Pm's Order To Shut Plo Office Angers Colleagues
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday May 12, 1999
Senior Israeli defence and police officials have accused the Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, of putting electioneering above the country's security by ordering the closure of Palestinian offices in Jerusalem.
Members of Israel's powerful military establishment and his own Internal Security Minister, Mr Avigdor Kahalani, privately accused Mr Netanyahu of being reckless after he insisted that three offices in Orient House, the Palestine Liberation Organisation's unofficial headquarters in the eastern section of the city, be shut down immediately.
With Mr Netanyahu falling behind in opinion polls ahead of next week's national elections, on Monday night the Government ordered the three offices be closed within 24 hours.
"Closing Orient House was Netanyahu's Doomsday weapon - his atomic bomb," wrote the leading Israeli commentator Nahum Barnea in the Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth.
"He chose to pull it out when he understood that his election campaign was running into difficulties and losing altitude."
Mr Netanyahu denied the closure order was an election stunt. He said the PLO was to blame for using Orient House for operations by the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem, in violation of the peace accords, which forbid such activity.
He said Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel, and pledged to block all efforts by the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, to claim a share of the Holy city as part of a future independent state.
"There is no country in the world which would condone a claim being made about its capital by another body, which claims that it is its capital as well," Mr Netanyahu said.
Mr Faisal Husseini, the Palestinian Authority Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, the most senior figure at Orient House, said: "We don't want clashes. We want a peaceful solution to the crisis, but we don't want to be part of the Israeli election campaign and will not compromise our principles."
Israeli security officials and the Palestinian leadership alike have warned of violence if police enter Orient House.
"It seems the Prime Minister is more concerned with the question of how he can influence voters at home than with the serious security repercussions of a police incursion into Orient House," a senior Israeli defence official said. "Netanyahu may not be prime minister after the elections, but whoever is will have to deal with this imbroglio."
Mr Kahalani, who holds the police portfolio, also fought with Mr Netanyahu shortly before the closure orders were issued.
"You're a rabbit," Mr Netanyahu told Mr Kahalani. "How much longer can you wait? They are prolonging this on and on, so what are you waiting for? Give them the orders, and that's it."
Mr Kahalani responded angrily that the Government should not act hastily and provoke unnecessary violence. "I'm a rabbit? There is someone who just wants a photographed breakthrough into Orient House. Before you order people to charge this building firing bullets, every negotiation route should be tried.
"People could get hurt and everything must be done to prevent that. This isn't a question of fear: we have to act responsibly, with prudence."
Senior police officials said that, barring an intervention by the Supreme Court, they would act against Orient House.
But they are likely to encounter resistance if they attempt to storm the building.
A leader of the PLO's dominant Fatah faction, Mr Ahmed Renim, said: "Netanyahu has decided to exploit the issue and open a campaign in Jerusalem and he will be the one who will bear responsibility for the consequences."
© 1999 Sydney Morning Herald