Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 5, 1993 TAG: 9309050104
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL LENGTH: Medium
Organizers said 110,000 people turned out, which would make it the largest demonstration since hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
In the occupied territories, hundreds of Palestinians also rallied to show their support for the peace agreement, while Muslim radicals scribbled death threats to Palestinian peace negotiators on the walls.
The agreement is for Palestinian self-rule in the occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.
Leaders of Israel's hawkish opposition said that if they returned to power, they would not honor Israeli commitments to the Palestinians.
But the hard-liners denounced calls by Jewish extremists to take up arms, possibly even against Israeli troops, to block the agreement on Palestinian autonomy.
In Jerusalem, Ariel Sharon, a leading figure in the opposition Likud bloc, said Likud and other opposition parties should "declare that they will not honor . . . agreements that endanger Israel's existence."
Sharon, the architect of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon intended to crush the PLO, said Arafat should be tried as a war criminal. "There is no one since the time of the Nazis who spilled as much blood of Jewish civilians as Arafat," Sharon told army radio.
Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu also suggested that a future Likud government wouldn't honor agreements with the PLO.
"We know with whom we are dealing, with a group that never honored any agreement it signed," Netanyahu told the army radio. "And if this happens here, and I'm convinced it will, this will certainly not oblige Israel to honor agreements that were broken."
Meanwhile, about 1,500 Palestinians rallied in the West Bank refugee camp of Kalandia on Saturday to show support for the agreement.
In a clear change of policy, Israeli troops stayed away from the demonstration. In the past, soldiers have often broken up political gatherings in the occupied lands.
by CNB