Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday Israel should consider a truce proposal made by an adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
”There are grounds to check how serious the Palestinian intentions are, especially if we can take advantage of the situation to build the security fence,” Netanyahu told public radio.
The hawkish minister was referring to the barrier Israel has been erecting in the West Bank to prevent infiltrations from Palestinian militants.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon postponed a meeting of his security cabinet, which was due to decide on Wednesday the path of a new section of the controversial West Bank security barrier after the United States warned it could dock loan guarantees as punishment for its construction.
The meeting was delayed ”because Prime Minister Sharon has an overloaded timetable”, said Sharon’s office. But Housing Minister Effy Eitam told military radio that while the ”Americans are allies of Israel who are helping the economic plan, there should be limits to the interference by a foreign country on matters of vital security for Israel”.
The US State Department said on Tuesday that Washington would penalise Israel for building in Palestinian areas by deducting the amount spent on such settlements from promised loan guarantees.
Netanyahu’s call not to immediately reject the truce offer made by Arafat’s national security adviser, Jibril Rajoub, came after Sharon’s spokesperson Raanan Gissin dismissed it as a ”honeytrap”.
”We are however not raising our hopes too high, we know the Palestinian authority does not intend to fight against terrorist organisations and should continue to put pressure on it,” said Netanyahu.
Opposition MP Yossi Sarid, for his part, condemned Israel’s rejection of Rajoub’s offer.
”If we can win a year or more of relative calm, we have nothing to lose, and it’ll never be too late to return to the violence after that,” he told the radio.
Rajoub announced on Tuesday the Palestinian leadership was able to ensure that radical groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, would respect such a truce if Israel halted all its attacks and closures of the Palestinian territories.
Meanwhile, Arafat is to deliver a keynote address in which he would state his commitment to the road map for peace and urge a new truce from militant groups, a close aide said on Wednesday.
Arafat, who has become the focus of attention after Israel approved a decision to ”remove” him from his offices here, would also condemn attacks on civilians from both sides, aide Sakher Habash said.
The veteran leader would either hold a press conference at his Ramallah compound or a make a televised address ”very soon”, said Habash. ”It’s possible within hours, it’s possible within a couple of days.”
”He will thank all those who have supported him in the recent crisis after Israeli decision,” said the aide.
”He will reiterate the Palestinian commitment to the peace process, mainly the road map, and all signed international agreements.
”And he will call for the right for an independent state with [al-Quds] Jerusalem as its capital with the 1967 border and a solution for the refugees.”
Arafat recently said that the roadmap, a United States-backed project that aims for an independent Palestinian state by 2005, was dead as a result of ”Israeli aggression”.
Arafat has been confined to his Ramallah headquarters by Israeli forces for the last 20 months. — Sapa-AFP
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