Settlers Jeer Shamir at Service for Israelis : Demand Action to Put End to Arab Attacks on Jews

Angry Jewish settlers shouted down Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir at a memorial service today for two Israelis killed in the West Bank.

“You are doing nothing!” the hecklers screamed, demanding that he put an end to attacks on Jews by Arabs.

Some settlers waved flags as they jeered and chanted “You are responsible” as Shamir, leader of the right-wing Likud Party, appealed for national unity.

Twice he was forced to stop by interruptions from the crowd of 200 gathered on a wind-swept mountain top near Nablus, where an Arab shepherd last month killed a settler in a dispute over grazing land, took his gun and fatally shot a soldier.

Dissension ‘Greatest Danger’

Shamir told the settlers that the greatest danger to Israel was dissension among Jews. “One thing only can hurt our ability to stand firm: quarrels among brothers, or worse civil war among them,” he said.

“The world must know that the land of Israel is the land of the Jewish nation,” Shamir said. “If someone dares try to murder or hurt us, we have no choice but to prepare all our strength.”

At the same ceremony, right-wing settlers’ leader Rabbi Moshe Levinger attacked Shamir’s proposals to grant Palestinians limited self-rule, vowing: “There will never be autonomy here.”

Another extreme-right leader, retired Brig.-Gen. Rehavam Ze’evi, said: “We will not leave. They will not get us down from here--not the uprising, not the Fatah (guerrilla movement), not the United States, not even our own government.”

Shamir turned away and drummed his fingers with visible impatience as Ze’evi spoke to the applause of the settlers--bearded young religious Jews wearing jeans and thick parkas and carrying M-16 rifles or Uzi submachine guns.

Security men tried to calm down several women who shrieked “Neka’ma! Neka’ma!” (revenge, revenge) when the memory of Yaacov Parag, a 40-year-old nationalist militant who lived in the tiny settlement, was recalled.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, troops broke up a sit-in by hundreds of Jewish settlers near the settlement of Yakir who also demanded the army crack down harder on Palestinians involved in the 13-month-old uprising.

Settlers Blocked

The army set up roadblocks throughout the area to prevent more settlers from reaching the site of the sit-in but dozens broke through one roadblock and were chased by troops, Israel army radio said.

Also today, two Palestinians died from Israeli gunfire and troops shot and wounded at least eight Arab protesters in the West Bank towns of Tulkarm and Hebron, hospital officials said.

An army spokeswoman confirmed the deaths and seven wounded in Tulkarm. Armed forces radio reported a further three wounded in Nablus and three in the occupied Gaza Strip.