World

Israel: Arafat Behind Arms Ship

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 4, 2002 / 7:22 AM EST / CBS

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking after Israel's capture of what it said was a Palestinian arms ship, accused Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat of making a strategic choice to lead the region to war.

Sharon's angry comments cast another cloud on a truce mission by U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni, who told reporters that eliminating terrorism and restoring Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation must be the first steps towards renewed peacemaking.

Israel flew foreign diplomats and military attaches to the Red Sea port of Eilat to view the ship, the Karine-A, and its cargo while at the same time Israeli, U.S. and Palestinians prepared to hold security talks in central Israel.

Israel used its Red Sea seizure on Thursday of what it said was a Palestinian Authority-purchased freighter carrying 50 tons of munitions to drive home accusations Arafat supported terrorism despite his ceasefire calls.

The Palestinian Authority has denied any link to the alleged attempt to smuggle what Israeli officials said were mainly Iranian-supplied Katyusha rockets, anti-tank missiles, explosives, mines, small arms and ammunition into its territory.

The Hezbollah guerrilla movement on Sunday denied any involvement in an attempt to deliver weapons to Palestinians.

"There were no members of Hezbollah on the ship," said a Hezbollah spokesman without elaborating.

Iran has also denied any connection with the vessel.

"This is a very grave affair which unveils the true face of the Palestinian Authority, an authority which is completely infested with terror," Sharon told reporters at the weekly cabinet meeting.

"The authority operated now, under the cover of efforts for a ceasefire, to improve the capabilities of Palestinian terror to strike at Israel and its citizens," he said.

In Eilat, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer used the backdrop of the ship and what the military said was a cache of weapons taken from the vessel to repeat comments he made last week that anti-Israeli militants were to step up their attacks.

"We said we are sitting on a powder keg, and that powder keg is behind us," he told reporters taken by the military to see the ship, which was seized by naval commandos some 300 miles off Israeli shores and now flies the Israeli flag.

Israel said senior Palestinian financial and security officials planned the operation and that it had in its custody an undisclosed number of Palestinian naval police officers it alleged were commanding the boat.

While Israel continued to fume over the ship, Zinni held meetings aiming to end more than 15 months of violence and put into motion a U.S.-backed truce-to-talks plan.

Zinni is trying to nudge the two sides closer to a truce deal drafted last year by CIA chief George Tenet. The sides would then implement a plan worked out by Sen. George Mitchell that calls for a Jewish settlement freeze and the resumption of peace talks. The deal calls on Israel to lift blockades of Palestiniaareas and on Palestinians to end violence against Israelis.

At least 800 Palestinians and 234 Israelis have died since a Palestinian uprising began after peace talks crumbled.

Zinni was on his second visit to the region after a first trip was cut short last month due to a surge in violence. He is due to return home Monday.

"The focus is on security and building confidence, ensuring that we create a situation and environment that eliminates terror, that we begin a process that will lead us to beyond the ceasefire" into peace talks, he said after meeting Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

"It is a long road and a long path...and it has to start with countering terrorism and it has to start with security cooperation," said Zinni.

The Palestinians, meanwhile, continued what they describe as a good-faith effort to quell the violence. Sunday, about 200 Palestinian police swept into the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank and arrested six members of the militant Islamic Jihad.

Among those detained was Ali Saffouri, described by Palestinian officials as the second most-wanted of 33 suspected militants whose arrest Israel has demanded for months.

Israel says the Palestinians have arrested only about 10 people on the list, and those detained were not being interrogated.

Israel cut off ties with Arafat and left him stranded in his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah in December after Palestinian bombing and shooting attacks killed over 40 Israelis.

The ban prevented Arafat, a practicing Muslim, from attending Western rite Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem on December 24 and kept him from participating in Greek Orthodox Christmas mass on Sunday.

Under international pressure, Arafat called on militant groups to end anti-Israeli violence on December 16. His security forces have arrested dozens of militants and shut some of their offices since.

But Israel insists he has yet to dismantle groups behind the deadliest attacks and said he can only leave Ramallah after arresting the suspected killers of an Israeli cabinet minister in October.

The Palestinians say they are doing everything they can to curb violence and view continuing Israeli blockades on their territories and restrictions on travel as a collective punishment which is crippling their economy.