Israel issues new security demands

Palestinians, in turn, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of trying to blackmail them. "Our only hope is that the United States will realize that this is ... an evil attempt to torpedo the peace process," said Marwan Kanafani, a spokesperson for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

The new demands were contained in a four-page list Israeli officials said would be given to Albright. In addition to crushing Islamic militant groups, Israel said the Palestinians must reduce the size of their police force, dismiss their police chief and agree to Israeli and U.S. monitoring to ensure compliance.

Netanyahu complained yesterday that Arafat's recent efforts to fight Islamic militants - including the arrests of 35 activists on Monday - were symbolic at best and aimed at appeasing Albright.

"We demand consistency in the treatment of the terrorist infrastructure as an essential condition for the continuation of the peace process," Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee.

"Unless Arafat stops violating his commitment, and starts fulfilling it - to fight the infrastructure of the terrorist organizations, to jail their leaders, to confiscate their weapons, to stop incitement towards terrorism, to stop embracing the leaders of the Hamas terrorist organization - unless he does all that we won't have much progress with the peace process," he said.

Netanyahu blamed Arafat for not preventing suicide bombings by Islamic militants in Jerusalem on July 30 and last Thursday. The bombings killed 20 Israelis and five assailants.

In its list of demands, Israel said Arafat must reduce his police force from the 35,000 officers he recruited to the 24,000 permitted by the peace agreement, and fire officers who have been involved in attacks on Israelis.

Israel also claims the police chief, Brig. Ghazi Jabali, has incited his men to attacks against Israel and said he must be dismissed.

Israel also wants to establish a monitoring system, with U.S. participation, that would allow for inspections and spot checks to ensure Palestinian compliance.

The Palestinians, however, did not plan to let Israel dominate Albright's agenda with talk about security. They said yesterday they would raise Israel's recent decision to freeze the scheduled handover of West Bank land, the expansion of Jewish settlements and Israel's security closures of Palestinian areas.

"I expect from Albright to deal with the reasons of the crisis, which are settlements and Judaization of Jerusalem and refusing to implement agreements," said Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian Cabinet minister. "Security is not a goal in itself."

Albright's three-day trip, which begins today, will be her first to the Middle East as secretary of state, and both Israelis and Palestinians anxiously watched for clues on what to expect.

Albright recently discovered her Jewish roots, and Israeli officials said they weren't sure whether this would make her more sympathetic to Israel's positions or prompt her to overcompensate by taking a tougher stance than a non-Jewish secretary might.

In addition to meetings with Netanyahu and Arafat, Albright will visit Israelis and Americans wounded in last week's bombing, speak to members of an Israeli think tank and tour a Palestinian school in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

It was not clear whether Israel would ease its tight closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip before her arrival. The travel ban, in effect since July 30 and tightened after the last attack, bars more than 2 million Palestinians from entering Israel.

Palestinian residents of the West Bank also are confined to their communities. There was speculation that Israel would lift the siege at least in Ramallah and Jericho, the two towns Albright is to visit.

AP PHOTO
Israeli police officers check the identification of a woman at the site of last week's triple bombing in Jerusalem.

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