Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 6, 1994 TAG: 9403060080
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL LENGTH: Medium
"The Israelis are sick of the settlers and their extremism," said Tzali Reshef, a leader of the Peace Now group that organized the rally. The mosque gunman was a Jewish settler.
In Arab east Jerusalem, Palestinians hurled stones and bottles at Israeli riot police who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Twenty protesters were detained.
The riot came after a former guerrilla fighter exhorted Palestinians to take up arms again.
"We have to respond to the massacre . . . and return to the intefadeh," Salim Zerai told a crowd of 300. Zerai served 23 years in prison for an attempted seaborne attack and was released in October. Intefadeh is the Palestinian uprising launched in December 1987.
The clashes underlined how the shock waves from the Feb. 25 massacre at the Ibrahim Mosque in Hebron continue to reverberate, sharpening old hatreds and jeopardizing the peace process.
In Tel Aviv's Kings Square, tens of thousands of Israelis rallied in a show of support for the peace negotiations with the PLO. Some waved Palestinian flags. Banners read "Dismantle all the settlements" and "War against the extreme right."
"Let's end this horrible occupation," actress Hanna Meron told the crowd. "Let's not do unto others as was done to us."
Reshef, the Peace Now leader, said the immediate aim was to push for the ouster of the 400 Jewish settlers who live among 80,000 Palestinians in the heart of the West Bank town of Hebron.
The demonstrators have the support of several Cabinet ministers. Israel's leftist minister of culture, Shulamit Aloni, branded the Hebron settlers "extremists and racists."
Speaking Saturday on Israel TV, she said the government should "kick out" the Hebron settlers, but without committing Israel to uprooting all settlements.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin does not want to move now against the Hebron settlers, apparently fearing a right-wing backlash, but does not object to pulling them out after Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank region of Jericho begins, Israel TV's second channel said Saturday.
by CNB