Palestinian leaders must take blame for recent Mideast bloodshed

The passions aroused by the current spate of violence in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza hit close to home yesterday. Pro-Palestinian protestors assembled at Cannon Green during President Clinton's visit to denounce what they perceive to be Israel's responsibility for the bloodshed of recent days. Their message echoed the one being propagated by the international community, which has generally placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of Ariel Sharon, the current chairman of the opposition Likud Party.

Sharon, accompanied by fellow parliamentarians, recently paid a visit to the Temple Mount in the old city of Jerusalem. Disturbingly, little attention was paid to what I believe was the deliberate role of the Palestinian leadership in creating an atmosphere of incitement prior to Sharon's visit. This incitement and the deaths that have resulted from it are clearly detrimental to hopes for achieving a peace accord between Israel and Palestine in the near future. Additionally, the Palestinian leadership has consciously violated the understanding achieved in Oslo in 1993 that all contentious issues in the negotiations were to be resolved at the negotiating table, and not on the streets.

The Temple Mount, a site holy to Jews and Muslims alike, has been a major sticking point in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. When Israel came into control of this site from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War, special efforts were made not to interfere with the freedom of worship of Muslims in their holy places. In contrast to the Jordanian policy between 1948 and 1967, which denied Jews access to their holy places in eastern Jerusalem, Israeli policy since 1967 has been rather generous, granting the Waqf — or Islamic religious foundation — almost complete autonomy over the Temple Mount and its day-to-day functioning.

By ascending to the Temple Mount during a planned visit, Sharon claimed to be asserting continued Israeli political sovereignty over it, as well as the right of Jews to set foot anywhere under the sovereign control of the State of Israel — especially at their holiest site. He did not intend to lay the cornerstone for a Third Temple, nor engage in Jewish prayer — ironically, a forbidden activity on the Temple Mount today. Nevertheless, some accused him of blatant provocation, jeopardizing the Middle East peace process at its most fragile hour in order to further his own political interests.

Others saw Sharon's visit as a bold challenge to Barak and his feeble coalition. According to some reports, Barak had been considering the possibility of relinquishing sovereignty over the Temple Mount — the holiest place in the world for Jews — to an international body such as the United Nations Security Council in the context of a final peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Sharon's actions notwithstanding, tensions between Israelis and Palestinians over deadlocked peace negotiations had reached a point at which violence was almost inevitable — partly the result of a coordinated Palestinian policy of incitement. The head of Palestinian Authority preventative security, Col. Jibril Rajoub, issued a statement on Israel radio earlier last week, warning that his forces would not lift a finger to prevent anti-Israeli violence in the case that Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount proceeded as planned.

Within a day of Sharon's visit, stone-throwing by Palestinians on the Temple Mount forced the evacuation of Jewish worshippers preparing for the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, at the Western Wall below. Ominously, Col. Rajoub's own heavily armed security forces had joined up with Palestinian rioters in protracted gun battles with Israeli police. In preparation for Sharon's visit, the official Palestinian Authority media broadcasted calls for violence. Palestinian schools were closed for the day and buses ordered, so as to allow Palestinian students to participate in organized riots.

Israel's acting Foreign Minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami was correct in stating that the violence was "orchestrated" by Palestinian leaders "in the hope that a certain degree of violence may serve short-term political purposes." Though Israel has consistently been called upon by the international community to account for even the smallest infractions in the implementation of its peace agreements, the world has never demanded of the Palestinian leadership its rationale in permitting the continued operation of terrorist cells in its territory, the use of virulently anti-Israel and anti-Semitic textbooks in its schools and the incitement of its public to violence. It is about time that the Palestinian Authority be held accountable for the actions of its leaders, especially when the lives of millions of innocent Israelis and Palestinians are in the balance. Sam Spector is the president of PIPAC, the Princeton Israel Public Affairs Committee. He can be reached at sspector@princeton.edu.