Israel’s cabinet today announced it would bar Palestinian officials from attending a meeting to discuss progress to an independent state in response to dual suicide attacks in Tel Aviv last night.
The meeting — to be held next week in London — was called by the prime minister, Tony Blair, to move towards enacting Palestinian Authority reforms demanded by the United States to restart the peace process.
Rob Prosor, of the Israeli foreign ministry, said Palestinian officials did not deserve to attend the meeting.
”The logic is that the Palestinian leadership who is inciting terrorism on a daily basis and indoctrinating a whole society should not receive as a prize all these conferences,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
”We are giving excuses for terror and, of course I think here the logic is clear, we are for reform, we are for peace. But we can’t work this way, no civilised country would allow this.
At a public meeting in Jerusalem soon after the bombings, Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, blamed the ”Palestinian leadership” for the attack — which killed at least 24 people, many of them believed to be migrant workers.
”All attempts to reach a ceasefire, even today, are failing due to the Palestinian leadership that continues to support, fund and initiate terror,” he said.
The Palestinian Authority denied the charges. It issued a statement, saying it ”strongly condemns and fully rejects all crimes against civilians and the idea of revenge”.
The cabinet also announced it would prevent the Palestinian Central Council from meeting for the first time in two years on January 9 in Ramallah to ratify a Palestinian constitution and shut three colleges and universities. Raanan Gissin, an aide to Sharon, said an-Najah University — the largest in the West Bank — will likely be closed.
Gissin said Israel will also increase ”pinpoint attacks” on suspected militants, which the Palestinians condemn as assassinations.
”They violated the trust so we have the right to take such defensive measures to make sure that such horrible terrorist activities don’t take place,” he said.
Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said the Israeli government’s decisions would only add ”fuel to the fire”.
In a first response to Sunday’s attacks, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at metal workshops in the Gaza Strip. Eight people were lightly injured.
The Nablus splinter group of the al-Aqsa Brigades — the military wing of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction — claimed responsibility for the suicide attacks and identified the bombers as Samer Nouri (19) and Burak Burak Khelfi (20).
There was also a less specific claim of responsibility from the Islamic Jihad, which did not name the attackers.
The attacks are likely to harm Egyptian efforts to secure a declaration from the militant groups for an end to suicide bombings as a step toward a truce in 27 months of violence.
Egyptian officials said another meeting due this week was now in doubt.
In the past, such bombings have triggered large-scale Israeli incursions in the West Bank, and hardliners in Sharon’s cabinet have called for the expulsion of Arafat.
But with a general election at the end of this month such action is unlikely in case it is seen as electioneering. Sharon may in any case benefit if Israel’s security moves up the campaign agenda. – Guardian Unlimited Â