Palestinian leaders blast Netanyahu over building plan

EFRAT, West Bank - Palestinian leaders yesterday blasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's promise to build hundreds of new housing units in this Jewish settlement as "irresponsible, provocative and unnecessary."

Israeli officials defended the proposed buildup in Efrat as "natural growth," but Marwan Kanafani, a spokesperson for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, called it "a severe blow" to efforts to restart peace negotiations.

"The guy has a lust for Palestinian land. Every time there is some hope, he throws another obstacle in the path of peace," Kanafani said of Netanyahu.

Settlement building is at the root of the current crisis in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, which have been frozen since last March, when Netanyahu gave the green light to build a 6,500-unit Jewish housing project in traditionally Arab East Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Palestinian security forces last night closed 16 Islamic social service organizations in the Gaza Strip and a television station in the West Bank city of Nablus that is identified with the militant Islamic group Hamas.

Palestinian agents entered the offices after closing time, when most workers had left for the day, and sealed them with notices stating they were "not to be entered without the permission of police."

Israeli radio reported that the Palestinians also arrested dozens of Hamas activists in the West Bank cities of Nablus, Qalqilya and Tulkarem, but this could not be independently verified.

Abdel Aziz Rontizi, a Hamas political leader in Gaza, said three employees of one of the Islamic organizations had been arrested, but that he was unaware of any Hamas political or military leaders who had been detained.

The Hamas military wing claimed responsibility for two multiple suicide attacks in downtown Jerusalem this summer that killed 25 people, including five bombers. Israel recently identified four of the bombers as Hamas militants from a Palestinian village outside of Nablus, embarrassing Arafat, who had insisted they came from abroad.

Hamas leaders said the Palestinian Authority's crackdown on Islamic kindergartens, youth clubs and agencies to aid the poor was a response to U.S. and Israeli pressure on Arafat.

"Negotiations are to begin between the Israelis and Palestinians in Washington, and they (the Palestinians) are paving the way in front of these negotiations," Rontizi said. "Netanyahu is paving the way by promising settlers to widen the settlements. Different ways of paving."

On Wednesday, Netanyahu told high school students at a 30th anniversary celebration of the so-called Gush Etzion settlements that he would build 300 new homes in Efrat and expand other communities in the Israeli occupied area on the southern outskirts of Jerusalem.

The speech drew immediate fire from U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at the United Nations, prompting Israeli government officials to try to downplay the planned construction as a continuation of existing policy.

"This government is not searching for friction. It is not intending that its actions be construed in a provocative manner," said government spokesperson Moshe Fogel. "What we are saying is pure logic that we believe can be accepted by anyone who looks at the situation from a logical point of view."

Efrat belongs to the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements between Bethlehem and Hebron, founded on sites of earlier Jewish settlements. Israelis see the enclaves as "suburbs" of Jerusalem, and there is a consensus on both sides of the Israeli political spectrum that the land should remain as part of Israel in a final peace settlement with the Palestinians.

Fogel said the Efrat development was approved by the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and does not represent a more rapid settlement growth rate than that which took place under the previous Labor governments. He would not entertain questions about whether the go-ahead was Netanyahu's negative answer to Albright's request for a "timeout" in settlement expansion.

But while Albright clearly took it that way, leaders of Efrat dismissed the brouhaha.

"He took an approval in principle (from Rabin) and turned it into a practical approval for 300 new units," said Efrat Mayor Yinon Ahiman. "They are selling us the same car for the second time."

09-26-97