JERUSALEM – In farewell interviews, outgoing U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk blamed both Israelis and Palestinians for undermining Mideast peace efforts and said he does not expect a comprehensive political settlement soon.
A U.S.-brokered cease-fire remained in jeopardy Wednesday. An Israeli was shot dead on a road just inside Israel near the Palestinian town of Tulkarem in the West Bank, Israel’s police said. Palestinian militants were suspected in the shooting.
In the West Bank town of Hebron, Palestinian activist Hazem Falah Natche was shot in the stomach, witnesses said. It was not immediately clear who wounded him. Palestinians blamed Israeli security forces, while Israel’s army said it had no knowledge of the shooting.
A Palestinian was shot and killed late Wednesday in the Israeli Arab town of Tira, police said. Israel radio reported that the man was a collaborator with Israeli intelligence and moved with his family from the West Bank to Tira 10 years ago.
In other incidents Wednesday, Palestinians opened fire on Israeli army bases and fired a mortar shell at a Jewish settlement in Gaza.
Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that Israel would continue efforts to prevent terror attacks because Palestinians are not doing so. He rejected the Palestinian contention that a seven-day period of calm, leading to a cooling-off period and eventually to peace talks, ended Wednesday.
“I have never seen such a bloody and violent cease-fire,” he said in a written statement after meeting military attaches.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, meeting with diplomats Wednesday, said Israel is violating the cease-fire by killing militants. He called on nations to send observers, a move Israel opposes.
Mr. Indyk, a key figure in the Mideast negotiations during his four years as ambassador to Israel, told The Jerusalem Post that he didn’t believe Mr. Arafat “ever really gave up violence as a tool to achieving his objectives.”
Israel says that Mr. Arafat has failed to arrest Palestinian militants and that members of his security forces have systematically participated in attacks during more than nine months of violence.
In an interview on Israeli TV, the U.S. ambassador also said that the Israelis have hampered peace moves with the steady expansion of Jewish settlements.
The 200,000 Jewish settlers in the territories are almost twice the number present when Israel and Mr. Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization began peace negotiations in 1993.
Mr. Indyk bluntly criticized Israel’s assassination policy.
“The United States government is very clearly on the record as against targeted assassinations,” he said in the interview. “They are extrajudicial killings and we do not support that.”
Mr. Indyk, who is leaving his post within days, said Israelis and Palestinians should work for a phased agreement that would aim to resolve some issues now. The two sides should put off the thorniest issues such as the status of Jerusalem and the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees, he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called for a long-term interim agreement, reportedly telling U.S. officials that he would accept some form of Palestinian statehood in the Gaza Strip and just over half the West Bank.
But Palestinians reject talk of an interim deal, saying that peace negotiations dragged on inconclusively for seven years before breaking down amid the violence. They are seeking a final agreement that would give them statehood over virtually all the West Bank and Gaza, and the right of millions of refugees and their descendants to move to Israel.
The United States has been the main mediator throughout the peace talks and brokered a cease-fire declared June 13. However, violence has prevented the agreement from taking hold, and both sides warn that it may collapse.
On Wednesday, Israel’s security Cabinet reaffirmed its policy of targeting Palestinian militants for attack.
Some hard-line Israeli ministers argued for stepping up military actions, while dovish Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Israel would not abandon the cease-fire.
“We continue to be committed [to the truce], but we will not stop for one day, or even one hour, in the fight against terrorism,” said Transportation Minister Ephraim Sneh, who, like Mr. Peres, is a member of the moderate Labor party.
Meanwhile, Palestinians denounced the Israeli policy of targeted killings of militants.
“If a cease-fire is to have any meaning, Sharon cannot insist on Israel’s unilateral right to commit murder,” said Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo. “It is time that the world recognize that Sharon, who has no desire to negotiate peace, can only survive in an atmosphere of war.”
The Israelis have killed 24 Palestinians in 19 such attacks since November, according to the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights.
