israeli-Palestinian meetings.
Israel's security cabinet decided late Sunday to intensify operations against Palestinian targets, public television reported.
During a four-hour meeting, Sharon rejected the idea of large-scale operations in the Palestinian territories, deciding their usefulness was doubtful while they would provoke more international criticism, the report said.
The hardline former general had also ruled out creating military security zones, including around annexed east Jerusalem, the report continued.
"The prime minister's position is well known. He believes that the best way to combat terrorism is through timely attacks" against Palestinian activists, a high-level Israeli official told AFP, on condition of anonymity.
Sharon emphasized that the army could not create a closed "military security zone" without his agreement and that of other ministers in the smaller security cabinet, the official added, and Peres is notably against such measures, according to the press.
But last week's moves, in which Israeli troops reinforced security around Jerusalem and its border with the West Bank with more than 1,000 military and police reinforcements deployed inside the city and roadblocks set up around its perimeter, earned the condemnation of top Arab diplomats meeting in Cairo to draft resolutions calling for international support for Palestinians.
The foreign ministers and other envoys from the 22-member Arab League were near the end of two days of meetings aimed at drafting resolutions that have so far failed to win broad international support.
While preparing to adopt a series of resolutions, the ministers released a statement expressing concern about new Israeli moves around Jerusalem, which the Palestinians also claim as their capital.
"Israel has gone ahead with its plan to isolate and besiege East Jerusalem, to surround it by setting up military buffer zones between the city and the surrounding villages, increasing the military presence and digging trenches around it," they said in a statement.
Since the start of the Intifada, or uprising, almost a year ago 780 people have been killed, including 595 Palestinians and 162 Israelis. Among the remainder are 14 Israeli Arabs, including one of Sunday's two bombers.
Meanwhile, the leader of an association of Arab Israelis has urged Muslim leaders to cancel a religious decree he said allowed Muslims to carry out "suicide bombings".
"I denounce such acts, even if they were carried out by the highest imam among Muslims," Sheikh Ibrahim Nimer Dawish, founder of the Islamic Movement, said on Israeli public radio.
"I am unable to accept these acts which hit innocent people ... for a long time I have urged Israelis and Palestinians to leave the civilian population out of their conflict," Darwish said, speaking in Hebrew.
The Islamic Movement, to which the Israeli Arab who died blowing himself up Sunday belonged, is authorized by the Israelis to operate within the country. It controls five municipal councils and has two members of parliament.
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