In what security officials suspect was an attack by Palestinian extremists bent on sabotaging the Middle East peace process, three nail-filled pipe bombs exploded simultaneously yesterday in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya, injuring 33 people, most of them lightly. A fourth bomb was defused by sappers.
The bombs, which went off around 10.30 a.m. outside a large bank in a busy shopping area, came just ahead of the start of final status negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians which are to begin today.
The talks, which aim finally to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and which the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, hopes can be completed by September next year, will deal with many of the highly disputed issues such as the future of Jerusalem, the creation of a Palestinian state, the fate of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and the fate of the Palestinian refugees.
Only hours before the bombing, during an early morning radio interview, Mr Barak had warned of the possibility of violent acts by Islamic extremists intent on destroying the peace process. "I have always said that when we go forward," Mr Barak said, "there will be attempts to torpedo the process."
While some right-wing politicians called on Mr Barak to halt negotiations, the Communications Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, retorted that "a diplomatic solution is the only chance of cutting down terror. Any stoppage [of the talks]," he argued, "will play right into the hands of those who want to stop the process."
The Israeli-Palestinian peace track has been reinvigorated in the wake of Mr Barak's May election victory over his hardline predecessor, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu. But while Mr Barak knows that after three years of diplomatic paralysis under Mr Netanyahu, Israelis are again keen to move forward in talks with the Palestinians, he is also acutely aware that a resurgence of Islamic terror could well jeopardise the entire peace process, as it did during the previous Labour government in 1996.
In fact, while no group admitted responsibility for the bombing, the explosions came only a day after Hamas released a pamphlet threatening renewed attacks against Israelis. Palestinian Authority officials, though, were quick to condemn the bombing, saying it harmed their interests and was an attempt to undermine the peace process now that final status talks were beginning.
Meanwhile, another longstanding dispute - between Christians and Muslims - over plans to build a mosque in Nazareth, was defused a little yesterday when militant Islamic groups agreed to dismantle a tent that they were using as a mosque.
The tent was on a half-acre plot which the city's Christians hoped to turn into a piazza for pilgrims before the expected millennial rush.
The plot is also near the church of the Annunciation, which according to Christian tradition is the spot where the Angel Gabriel visited Mary, and of the conception itself. The Muslims, who make up about two-thirds of the city's 60,000 residents and want the whole site for a mosque, claim it is holy to them because it contains the tomb of an Islamic hero who died fighting the Crusaders in the 12th century.
Israeli government officials recently negotiated a compromise solution whereby a mosque would be built on one-third of the plot. In response, however, church leaders announced that churches would be closed in protest on November 22nd and 23rd. There have also been threats that the Pope, as a result, will cancel his scheduled visit to the Holy Land next year.
Rabbi David Rosen, the head of the Israel office of the Anti-Defamation League and the man who played a critical role in the establishment of ties between Israel and the Vatican in 1994, yesterday criticised church leaders.
Mr Rosen, a former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, said that their decision did "not help the spirit of compromise the current Israeli government has striven to achieve".