Israelis, Palestinians at odds despite arrests in murder case

JERUSALEM, Aug. 17 (JTA) — A murder case involving a Jerusalem taxi driver brought only a brief pause to the hostile Israeli-Palestinian rhetoric of recent weeks. Israeli officials this week praised the cooperation of the Palestinian Authority that led to the swift capture of three Palestinians who admitted killing taxi driver Shmuel Ben Baruch over the weekend. But the officials stressed that the capture did not meet Israel’s demand that the authority clamp down on terrorist infrastructures in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israeli sources said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dispatched a close adviser, attorney Yitzhak Molcho, to the Gaza Strip on Saturday night to thank Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat for his quick response in apprehending the three Palestinians. But Netanyahu spokesman David Bar-Illan said the arrests were “not the same as destroying the infrastructure of the terrorist organizations.” Israel called for the Palestinian crackdown on terrorism after the July 30 twin suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 14 Israelis. In an effort to pressure Arafat to take steps against Islamic militants, Israel imposed a full closure on the territories and withheld the transfer of millions of dollars from tax and customs revenues it owes the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu also announced that negotiations with the Palestinians would not resume until Arafat demonstrated that he was prepared to fight terrorism. Palestinian officials countered over the weekend that they were considering a boycott of all Israeli goods to retaliate against the sanctions. Arafat was quoted Sunday as saying the Palestinians were prepared to face an ongoing closure of the territories, explaining, “We know how to face it as Palestinian people.” On Saturday, Arafat said that the Palestinian Authority would not accept “dictates” from Israel and would not carry out mass arrests of Islamic militants. The Palestinian leader also called for “national unity” talks with militant groups in the self-rule areas to prepare a united front against Israel. During his latest shuttle mission to the region last week, U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross succeeded in convincing Israeli and Palestinian security officials, along with CIA officials, to resume meetings aimed at re-establishing security cooperation. After a three-way meeting was held Sunday in the West Bank town of Ramallah, an Israeli official reportedly voiced the hope that his Palestinian counterparts would provide information on the explosives used in the July 30 attack. In a related development, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security service, Ami Ayalon, was reportedly in London to probe claims that the attack had been carried out by Arab militants based in Britain. On Sunday, Arafat cited the arrest by his forces of the three Palestinians who confessed to murdering Ben Baruch as proof that the Palestinian Authority was working with Israeli security forces. A Palestinian military court sentenced the three Palestinians on Saturday, hours after the 45-year-old taxi driver’s bloodied body was found in a well in the Jericho area. The court sentenced two of the men, aged 19 and 20, to life in prison with hard labor for premeditated murder. The third, aged 17, received 15 years in prison for complicity in the crime. The three said they had only intended to steal the car, but killed Ben Baruch when he tried to run away. Ben Baruch was married with four children. His wife, Betty, said he had been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Ben Baruch had been reported missing since Aug. 14, when he picked up the three Palestinians near the Arab neighborhood of Jebel Mukabir in southeastern Jerusalem. The three told Ben Baruch they worked at a nearby car wash and asked him to drive to the West Bank town of Jericho, according to Israeli media reports. Palestinian police found Ben Baruch’s body Saturday morning in an irrigation well in Jericho. They notified Israeli officials, who later recovered the body. Palestinian police said his head had been smashed with a stone and his neck stabbed with a screwdriver. The taxi driver’s bloodstained taxi was found last Friday night in a Palestinian refugee camp outside Jericho. One of the Palestinians arrested said that he had sold the taxi to a chop shop in the area for $2,000.