Peres Berated at Funeral for Bus Victim

Angry mourners pounded on a car bearing dovish Finance Minister Shimon Peres and forced him to retreat from the funeral Friday of a victim in the bus crash caused by an Arab assailant who forced it off a highway and down a steep ravine, witnesses and Israel government radio said.

The crash, which took place the day before, incensed and depressed many Israelis and inflamed the ongoing debate over whether coexistence with Palestinians can ever be achieved.

A group called the Islamic Jihad (holy war)in Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack in a message delivered to news agencies in Beirut and Amman, Jordan. The statement of the shadowy group called the act a “heroic operation.”

In Israel, anti-Arab organizations, notably the Kach movement led by Rabbi Meir Kahane, seized on the tragedy to underline their position that Israelis and Arabs can never live together in peace. Kach members harassed a peace demonstration in Jerusalem on Friday until police drove them off with tear gas. Police also rescued an Arab truck driver who was being chased by what government radio called Kach “ruffians.” In all, eight Kahane followers were arrested.

Arab Motorist Attacked

Israeli stone throwers near Ashkelon, on the Mediterranean coast, attacked a car driven by an Arab, who lost control of the vehicle and crashed. The driver was hospitalized in critical condition, government radio said.

Police were patrolling Jewish neighborhoods of the city on the lookout for reprisal attacks on Arabs.

Interrogators tried to piece together two possibly interrelated motives for the attack: one, that the assailant, described as a Palestinian in his mid-20s from a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, was avenging the death or injury of a friend or relative at the hands of Israeli soldiers; the other, that he was acting on the orders or encouragement of a fundamentalist Muslim group, probably Islamic Jihad, that has called for attacks on Israelis, be they civilians or military.

The bearded Palestinian yanked the steering wheel away from the bus driver, causing the vehicle to plunge through a railing and down 200 feet where it crashed and burst into flames. Fourteen passengers were killed and 27 were injured.

Police investigators said that the Palestinian had planned the deadly maneuver for weeks and traveled on the bus several times in order to choose the spot where a deadly crash was almost guaranteed.

The piece of highway he chose, about 9 miles from Jerusalem, divides two ravines that fall away sharply to either side. Investigators noted that in 1983, a Palestinian attacker tried to waylay a bus in a similar fashion near the same spot, but the driver fought him off.

Funerals were held Friday for three of the dead, soldier Shaul Tsur, 21, West Bank settler Mordechai Rosenberg, 50, and Miriam Tsarafi, 40, at whose funeral Peres was representing the government.

Peres, who heads the Labor Party and is also deputy prime minister, is a proponent of surrendering part of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in return for peace with Israel’s Arab neighbors and the Palestinians.

Mourners Yell at Peres

Mourners yelled “Peres, the maniac!” and someone threw a rock at his car. He tried to speak but could not make himself heard over the din. He retreated under the protection of police, army and border patrol troops.

Anger was not limited to acquaintances of the dead or to extremists. A liberal columnist in the independent newspaper Haaretz wrote: “The ‘Allah’ in whose name the Arab wrenched the wheel and transformed an ordinary civilian bus into a bus of blood made no distinction between women, old people and youths. . . . This is an act that can be neither forgiven nor understood.”

Mourning cast a shadow on the Maccabiah Games, a gathering of Jewish athletes from all over the world, being held in Tel Aviv. A celebration ceremony Friday was canceled.

The Egged cooperative that operates the bus line ordered drivers to turn on their headlights in mourning for the victims.

All but two of the dead have been identified. Forensic experts are trying to find out the identity of the remaining victims, whose bodies were severely burned.