Israel Detains Palestinian Moderate

Israeli police briefly detained the Palestine Liberation Organization’s most senior official in East Jerusalem, a prominent moderate, as violence flared Monday in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and militants rejected Yasser Arafat’s call for his people to halt attacks on Israelis.

Israeli troops reportedly killed three Palestinians; three Israelis were wounded, including a 3-year-old boy, in shooting ambushes. Arafat blamed Israel for the violence, saying it appeared that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was stepping up military operations the day after Arafat urged Israel to resume negotiations.

But two Palestinian factions, the militant group Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, rejected Arafat’s order Sunday to halt attacks. Local Hamas leaders vowed to avenge the death Monday morning of one of the group’s militants, who was shot, the Israeli army said, when troops tried to arrest him in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Meanwhile, the detention and interrogation of Sari Nusseibeh, a philosophy professor with close ties to many Israeli politicians, drew criticism from within the government and from opposition leaders as an attack against Palestinian moderates who seek dialogue with Israel.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Nusseibeh’s detention was “provocative and counterproductive.” It was the first time since a pair of deadly suicide bombings in Jerusalem on Dec. 1 that the Bush administration has leveled any criticism at Sharon’s government.

“Israel needs to focus on the repercussions of the actions it takes, and both sides need to take decisions and actions that facilitate, rather than complicate, the [peace] process,” Boucher said.

The Israeli government prevented Nusseibeh from holding a reception for foreign diplomats and Palestinian dignitaries at an East Jerusalem hotel to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, saying the event violated the 1993 Oslo peace accords.

The accords banned the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization from operating officially in East Jerusalem. Israel annexed the eastern part of the city after the 1967 Middle East War. Palestinians claim it as the capital of a future state.

Official Defends Banning a Reception

Speaking on Israel’s Army Radio, hard-line Public Security Minister Uzi Landau said he sought government approval to ban the reception because any activity by the PLO could be considered related to terrorism.

“There’s a whole series of activities which are in truth terror activities, and part of these activities are receptions,” Landau said.

The detention of Nusseibeh and four other Palestinians triggered a protest by Israel’s Peace Now group outside the police facility where they were held. Left-wing Israeli politicians and dovish members of the center-left Labor Party, which is part of the government, voiced support for Nusseibeh.

“He is a moderate man, and we have to build bridges to more moderate men,” said Colette Avital, a Labor member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

Yossi Sarid, leader of the left-wing Meretz Party, met with the Palestinian official after his release and invited him to speak before his party. Nusseibeh accepted.

“It’s only natural for me to be invited by the Meretz council, natural for me to accept and, I hope, natural for us on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide to put our hands together and build peace,” Nusseibeh said. He later met with some of the foreign diplomats turned away from the canceled reception.

Arafat appointed the soft-spoken Nusseibeh, silver-haired scion of an ancient Jerusalem family, to be his representative in the city two months ago.

Some Palestinians have criticized Nusseibeh for his public calls for compromise on both sides. The conflict with Israel cannot be resolved, he has said, unless Palestinians drop their demand that refugees who fled their homes when the Jewish state was created in 1948 be allowed to return and unless Israel abandons its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Many Israelis have praised his statements as courageous and the basis for a dialogue between the two peoples.

Sharon Supports Cabinet Decision

The decision to block Nusseibeh’s reception was approved by the Cabinet in a telephone poll Sunday night. Speaking to his Likud Party’s faction in the Knesset, Sharon said it was appropriate.

Sharon also said Israel will continue its military operations in Palestinian-controlled territories, despite Arafat’s call for a cease-fire, because the country is in the midst of a battle against terrorism. Sharon dismissed Arafat’s Sunday night speech to the Palestinians, saying he had listened to only part of it.

“We are fed up with all these declarations, promises,” Sharon said. “We are going to take all the necessary steps and all the necessary measures to defend Israel’s citizens and the very existence of Israel.”

Israel last week declared Arafat irrelevant and severed all contacts with him. It then launched its most extensive military operations in Palestinian-controlled territories since fighting erupted nearly 15 months ago, saying it would hunt down the militants it has demanded that Arafat crush.

In Washington, the Bush administration called Arafat’s speech constructive.

“Now what’s important is that Chairman Arafat demonstrate that he has, one, the desire, and two, the authority to turn his words into deeds,” White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said.

But in a statement, Hamas called Arafat’s demand that Palestinians observe a cease-fire even if Israel doesn’t “an unjust formula that can’t be accepted.”

The armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the faction that claimed responsibility for the October assassination of Israel’s minister of tourism, Rehavam Zeevi, added, “Operations will continue as long as the occupation exists.”

Monday morning, the Israeli army said it had killed a wanted Hamas militant, Yakoub Idkadak, outside his home in the West Bank city of Hebron. The army said Idkadak, 28, was slain when he tried to escape a special-forces unit that had tried to arrest him.

Speaking to reporters in Ramallah, Arafat accused Israel of assassinating Idkadak. The president’s aides have said it will be impossible for Arafat to enforce a cease-fire if Israel continues such killings.

Also Monday, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian policeman traveling in an unmarked car near the West Bank city of Nablus and wounded a policeman traveling with him. Palestinian sources in Gaza reported that troops shot and killed a 12-year-old boy in Khan Yunis as he played with a toy gun outside his home. The army said there was an exchange of fire between troops and gunmen in the area at the time.

After night fell Monday, an Israeli was shot and seriously wounded as he drove on a bypass road reserved for Israeli drivers near Ramallah. In a second attack, the army said, an Israeli father and his toddler were slightly wounded in a drive-by shooting near another Jewish settlement.

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Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.