New killings endanger Mideast peace hopes
Both sides vow revenge after deaths
of prominent settler, Palestinian official
MATTHEW KALMAN
Special to The Globe and Mail, with reports; from Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
Monday, January 1, 2001


JERUSALEM -- A prominent Israeli settler and his wife, then a senior Palestinian official were killed in two shooting incidents just hours apart on the West Bank yesterday, releasing a fury of rhetoric and violence and endangering what fragile hopes remain for a Middle East peace agreement.
Rabbi Binyamin Zeev Kahane and his wife Talia were killed when Palestinian gunmen fired on their Nissan minivan as they were driving with their five young daughters near the Israeli settlement of Ofra yesterday morning. The two died instantly as their vehicle slammed into a ditch. One of the girls was in critical condition at a Jerusalem hospital last night.
Mr. Kahane was the son of Rabbi Meir Kahane, a right-wing firebrand who was assassinated in New York in 1990, but there was no evidence that Mr. Kahane and his wife were specifically targeted in the attack, despite their prominence.
Hours later, Thabet Thabet, secretary-general of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement in the West Bank town of Tulkarm, was shot dead outside his home on the western outskirts of the town, home of 50,000 Palestinians. The Israeli army said Dr. Thabet died in an exchange of fire; Palestinians said he was backing his car out of his driveway when men they believed were special Israeli forces drove past and sprayed him with gunfire.
Israel has said it is targeting activists it considers responsible for attacks against Israelis, but made no such acknowledgment in this case.
Both Israelis and Palestinians reacted furiously to the high-profile killings. Added to the two sides' sharp disagreements over terms of a U.S. peace plan, the situation further complicated U.S. President Bill Clinton's efforts to help the sides negotiate a Middle East peace agreement before he leaves office later this month. "This will have catastrophic reactions," a spokesman for Palestinian leader Arafat told the Voice of Palestine official radio station. "It will destroy efforts being made to achieve progress in the peace process."
Last night, the centre of Jerusalem was brought to a standstill as thousands of Jewish mourners staged a noisy funeral procession, pausing to vent their fury outside the official residence of Prime Minister Ehud Barak, accused of taking a weak stand against the Palestinians. The dead rabbi's brother delivered a eulogy, calling on the crowd to "take your fate in your own hands."
Some mourners ran through adjoining streets shouting "Death to Arabs," and police were forced to protect Palestinians who were chased and beaten on their way home from work.It was unclear how many Palestininas were hurt or how badly, but 10 policemen were injured and a news photographer from Sweden was stabbed in the evening-long melee.Mr. Barak met with his cabinet, which said afterward that if the Palestinians do not accept Mr. Clinton's plan as a framework for negotiations, Israel will "take a time out" in the peace process.
"Our relations with the Palestinians have never been described as a marriage of love, and that is why we must try for a separation," he said on television. "In the framework of an agreement it will be a civilized divorce, and much more painful if we do not reach an accord."Israel has accepted Mr. Clinton's proposals as a basis for talks, albeit with serious misgivings. The Palestinians have refused to respond to the proposals, insisting on clarifications from Washington before proceeding."We will not say yes or no to [Mr.] Clinton until we have received the clarifications we need," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday.
As the day wore on, there were scattered outbreaks of violence between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli troops in the West Bank and Gaza. A bomb attack on an Israeli bus in the Gaza Strip was thwarted by bomb-disposal experts. Later in the day, a Jerusalem man was injured while driving on a West Bank road after gunmen opened fire, an incident similar to the Kahane killing.
In Hebron, the Israeli army banned Jewish settlers from the market area after they overturned Arab stalls in protest against the Kahane killings. And several Palestinian youths were injured by rubber bullets in Ramallah.Fatah supporters marched through Ramallah and other large cities to mark the anniversary of the group's first attack against an Israeli target.
Palestinian officials accused an Israeli undercover hit squad of killing Dr. Thabet, who was also a senior official in the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Several Palestinian militia leaders have been assassinated by Israeli forces in similar attacks in recent weeks, but Dr. Thabet would be the first politician gunned down.Marwan Barghouti, a prominent West Bank Fatah leader, called on all Palestinians to join the intifada (uprising) that has now
lasted more than three months and claimed more than 350 lives, most of them Palestinians."By carrying out this cowardly assassination, Barak has brought down hell on his own head," Mr. Barghouti said. "In the coming weeks, the lives of all the settlers will be turned into a living hell."Although many Palestinians said the killing of Dr. Thabet was intentional, it was not clear if this was the case with Mr. Kahane and his wife. A statement from a group calling itself the Martyrs of the al-Aqsa Intifada referred to the ambush but did not name or describe the occupants of the car.Mr. Kahane, 34, was born in New York and was the head of a rabbinical college in the settlement of Tapuach where he lived and wrote regularly on the subject of non-Jews in Israel.He also led a political party established to continue the teachings of his father, who advocated the mass expulsion of Arabs from Israel and the occupied territories. The party was banned by the Israeli government.
Meir Kahane, who was shot dead after a speech in New York in 1990, was also an American-born Jewish radical. He founded the Jewish Defence League in America and the anti-Arab Kach Party in Israel