Israeli Acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami has threatened that Israel would take military action if the Palestinians do not accept peace deals proposed by Israel. “If Arafat chooses confrontation, we cannot react all the time,” the minister said in a live interview with CNN Sunday.
“Israel will be tougher with the demonstrating Palestinians if they do not accept peace deals proposed by Israel,” he added.
“We may reach the conclusion that we are not partners for peace or Arafat is not a partner for peace What we are trying to see now is whether Arafat is a partner for peace or not” Ben Ami told the station.
After ten days of clashes resulted in the death of more than eighty Palestinians and the injury of several thousand, in addition to escalating tensions in Lebanon on Saturday, Israel has started issuing threats to all sides.
Israel has blamed Syria and Lebanon for the clashes that had occurred in the Shabaa farms, and the capture of its three Israeli soldiers, threatening to strike Beirut, if the soldiers were not released.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak also said that peace talks will be terminated if Arafat did not stop the demonstration in 48 hours. He reiterated the same hard-line position at a press conference in the north of Israel.
Ben Ami concluded that Israel needs “to assess our policy with regard to the Palestinian Authority, but we hope that we still have time. I know that President Clinton is doing his very best to bring Arafat back to his senses and to introduce the sense of proportion to this conflict but we don’t have plenty of time.”
Although calm was partially restored in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Palestinian police began to disperse demonstrations at flashpoints in the territories, officials from both sides still exchange accusations, with each party holding the other responsible for the bloody confrontations – Albawaba.com
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
