Ambush in Israel Casts Pall on Chances for Mideast Deal

Angered by the ambush killing of an Israeli Jew, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that he won’t sign a peace deal at the U.S.-sponsored Middle East summit later this week as long as Palestinian authorities fail to do their part to fight terrorism.

Netanyahu was reacting to the slaying Tuesday of an Orthodox Jewish man who was killed as he and a companion were bathing in a spring near a communal farm west of Jerusalem. The other man was critically wounded. Israeli police blamed the attack on “Palestinian terrorists” who fled into Palestinian-controlled territory.

“There will be no agreement unless the Palestinians fulfill all of their security commitments, and in light of this depressing picture, there is no chance of an agreement being signed at this time,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office quoted him as saying.

The tough language came as officials here and in Washington tried to lower expectations for the summit, which will be convened Thursday by President Clinton and is aimed at ending a 19-month stalemate in the peace process.

U.S. officials had hoped that Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat would conclude an interim agreement in which Israel would relinquish control of an additional 13% of the West Bank while the Palestinians would take concrete steps to crack down on Islamic militants.

Earlier in the day, Arafat said there was still “a lot to be solved” before a deal could be sealed at the summit.

It has been anticipated that militant Islamic or other extremist groups would try to scuttle renewed peace talks by staging assassinations or other violence. In the hours after the shooting near the communal farm of Ora on Tuesday, in which Itamar Doron, 24, was killed, police said Jews stoned the cars of Arab motorists, and the Israeli government slapped a curfew on the Palestinian village where the suspects were believed to have fled.

Netanyahu’s comments cast another pall on the already troubled summit.

His spokesman David Bar-Illan later sought to clarify the prime minister’s remarks. Israel has long maintained that it will fulfill its commitments to withdraw from occupied territory only if the Palestinians hold up their end of the bargain on security.

Tuesday’s killing, Bar-Illan said in a telephone interview, underscored the need for security guarantees from the Palestinians before any agreement can be signed.

Palestinian officials say they are doing all they can to combat terrorism, and they accuse the Israelis of dragging their heels in implementing peace agreements.

Netanyahu has been under heavy pressure from right-wing politicians and religious leaders to avoid making concessions to the Palestinians in this week’s summit.

Indeed, in the wake of Tuesday’s shooting, some in Netanyahu’s Likud Party called for canceling the summit.

Uzi Landau, a Likud legislator, said that attendance by Netanyahu at the Washington meeting would now “provide a green light for future terrorist attacks.” Earlier in the day, Netanyahu’s Cabinet had given him the go-ahead to negotiate the land-for-security deal, listing several demands that would have to be met first, including an insistence that clauses in the Palestinian charter calling for the destruction of Israel be changed.

The National Religious Party, which has enough seats in parliament to rob Netanyahu of his majority, also threatened to bring down the government if Netanyahu reached a deal without securing the demands.