Attacks Spur Israeli Review of Pullout

JERUSALEM -- Israel's government, angered about unchecked attacks by Islamic extremists, has undertaken a major reassessment of the Palestinian autonomy agreement, and officials are questioning whether troops can be pulled out of the West Bank.


Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat planned to convene his self-rule Cabinet on Monday to discuss the issue, and a senior member, Saeb Erakat, said that Israeli proposals for changing the Israel-PLO accord were "dangerous."


Israel's policy review began Sunday, with top army and Secret Service officials telling the Cabinet that Islamic militants were gaining ground and Arafat had failed to contain attacks on Israelis that have claimed 32 lives since October.


"We must find a way to carry out elections in the territories while maintaining full security," Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was quoted as saying in the daily Haaretz newspaper.


Under the next stage of the Israel-PLO accord, the Israeli army is to pull out of Palestinian population centers in the West Bank on the eve of elections to a self-rule council. The elections were to have taken place in July but have been repeatedly delayed because of disagreement over the redeployment of troops.


These issues are due to be discussed Tuesday when Israeli and PLO officials meet in Cairo for talks on the elections.


Uri Dromi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's government, said Israel remained committed to the agreement but that negotiations with the PLO were necessary to overcome mistakes made in the first phase of autonomy, which went into force in Gaza and the West Bank area of Jericho in May.


Dromi said the key question was finding a solution to what Israel sees as a conflict between the call for Israeli withdrawal and the need to maintain security for 120,000 Israelis settlers in the West Bank.


"It's the government's obligation to check and assess what's going on and determine whether we can go on without comprising the security of the Israelis there," Dromi told The Associated Press. "Holding elections is important, but the safety of Israelis is just as important and maybe has an overriding force," he said.


Dromi cited as an example of the type of action that was eroding Israeli confidence in the peace process a Hamas skit performed at a rally Sunday in Gaza in which Islamic militants glorified the kidnapping and execution of Israeli soldier Nachshon Waxman while the crowd cheered. Film of the event was broadcast on Israel TV.


But Palestinians reacted angrily to what they perceive as Israeli backtracking on the peace deal. Erakat condemned "the dangerous statements from Israel's Cabinet on the infringement of the Oslo agreement."


"What we've heard of reports from the Israeli Cabinet, especially redeployment, is an attempt to elude previous commitments on implementation of the Oslo agreement," Erakat told AP.


The latest in a series of attacks came Sunday when a suicide bomber tried to attack soldiers at the main Israel-Gaza crossing point. Mahmoud Sharif, 26, of Gaza City, ignored orders to stop as he approached troops checking papers of Palestinians, the army said.


Sharif set off the detonator of the bomb he was carrying in a backpack, but the homemade explosives contained in cans with nails failed to go off, the army said. Sharif was hospitalized with light injuries.