Arafat May Be Away From The Manger

Palestinians warned Monday of a "dangerous escalation" of tensions if Israel stops Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from celebrating Christmas in Bethlehem for a second straight year.

But it appears Arafat will miss the Christmas Eve celebrations again this year, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger.

The warnings came after an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Raanan Gissin, said Arafat should not try to attend the Midnight Mass. But Raanan stopped short of saying Israel would bar him from the city.

Arafat was barred from attending last year — punishment for a wave of deadly Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis. Arafat, a Muslim, says it's his duty to be there. But an Israeli official countered, "Peace is the message of Christmas; but Arafat is not a man of peace."

Meanwhile, Israel's Supreme court temporarily put on hold plans by the government to demolish 15 Palestinian homes in the West Bank city of Hebron to make way for a wider road connecting a Jewish settlement. The government decided on the demolition after a Palestinian ambush in Hebron that killed 12 Israelis.

The court will hear an appeal of the demolition orders Dec. 18.

And adding to a growing chorus of Palestinian leaders questioning the 2-year-old uprising, Cabinet minister Nabil Shaath said Palestinians should only use violence against Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in self-defense.

The statement, in an interview with The Associated Press, represented a shift in Shaath's beliefs regarding Jewish settlers, but is not official Palestinian policy.

The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly called for an end to attacks on civilians in Israel, but not on Jewish settlers or soldiers, whom they view as legitimate targets as long as they are in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"The question is if Hamas is ready to cooperate with the Fatah movement to stop targeting Israeli civilians," Shaath said.

"The armed Israeli settlers who are firing at Palestinian civilians are part of the Israeli military power, but the settlers who are not carrying weapons and who are not participating in any attacks against Palestinians is an Israeli like any other Israeli occupier," Shaath added.

The on-again off-again Palestinian elections appear to be off again, reports Berger.

Arafat said Palestinian elections set for Jan. 20 will have to be delayed, unless the Israeli army pulls out of all Palestinian cities. He said it is impossible for a free election to take place under Israeli occupation. Since the Israelis have no intention to pull out, while the threat of terrorist attacks remains high, it appears that the elections are off. And that's a major blow to U.S. demands for reforms in the Palestinian Authority.

Israel's Labor party began voting on its list for January parliamentary elections Monday, shortly after results were announced for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud Party list.

Labor's top place is reserved for its newly elected chairman, Amram Mitzna, followed by former party leader Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and elder statesman Shimon Peres.

Polls predict the Labor party, currently the 120-member Knesset's largest party with 25 seats, will only win about 20 seats in the upcoming elections.

Support for the dovish party, which backed a decade of failed peace talks with the Palestinians, has dropped, and polls show many Israeli voters, frustrated by two years of Palestinian-Israeli violence, have shifted toward hawkish parties.

Also, dovish Israelis have soured on the Labor party because of its 20-month alliance with Sharon, with Ben-Eliezer, as defense minister, following Sharon's lead in ordering ever-harsher military measures against the Palestinians.

In continuing violence, a Palestinian women was killed and three of her children — ages 4, 7 and 14 — and another woman were badly wounded by Israeli gunfire in the Gaza Strip late Sunday, witnesses and doctors said.

The military said soldiers saw a group of Palestinians, some of them armed, approaching the Jewish settlement of Rafiah Yam and the soldiers opened fire. Soldiers saw Palestinians take four wounded away, and two others escaped.

But a Palestinian witness, Samir Abu Shahin, 45, said Israeli soldiers opened fire at the Tel Sultan refugee camp near the settlement. "The woman and her family were walking in the middle of the street, and I saw her fall, and blood covering her body, and not far from her, the two children also fell."

A third child was also wounded, doctors said.