Israeli Troops Kill 2 Palestinian Teens

A day before President Clinton’s arrival here on a mission to salvage Middle East peace, two Palestinians were killed Friday in another round of clashes with Israeli troops.

For much of the day, as Palestinians emerged from prayers, Palestinian authorities managed to keep a lid on the violence that has swept the West Bank in the last week. In the afternoon, however, in the northern West Bank town of Kalqilya, demonstrations for the release of Palestinian prisoners escalated, with Israeli troops shooting to death two 18-year-olds who were in crowds that threw rocks and gasoline bombs.

Funerals scheduled for today may bring more unrest in the hours leading up to Clinton’s late-night arrival in Jerusalem.

The violence came as more than 10,000 Israeli troops and uniformed police patrolled Jerusalem and elsewhere in a high-alert security operation to safeguard the Clinton entourage.

U.S. military helicopters flew overhead, Secret Service agents staked out Israeli and Palestinian locations, and numerous roads will be closed starting tonight. Israeli city workers pulled anti-Clinton posters from billboards and highway signs. Some posters showed a smiling Clinton wearing a kaffiyeh over the caption, in Hebrew, “I am a Palestinian.” Others declared, “Clinton Go Home!”

Activists from the outlawed, ultra-right Kach movement claimed responsibility for the posters. Other right-wing groups took out ads in Friday newspapers condemning the “Clinton circus” in the Gaza Strip, a reference to Clinton’s scheduled meeting there with Palestinian leaders.

“With a friend like you,” one of the ads said, addressing Clinton, “who needs enemies?”

In contrast to the majority of Israelis, the nation’s influential right wing is vehemently opposed to the Wye Plantation accord, which was brokered in October by Clinton and obliges Israel to relinquish an additional 13% of West Bank land to the Palestinians in exchange for steps to fight terrorism.

Clinton’s three-day stay in Israel and Palestinian-controlled areas was designed as a show of support for the peace plan. However, few imagined seven weeks ago that the process would be in as much trouble as it is now.

The agreement is in tatters, with the two sides locked in a bitter dispute over Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, amendments to anti-Israel elements of the Palestinian charter and growing violence.

The tentative cooperation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat that had appeared to emerge at the White House signing ceremony in October seems to have dissolved back into the mutual mistrust that has always characterized their relationship.

Netanyahu on Friday said that he will refuse to attend a joint meeting with Clinton and Arafat if the Palestine National Council does not vote in satisfactory fashion to remove clauses from the Palestine Liberation Organization charter that call for the destruction of Israel. The session is scheduled for Monday, with Clinton attending.

“I don’t suppose, in such a situation, a meeting [with Clinton and Arafat] will take place,” Netanyahu told reporters. “I also don’t assume that President Clinton will want to see a farce.”

Adding to the tension, a leaflet purporting to be the work of the militant Islamic group Hamas condemned Clinton’s visit and threatened to bomb Israeli targets if the organization’s spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, is not released from house arrest by Dec. 25. Arafat placed Yassin under house arrest after a Hamas operative tried to blow up a bus full of Israeli children in October.

Yehuda Wilk, the Jerusalem police chief, said security forces were bracing for the spread of Palestinian riots into East Jerusalem during Clinton’s visit and were also on the watch for the kind of terrorist bombings that have killed scores of Israelis in recent years.