Israel’s Shamir Rejects Criticism Over Temple Mount Deaths, Warns Iraq

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir today accused the international community of hypocrisy and said Israel would not pay the price of the West’s problems in the Arab world.

He repeated his warning to Iraq that Israel would hit back if attacked, and warned it against intervening in Jordan, which borders on Israel and is seen from Jerusalem as a buffer against Iraqi attack.

Shamir’s speech opening the fall session of Parliament reflected deep bitterness over the world’s reaction to the killing of at least 19 Palestinians on the Temple Mount.

He complained that when terrorists killed Israeli tourists in Egypt, or when hundreds of Muslims died in riots at the Saudi Arabian holy city of Mecca, “we didn’t hear similar denunciations, and we did not see the (U.N.) Security Council being convened.”

But he stopped short of directly attacking the United States, Israel’s chief military and financial backer, for siding with Israel’s critics in the Security Council.

Also today, Israel stepped up plans to expand Jewish settlement in Arab East Jerusalem, only days after assuring the United States it would not settle Soviet Jews outside the old borders of the Jewish state. The announcement by Housing Minister Ariel Sharon was bound to further anger Palestinians.