Israel's Cabinet OKs Hebron Pact in Stormy Session

By MARJORIE MILLER

Jan. 16, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

JERUSALEM — After a stormy 12-hour session, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Cabinet voted early today to approve an accord, sealed with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, on Israel’s redeployment of its forces in Hebron.

The deal to pull back Israeli troops from about 80% of the occupied city and continue withdrawing from other West Bank lands met with fierce opposition from hard-liners in Netanyahu’s coalition who accused him of betraying his political base in the Likud Party “nationalist camp” and forsaking the Jewish homeland.

Binyamin Begin, the science and technology minister and most adamant of the critics, quit his post in protest after the 11-7 vote in favor of the Hebron accord.

“The prime minister gave his consent to abandon parts of the Jewish homeland, and in return hasn’t received one significant concession from Arafat,” Begin said on Israel Radio earlier Wednesday.

While opposition Labor Party leaders and peace activists lauded Netanyahu’s long-awaited pact with Arafat, representatives of the 450 Jewish settlers who live among more than 100,000 Palestinians in Hebron asserted that Netanyahu was putting their lives in danger.

In the face of the heated opposition, Israel put extra troops in Hebron to safeguard against attacks such as the Jan. 1 shooting spree by an off-duty Israeli soldier who wounded five Palestinians. Officials fear extremists on both sides may resort to violence to try to derail the redeployment.

Meanwhile, after only a three-hour debate, Arafat’s Cabinet easily passed the Hebron agreement, hammered out with Netanyahu in three months of fitful negotiations.

For Netanyahu, the long and bitter Cabinet session might have been expected. He had never thoroughly discussed a Hebron pullback with his assembled Cabinet. On this day, though, he let all of his ministers speak their minds in the oft-acrimonious session that ran from noon to after midnight before a vote was taken.

The opposition was led by Begin, son of Menachem Begin, the late prime minister who returned the Sinai to Egypt after signing the Camp David accords in 1978. At one point, Netanyahu reportedly grew furious when Begin pulled out documents allegedly obtained from the Foreign Ministry and claimed that the prime minister had made a secret commitment not to build in the occupied territories before three further troop redeployments are completed in 1998.

Despite this and other political clashes, opponents failed to block the Hebron accord, which mirrors the 1995 interim agreements that the previous Labor government had signed with the Palestinians.

Cabinet Secretary Danny Naveh emerged from the meeting about 12:30 a.m. to announce that the government had approved the accord. He read a five-point statement that said the government would act to preserve the “existence and security” of the Jewish community in Hebron and that Israel’s compliance with the new agreement depended on Palestinian “reciprocity.”

It said the government soon would open discussions on its principles for final negotiations with the Palestinians and hoped to complete its position by next year. Naveh also announced Begin’s resignation, which is not expected to have a major political impact, at least in the short term. In the long run, Begin could join forces with others in the far-right to challenge Likud.

The Hebron deal is to go to a vote today of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, where it is expected to be ratified by a broad majority that includes the Labor Party. The accord then must be signed by Netanyahu and Arafat--either separately or at a formal ceremony--and redeployment then can begin.

Israeli officials said the pullback could occur before the Jewish Sabbath begins Friday evening if there is no formal signing ceremony. Otherwise, it most likely will be put off until Saturday night.

Israeli and Palestinian security officials met in Tel Aviv on Wednesday to pave the way for the redeployment. The Palestinians gave Israel the names of the 400 police who are to take over security in most of Hebron and, as required by the agreement, the serial numbers of the officers’ weapons.

The new Hebron agreement is much like the previous accords related to the pullback, but with added security measures for settlers and Israeli soldiers who will remain in control of the Jewish enclaves and a site known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs and to Muslims as the Ibrahim mosque.

A U.S. “note for the record” that accompanied the accord calls for Israel to carry out the first of three troop withdrawals from rural areas of the West Bank beginning the first week of March.

Israel promises to release Palestinian prisoners and to immediately resume negotiations over unresolved issues such as travel routes between the Gaza Strip and West Bank and the opening of an airport and port in Gaza. The Palestinians, in turn, promise to strengthen security cooperation, prevent incitement and hostile propaganda, and apprehend and punish terrorists.

But the accord left many questions unanswered, particularly about the extent of the further pullbacks in the West Bank. The Palestinians, who now control 27% of the territory, want to end up with close to 90% by the end of the third redeployment in 1998. Netanyahu wants to give them about half that so he has more bargaining chips for final negotiations over the outstanding issues of the future of West Bank Jewish settlements, the return of Palestinian refugees, control over East Jerusalem, borders and Palestinian statehood.

Netanyahu reportedly told Cabinet members that his greatest achievement in the negotiations was U.S. backing for his position that Israel may unilaterally decide how much land it is to give up in the post-Hebron redeployments.

But the Cabinet debate screeched to a halt over this issue after an Israeli television report that the United States did not intend to let Israel determine the scope of further redeployments on its own. Suspicious Cabinet members accused Netanyahu of trying to trick them. The session recessed until U.S. envoy Dennis Ross called Cabinet members to assure them the TV report did not reflect U.S. policy.

Martin Indyk, U.S. ambassador to Israel, told Israel Radio that the areas to be handed to the Palestinians “is, according to the agreement, Israel’s decision.”

But another U.S. official noted privately that “if Israel carries out a minimal and meaningless further redeployment, undoubtedly there is going to be a problem.”

In a measure of the anger that the latest peace accord stirred on Wednesday, anti-Netanyahu graffiti suddenly appeared on the No. 160 bus to Hebron, referring to the Israeli leader by his nickname, saying: “Bibi is a traitor.”

That criticism had an ominous ring here: A similar charge was used repeatedly against Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the weeks before he was assassinated by a Jewish law student in November 1995; the assassin opposed the framework accords Rabin had signed with Arafat to trade West Bank land for peace.

* ‘A GOOD OMEN’: U.S. officials say pact vindicates evenhanded approach, bodes well for Mideast. A6

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

What they Hold

Israel and the Palestinians may soon begin talks on a final peace agreement. At that time, they will negotiate their final borders and the future of Jerusalem and of the approximately 140 Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Jewish enclaves

1) Admot Yitzhak Tel Romeida

2) Beit Hadassah

3) Beit Schneerson

4) Beit Romano Shavei Hebron Yeshiva

5) Avraham Avinu Quarter

****

Jewish areas of Hebron

6) Ancient Jewish cemetery

7) Tomb of Othniel Ben Knaz

8) Tombs of Ruth and Jesse

9) Abraham’s Spring