[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 62 (Wednesday, May 18, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 18, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             YASSER ARAFAT

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have informed the managers of my 
interest in speaking for just a few moments on a matter of substantial 
importance. I shall be brief because I know the managers want to 
proceed with the bill.
   I want to call my colleagues' attention to a tape recording of PLO 
Chief Yasser Arafat urging a holy war on Jerusalem which poses a clear 
and present danger of additional violence, notwithstanding the 
commitments of the PLO and Arafat in the Israeli-PLO accord and which 
threatens peace in the Mideast.
  This is a matter that the Congress of the United States and the 
Senate of the United States and really all Americans are going to have 
to be concerned about in light of what is happening in the Mideast and 
in light of the very substantial commitments which the Israelis have 
made in the Israeli-PLO accord and which the United States has made in 
backing up that accord.
  We are going to have to be insistent and make no mistake about our 
demands that the commitments of the PLO be maintained. What has 
apparently happened here, from all the news reports, is that when 
Arafat was in Johannesburg attending the inauguration of President 
Nelson Mandela, he was speaking in a mosque where they could not 
understand Arabic. Arafat spoke in English and talked about a jihad or 
a holy war in order to retake Jerusalem. And now Arafat apparently in 
Oslo today has said that the jihad, which is the word for a holy war, 
was really meant to be an effort to peacefully take Jerusalem.
  Mr. President, that simply does not wash. You have a very volatile 
situation in the Mideast at the present time.
  In an extensive article in today's New York Times which cites the 
violence, there is the report of the shooting to death of two Israeli 
settlers by Islamic militants just south of the West Bank town of 
Hebron. There is a reference in this article to the at-risk position of 
some 5,000 Israeli settlers on the Gaza Strip, and a citation and the 
reference here to some 130,000 settlers in Israeli-held territory which 
will be turned over to the PLO, and an especially high-risk situation 
for some 450 settlers referred to in this perennial flash point where 
religious and nationalistic feelings are especially intense.
  The mayor of Jerusalem, Mayor Ehud Olmert, has called upon Arafat for 
a specific apology and for a specific declaration that the PLO will be 
following and observing their commitments under the Israeli-PLO accord.
  Mr. President, there has been very substantial evidence of violations 
by the PLO. They have been logged by the Zionist Organization of 
America, by the national president, Mr. Morton A. Klein, a very 
distinguished Philadelphian who brings these matters to my attention 
with regularity, and to others in this body. And I, in turn, bring 
these matters to the attention of my colleagues.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my 
comments a full statement of the Associated Press dispatch from May 17 
be printed in the Congressional Record which recites the background of 
the tape recording of Arafat's call for a holy war; that the summary of 
the ZOA reports on violations for the week of May 4 through May 11 and 
the week of May 11 through May 18 be included in the Record, together 
with the article from the New York Times from today, May 18, which sets 
forth in some detail the background of what will enable me to 
abbreviate my comments at the present time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, there is a somewhat longer article which 
appears in today's Wall Street Journal which details the background of 
the controversy over the holy sites and sets forth in some detail the 
concerns of Jerusalem's Mayor Ehud Olmert about Arafat's vow to pray in 
Jerusalem, which is a matter of some historical importance, and puts in 
perspective the current controversy.
  I ask unanimous consent that be printed in the Record at the 
conclusion of my remarks as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 2.)
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, in essence, we are facing a situation of 
tremendous tension. I am concerned about it as a U.S. Senator. I am 
concerned about it also in terms of the reports which I have received a 
few months ago from relatives who live in Jerusalem. Within the past 
hour and a half I talked to my sister, Hilda Specter Morgenstern and 
her husband, Arthur Morgenstern, who relate to me the on-the-spot 
concerns in Jerusalem about what is happening.
  It was a historic moment when President Clinton--and I again 
compliment him for what he did on September 13 of last year in bringing 
together Arafat and Rabin on the White House lawn. It was a moment for 
me of some mixed emotions seeing Arafat honored at the White House of 
the United States of America after his long, notorious record for 
terrorism, including the murder of the U.S. Charge d'Affaires in 1974, 
and for the PLO's complicity, and Arafat's personal complicity, for the 
murder of Mr. Klinghoffer on the Achille Lauro and for what has 
happened.
  But when the Israelis and Prime Minister Rabin are willing to make 
this arrangement, it seems to me the United States ought to be 
supportive. But when these acts of violence continue, and when Arafat, 
the signatory to these arrangements, who has made the promises all 
around the world, promises which I heard personally when a good many 
Senators had a chance to meet with Arafat, it seems to me that this is 
something which the Senate has to focus on, the Congress has to focus 
on, and America has to focus on to see to it that these commitments 
that Arafat has made are lived up to; and that we not permit him to 
talk where he thinks he is off the record, talking secretly and talking 
about the jihad, a holy war, and we have to insist that those 
commitments be maintained.

  I thank my colleagues for these few moments.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

              [From the Wall Street Journal, May 18, 1994]

    Despite Peace Pact, Jerusalem's Holy Sites Keep Passions Burning

                           (By Peter Waldman)

       Jerusalem.--In a few weeks, shortly after he settles into 
     his new home in Jericho, Yasser Arafat hopes to make the 30-
     minute drive through the Judean hills to pray here at the al-
     Aqsa mosque.
       Ehud Olmert, Jerusalem's mayor, has vowed to rally 500,000 
     Jews to stop him. Bloodshed from an Arafat pilgrimage, the 
     mayor has predicted, will cause ``10 times'' more victims 
     than February's Hebron massacre, in which a Jewish extremist 
     killed 30 Palestinians.
       With the signing of the Gaza-Jericho peace pact in Cairo, 
     the Israeli and Palestinian haggling over postage stamps and 
     passports is nearly finished for now. But as the pique over 
     Mr. Arafat's proposed pilgrimage to Jerusalem suggests, the 
     most volatile issues between Muslim and Jew remain far from 
     resolved. Chief among them is the abiding dispute over the 
     spot here known to Jews as the Temple Mount. The ancient 
     stone plaza, where King Solomon's temple once stood, holds 
     the Aqsa mosque and the gold-plated Dome of the Rock, Islam's 
     third-holiest shrine.


                            age-old conflict

       As Mr. Arafat and the PLO edge ever closer to Jerusalem, 
     this age-old conflict is only getting more explosive.
       ``In very, very sanguine terms,'' says Joel Lerner, an 
     Israeli and self-described freelance scholar, ``if the Hebron 
     incident derailed the peace process for a month, a vaguely 
     similar operation on the Temple Mount would derail it 
     forever.''
       Mr. Lerner, an Orthodox Jew from New York, ought to know. 
     He has spent six of the past 20 years in Israeli prisons for 
     conspiring to blow up the Dome of the Rock and for plotting a 
     religious coup against the Israeli government.
       As hard as the peace negotiators have tried, the scared and 
     the secular cannot be separated in the holy land. In Yasser 
     Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, the PLO and Israel have come close. 
     Both leaders are pragmatic centrists who have long eschewed 
     religious zealotry. But their peace treaty, based on their 
     common secular ground and focusing on things like police 
     powers, education and taxes, necessarily skirts the religious 
     heart of the conflict: Who, in the end, will rule the holy 
     sites in Jerusalem? Until that dispute is resolved, 
     coexistence will remain dicey.
       In the Cairo agreement, ``Religious Affairs'' are relegated 
     to item No. 15 in a 38-point list of powers being transferred 
     to the Palestinians. The accord pledges free access to all 
     religious sites in the PLO's domain. Beyond that, it 
     preserves Israeli control over an ancient synagogue in 
     Jericho, and grants Palestinians power over a 13th-century 
     mosque near Jericho where Muslims believe Moses is buried. 
     Finally, on at least three occasions a year, it gives 
     pilgrims the right to visit, ``under the Palestinian flag,'' 
     the site called al-Maghtas on the Jordan River, the spot 
     where John the Baptist is believed to have baptized Jesus.
       The accord doesn't mention Jerusalem or its sacred sites--
     dilemmas that the PLO and Israel have agreed to postpone 
     until ``final-status negotiations'' begin in two years. 
     Despite Mr. Arafat's often-expressed desire to pray at the 
     Aqsa mosque, Oded Ben-Ami, a spokesman for Prime Minister 
     Rabin, says the PLO leader has not raised the issue of a 
     visit and that, for the moment, such a pilgrimage remains 
     ``hypothetical.''
       Still, swords have already been drawn. In an overpowering 
     image of where Mr. Arafat believes he is heading, a massive 
     color photograph of the Dome of the Rock papers the wall 
     behind his desk in Tunis. Jordan's King Hussein, who has 
     never renounced custody of the Jerusalem shrines since losing 
     them in the 1967 war, has commissioned archaeologists to 
     prove Jerusalem was an Arab city before Jews settled here 
     3,000 years ago. And in his cave-like office beneath the Dome 
     of the Rock, Sheik Mohammed Said al-Jamel, the cleric in 
     charge, heaps scorn on Jewish claims to the Temple Mount. 
     ``All that they believe is superstition,'' he says.
       Nor are militant Jews watching all this from the sidelines. 
     Since the Hebron massacre, police have detained a dozen or so 
     alleged Jewish extremists without charges, and revoked the 
     gun permits of some 50 others. But these people comprise just 
     a small fraction of the thousands of ardent, messianic Jews 
     living in Israel and the occupied territories.
       For the messianists, the creation of the state of Israel in 
     1948 and its expansion to its biblical borders in 1967 began 
     nothing less than a process of divine redemption that must 
     now continue at all costs.
       The heart and soul of messianic Judaism is the 3,000-year-
     old Temple Mount, or what Muslims call in Arabic al Haram 
     ash Sharif. The tree-lined rectangular area, roughly the 
     size of three football fields, is so hotly contested by 
     Muslims and Jews that no Israeli government, since 
     capturing the site in 1967, has had the nerve to seize it 
     from its Muslim administrators.
       To messianic Jews, continued Muslim control of the Temple 
     Mount constitutes an insufferable indignity.
       ``Until the holy of holies is under our sovereignty, it 
     means we're still living in the Diaspora,'' say Rabbi Shlomo 
     Goren, one of Israel's pre-eminent religious figures and the 
     army rabbi who blew the shofar, or ram's horn, when Israeli 
     troops captured the Temple Mount in 1967. ``It means we are 
     not yet living in a Jewish state.''
       Jews believe the Temple Mount is where Abraham bound his 
     son Isaac for sacrifice, where Solomon erected the so-called 
     First Temple for prayer and animal offerings, and where it 
     was later rebuilt by Herod the Great.
       After the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 A.D., 
     Jews have longed to rebuild a third one. Many messianic Jews 
     believe a third temple is a prerequisite for the coming of 
     the Messiah.
       ``Since the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, it's as if 
     Judaism has had its heart extracted and is living on borrowed 
     time,'' says Mr. Lerner.
       There is one big problem: For the past 1,200 years, the 
     Temple Mount has been the foundation of the Aqsa mosque and 
     the Dome of the Rock, which covers the spot from where 
     Muslims believe Mohammed ascended to heaven on a staircase of 
     light. Jews haven't been allowed to pray regularly at the 
     site for at least a millennium.
       That is why Mr. Arafat's plans to pray on the Temple Mount 
     pose such an affront to many Jews today. Not only does the 
     PLO leader remain reviled in Israel for directing terrorism 
     against the Jewish state, but equally important, his claim to 
     Jerusalem threatens to interfere with Jewish destiny, 
     messianic Jews believe. Jerusalem's Mayor Olmert recently 
     expressed this fear in a different way to the Jerusalem 
     Report magazine, warning that if Mr. Arafat ascends the 
     Temple Mount to pray, he will declare a Palestinian state and 
     never leave.
       To counterattack, militant Jews have embarked on a campaign 
     to get Muslims off the Temple Mount once and for all.
       ``We are living at a time when God is correcting the 
     mistakes of history,'' says Gershon Salomon, a history 
     professor and leader of Temple Mount Faithful, a Jewish group 
     dedicated to wresting control of the sacred site. ``Al-Aqsa 
     and the Dome of the Rock must be removed back to Mecca, the 
     place from where they came. We will rebuild them stone by 
     stone. We have the means to do it.''
       Though the Temple Mount has become a lightning rod for 
     Jewish extremists, most less-religious Jews--inside and 
     outside Israel--don't give the sacred site much thought these 
     days. The Reform movement's prayer book doesn't even mention 
     the ancient temple rituals, although nearly one-quarter of 
     the Torah's 613 laws deal with the temple's animal 
     sacrifices, writes Rabbi Joseph Telushkin in his book, 
     ``Jewish Literacy.'' The Conservative denomination's 
     prayer book celebrates the temple cult as part of ancient 
     Judaism, but expresses no desire to reinstate it.
       Only Orthodox Jews continue to pray regularly for the 
     rebuilding of the temple and for animal sacrifices to be 
     offered there again. But even many of these observant Jews 
     find the prospect of reviving animal offerings, on the eve of 
     the 21st century, a bit far-fetched.
       ``It would be hard for me, as a mainstream Orthodox rabbi, 
     to assume that if the temple was rebuilt, we'd pick up where 
     we were 2,000 years ago,'' says Rabbi Michah Halpern, a 
     historian in Jerusalem. Rather, he says, it is the act of 
     ``yearning'' for the third temple and the Messiah that 
     counts. ``We are not involved in the actual building 
     processes themselves,'' he says.
       This modern reticence made it easy for then-Israeli Defense 
     Minister Moshe Dayan, shortly after Israel's 1967 victory, to 
     return control of the Temple Mount to its Jordanian-run 
     Islamic board, called the waqf. At the time, many rabbis were 
     warning Jews to stay off the Temple Mount anyway, lest they 
     commit the ``arrogance of arrogance'' of treading on the 
     ``holy of holies,'' where in ancient times only the high 
     priest was allowed to go. (Nobody knows precisely where the 
     hollowed ground lies.) The waqf took back the keys; few Jews 
     complained.
       But over the years, Temple Mount experts, including Rabbi 
     Goren, published diagrams of the ancient site showing the 
     many areas where Jews could safely roam. The messianists, 
     whose numbers have steadily grown since 1967, had their 
     calling: Take back the Temple Mount.
       Small groups sprang up to lead Jewish worshipers on to the 
     mount in defiance of the waqf. Israeli police had to seal off 
     ancient tunnels discovered under the site to foil Jewish 
     efforts to raze the Muslim shrines. Nearby, a yeshiva, a 
     religious school, was founded to train future priests for 
     duties in a rebuilt temple. And the Temple Institute, funded 
     in part by the Israeli government, reproduced all the 
     necessary biblical trappings--from sacrificial urns and 
     altars to priestly vestments and breastplates--to perform the 
     temple rituals again. Suddenly, Jews, who had waited 
     millenniums to restore the temple, were beginning the process 
     themselves.
       ``When you say the Messiah will rebuild the temple later 
     on,'' says the institute's Rabbi Chaim Richman, ``you're 
     basically shirking the responsibility yourself.''
       The temple cause spread to non-Jews as well. In Canton, 
     Miss., a Christian preacher and cattle breeder named Clyde 
     Lott, after reading Genesis one night, contacted his state's 
     trade office to find out if Israel had the red cows it would 
     need to perform proper, biblical purification rites in a 
     third temple. It didn't. Over the past five years, Mr. Lott, 
     working with the Temple Institute and some American Christian 
     backers, has developed a breed of red cow that he hopes 
     will spawn ``the livestock restoration'' of Israel, he 
     says. The first shipment of 500 cows is due to arrive in 
     Israel in November.
       The temple's messianic calling dove-tailed with the calling 
     of another group of zealots: Israel's few-thousand unalloyed, 
     anti-Arab fanatics. Today, the prospect of Mr. Arafat moving 
     to Jericho and praying in Jerusalem has made these people 
     more agitated than ever.
       ``Zionism and Arab nationalism are diametrically opposed; 
     you can't wish that away,'' says Israel ``Keith'' Fuchs, co-
     founder of the Temple Mount Yeshiva, a militant Jewish school 
     which recently had to shut down after both its top rabbis 
     were detained by police. Mr. Fuchs, 30, has been in and out 
     of police custody since he was 16. He and his Temple Mount 
     cohorts provide a telling picture of the passions, and 
     dangers, looming ahead.
       For Mr. Fuchs, it all started in Santa Monica, Calif., he 
     says, where his family moved from Brooklyn in 1978. One 
     afternoon, another child kicked his little sister and called 
     her ``a Jew bitch.'' Soon after, Mr. Fuchs joined militant 
     Rabbi Meir Kahane's Jewish Defense League, and was arrested 
     several times for fighting with American Muslims and neo-
     Nazis. He moved to Israel in 1982, only to serve 22 months in 
     prison for shooting up an Arab bus near Hebron. Later, he was 
     investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but 
     never charged, in connection with several bombings in the 
     U.S., including the deaths of an Arab-American activist and a 
     suspected Nazi war criminal.
       Last fall, Mr. Fuchs helped start the Temple Mount Yeshiva 
     with Rabbi Avraham Toledano, a former leader of the late 
     Rabbi Kahane's Kach party. Rabbi Toledano was arrested at the 
     Tel Aviv airport in November with weapons, bomb-making gear 
     and $50,000 in cash in his luggage. A third yeshiva founder, 
     Baruch Ben-Yosef, born Andy Green in Brooklyn, was detained 
     without charges in March. A long-ball hitter in the Jerusalem 
     softball league, Mr. Ben-Yosef, 35, has served several prison 
     terms for attempting to bomb Arab targets, including the Dome 
     of the Rock.
       Their yeshiva attracted a mix of a dozen or so veteran 
     messianists and spiritual seekers, most drawn to it by the 
     doting charm of Mr. Ben-Yosef.
       On their daily trips to the Temple Mount, the yeshiva 
     students were kept from praying by Israeli police. But they 
     were allowed to march around the plaza, shadowed by waqf 
     guards, who radioed for reinforcements whenever prayer was 
     suspected. A student was once hauled off for rubbing his 
     eyes, a gesture of worship, the guards said. This spring, the 
     yeshiva had planned a guerrilla sacrifice of a lamb on the 
     Temple Mount for Passover, which would have been the first 
     real Passover lamb in 2,000 years, students claim. But those 
     plans, like the yeshiva itself, fell apart after Mr. Ben-
     Yosef's arrest.
       Now, the students are moving on to other activities. Mr. 
     Fuchs, the former JDL activist, has retreated to his 
     computer-graphics company in Jerusalem, though he still 
     carries a concealed pistol--with a permit--under his jacket. 
     Daniel Leubitz, 19, is going home to Cleveland to start a 
     local JDL chapter to combat ``black anti-Semitism,'' he says.
       ``We've spent many dollars on the phone'' from Cleveland, 
     says Mr. Leubitz's worried mother, Amalia, ``reminding Dan 
     that Abraham had doors on all sides of his tent to welcome 
     all people.''
       To Sean Casper, chairman of the Movement to Rebuild the 
     Third Temple, the ``mindboggling'' thing isn't that Mr. 
     Arafat may soon pray on the Temple Mount but that Israel may 
     let him. ``This country has never had a problem doing what it 
     wants to do,'' he says. ``Our problem is we don't know what 
     we want.''
       Mr. Casper, a lawyer who represents several of the Jewish 
     militants in detention, doesn't think it would take much to 
     shake things up. ``It would be easier to blow up al-Aqsa than 
     it was to kill 30 people in the Hebron mosque,'' he says. 
     ``If I wanted to, I could do it myself.''
                                  ____


                               Exhibit 2

         [From the New York Times International, May 18, 1994]

              Islamic Militants Slay 2 Settlers in Hebron

                          (By Clyde Haberman)

       Hebron, Israeli-Occupied West Bank.--Two Israeli settlers 
     were shot to death today by Islamic militants just south of 
     this West Bank town, and Israel's army commander warned that 
     the violence might be a foretaste of what settlements would 
     face under Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip.
       The question of what, if anything, to do about Jewish 
     settlements in Gaza and the West Bank has been relatively 
     muted lately.
       But the killings today, which followed clashes in Hebron on 
     Monday that left at least a dozen Palestinians wounded by 
     settlers and soldiers, made clear that the issue is very much 
     alive and is a factor in the success or failure of the 
     exercise in Palestinian self-government that has begun in 
     Gaza and Jericho.


                        doubts about the accord

       Settlers and other Israelis who question Israel's wisdom in 
     signing the self-rule agreement with the Palestine Liberation 
     Organization are likely to have deeper doubts after the 
     attack today. Two Jews were killed and a third seriously 
     wounded in the head in an ambush as they drove south of 
     Hebron, an area still under Israeli control. An armed wing of 
     the Hamas group of Islamic militants claimed responsibility.
       Later, the army chief of staff, Lieut. Gen. Ehud Barak, 
     cautioned that the attack today was probably not the last, 
     either in the West Bank or in Gaza.
       His remarks were significant because security for roughly 
     5,000 Israeli settlers in the Gaza Strip--most in a cluster 
     of outposts known as Gush Qatif, along the Mediterranean 
     coast--is a basic component of the Israeli-P.L.O. agreement.
       For many Israelis, a critical test of the accord is whether 
     those settlers stay safe on their islands in a sea of 
     hostility. They were unlikely to be reassured after hearing 
     General Barak say today, ``I don't rule out terrorist attacks 
     on the roads to Gush Qatif.''
       While Israeli forces are largely pulling out of Gaza, they 
     will remain at border crossings and in newly created buffer 
     zones around the settlements, patrolling roads with 
     Palestinian police officers to assure that Jews there move 
     safely between their homes and Israel.
       The troop withdrawal from the rest of Gaza, under way in 
     earnest for a week, may be completed on Wednesday. Today, the 
     Israelis formally handed over civil authority in Gaza to the 
     Palestinians, as they did in Jericho on Friday, but a 
     government is not yet in place, and so no real changes in 
     daily life are expected right away.
       For Palestinians, the fighting in Hebron on Monday, 
     rekindled their calls for removing the estimated 130,000 
     settlers in Israeli-held territories, especially the 450 in 
     this perennial flash point, where religious and nationalist 
     feelings are intense.
       The settlements are such a delicate issue that negotiations 
     on their fate have been delayed by Israel and the P.L.O.--
     presumably for at least two years, although under their 
     agreement the matter could be raised at any point.
       But the question clearly will not go away. That was 
     guaranteed by the Hebron massacre on Feb. 25, when a settler 
     killed at least 29 Palestinians at prayer. After that, 
     Israeli Cabinet ministers said they were ready to evict the 
     Jews from Hebron for security reasons. But Prime Minister 
     Yitzhak Rabin, while unsympathetic to the Hebron settlers, 
     insisted that the issue was not now on his agenda.
       Although the matter then receded from public attention, its 
     immediacy was reaffirmed when a group of armed settlers here 
     walked to a religious site on Monday, the Jewish holiday of 
     Shabuoth, and got into an argument with Arabs near a mosque.
       What happened is not clear. The Jews say that the Arabs 
     threw stones and that they fired their guns in self-
     protection. Arabs say that the Jews attacked first and that 
     only then did they respond with rocks.
       Either way, the incident reignited a town that does not 
     need much to throw it into turmoil. At least a dozen and 
     perhaps as many as 18 Palestinians were shot in the fighting, 
     both by settlers and by Israeli soldiers who showed up and 
     become embroiled in their own clashes with the Arabs.
       At a weekly meeting today, some Cabinet ministers accused 
     the settlers of having been provocative with their Monday 
     walk through town, which army officers said had not been 
     coordinated with them in advance, as required.
       The Israeli radio quoted Mr. Rabin as having called the 
     settlers' actions unjustified, and other officers were 
     troubled by reports that the Hebron Jews, after hearing about 
     the killings today, walked through the main Palestinian 
     market, overturning stands and destroying merchandise.


                        sharon defends settlers

       Hebron's Mayor, Mustafa Natshe, called the settlers 
     ``detonators'' ready to explode, and demanded that they be 
     removed. But Ariel Sharon, the former Defense Minister, 
     defended the right of Jews to be in Hebron and to defend 
     themselves when attacked. ``What are you expecting--that they 
     should step quietly, or maybe that they should run away?'' he 
     said.
       In the hope of reducing tensions, at least for now, the 
     army sealed off Hebron to outsiders and put the town under 
     curfew. Among those under restrictions were the 160 members 
     of an observer force of Norwegians, Danes and Italians that 
     was created after the massacre, ostensibly to protect local 
     residents and help keep the town calm.
       But the clashes on Monday underscored how limited in power 
     this force is. Its members carry no weapons, they have no 
     police function sand if the Israeli Army restricts their 
     movements--as it did on Monday and today--there is not much 
     for them to do except to file reports to an Israeli-
     Palestinian committee and to their governments.
       ``We're just sitting in our foxholes,'' said Bjarno 
     Sorensen, a spokesman for the force. The situation was ``a 
     little bit frustrating,'' he acknowledged, but he said the 
     monitors hoped ``to be on the move again soon.''
                                  ____


           Arafat Call for Jihad Could Threaten Peace Accord

       Jerusalem.--A tape recording of PLO chief Yasser Arafat 
     urging a ``holy war'' for Jerusalem could stall progress 
     towards full Palestinian autonomy, Prime Minister Yatzhak 
     Rabin said Tuesday.
       The tape was played by Israel radio which said it received 
     Arafat's May 10th speech at a mosque in Johannesburg from the 
     South African Jewish community.
       ``You have to understand our main battle isn't how much we 
     can achieve from them here or there. Our main battle is 
     Jerusalem,'' Arafat said.
       He added that Israel had promised in a letter that 
     Jerusalem could be discussed three years from now, when 
     negotiations begin over a permanent settlement.
       ``You have to come and to fight and to start a Jihad to 
     liberate Jerusalem, the historical shrine. And this is very 
     important,'' Arafat said.
       Rabin said Arafat's comments violated the peace agreement 
     signed in Cairo on May 4 that led to the implementation of 
     autonomy.
       ``If he indeed called for a Jihad this is a grave violation 
     to what he committed himself to in the letter to me he wrote 
     and signed that led to the mutual recognition of Israel and 
     the PLO,'' Rabin said.
       ``If this is indeed his call it will put into question the 
     continuation of the process between us and the Palestinians. 
     We will not be able to accept a violation of a PLO commitment 
     not to be involved in violence and terror,'' he added.
       Rabin added that Israel, in its accord with the PLO, agreed 
     the issue of Jerusalem, holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims, 
     could be raised when negotiations on a permanent settlement 
     began.
       Israel captured the Arab eastern sector of Jerusalem from 
     Jordan during the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed it as 
     part of its capital. The Palestinians see east Jerusalem as 
     capital of their would-be state.
       Rabin has repeatedly said that Jerusalem is not up for 
     negotiation. On the question of Jerusalem, unlike the West 
     Bank or Gaza Strip, Israelis are almost unanimous in opposing 
     any territorial compromise.
       Still fresh in their minds is pre-1967 Israel, when 
     Jordanians banned Jews from their most holy site, the Western 
     Wall.
       Following the broadcast of Arafat's comments, the right-
     wing National Religious Party tabled a no-confidence motion 
     in Parliament. Opposition parties demanded that the 
     government release all secret annexes to its May 4th autonomy 
     agreement with the PLO.
       Rabin has denied any secret agreements.
       Members of Rabin's Labor party faction in Parliament also 
     protested Arafat's comments and demanded a government 
     response.
       ``If such things were really said, believe me, there will 
     be a very determined and aggressive response,'' Police 
     Minister Moshe Shahal said.
       Deputy Defense Minister Mordechai Gur said that Arafat's 
     comments could stem from the staunch opposition he faces on 
     the Palestinian front but added that Israel would not allow 
     the PLO chief to damage its credibility.
       Uri Dromi, head of the Government Press Office, said he 
     hoped Arafat would deny what ``he allegedly said in the 
     mosque'' to allow the peace process to go forward.
       ``Up until now we have reason to be optimistic about the 
     smooth transfer of authority and we hope that statements or 
     expressions like he allegedly said in the mosque will not 
     undermine the peace process,'' Dromi said.
                                  ____



                              Zionist Organization of America,

                                       New York, NY, May 12, 1994.
     To: Senator Arlen Specter
     From: Morton A. Klein, National President, Zionist 
         Organization of America.
       1. May 10, 1994: Arab terrorists fired at least 10 shots 
     into an Israeli civilian bus near the Arab village of Mezrat-
     Asharkia, in the administered territories. Three passengers 
     were wounded by the gunfire. The Popular Front for the 
     Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a faction of the PLO, claimed 
     responsibility for the attack.* Yasser Arafat has neither 
     condemned the attack, nor taken any steps to ``discipline'' 
     the PFLP.
       2. May 4-11, 1994: Yasser Arafat gave no speeches 
     encouraging the Palestinian Arabs to refrain from violence.
       3. May 4-11, 1994: Yasser Arafat did not convene the 
     Palestine National Council to delete those clauses in the 
     Palestine National Covenant that call for the destruction of 
     Israel.
                                  ____



                              Zionist Organization of America,

                                       New York, NY. May 18, 1994.
     To: Senator Arlen Specter,
     From: Morton A. Klein, National President, Zionist 
         Organization of America.
       1. May 12, 1994: Arab terrorists shot at an Israeli truck 
     driver near the Israeli town of Mogaz, in the Gaza Strip. The 
     driver was wounded. Hamas, a non-PLO group, claimed 
     responsibility for the attack.
       Yasser Arafat did not condemn the attack.
       2. May 12, 1994: Arab terrorists shot at Israeli soldiers 
     near the Jabaliya refugee camp, in the Gaza Strip. None of 
     the soldiers were wounded; when the Israelis returned fire, 
     one of the terrorists was wounded. Responsibility for the 
     attack was not immediately determined.
       Yasser Arafat did not condemn the attack.
       3. May 15, 1994: Arab terrorists in a van opened fire at 
     Israeli bystanders were wounded. Hamas, a non-PLO group, 
     claimed responsibility for the attack. Yasser Arafat did not 
     condemn the attack.
       4. May 17, 1994: Arab terrorists shot at an Israeli 
     civilian auto travelling south of Hebron. Two Israelis were 
     killed, and a third was seriously wounded. Hamas, a non-PLO 
     group, claimed responsibility for the attack.
       Yasser Arafat did not condemn the attack.
       5. May 17, 1994: Israel Radio played a tape recording of a 
     speech by Yasser Arafat in a mosque in Johannesburg, South 
     Africa, on May 10, 1994, in which Arafat urged Arabs to 
     launch a ``holy war'' to conquer Jerusalem.
       6. May 11-18, 1994: Yasser Arafat gave no speeches 
     encouraging the Palestinian Arabs to refrain from violence.
       7. May 11-18, 1994: Yasser Arafat did not convene the 
     Palestine National Council to delete those clauses in the 
     Palestine National Covenant that call for the destruction of 
     Israel.

                          ____________________