February 18, 1996
Web posted at: 8:40 p.m. EST (0140 GMT)
From Correspondent Jerrold Kessel
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Questions over Jerusalem's political future -- a major source of dispute between Jews and Arabs -- are set to become a central issue in the Israeli general election campaign now under way. At least that's what the right wing opposition has in mind.
"(Israeli Prime Minister Shimon) Peres has a serious credibility problem with Jerusalem not because I say so, but because his actions speak differently from his words," said Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu charged that secret talks were under way in Europe regarding the city's future, a claim that Peres' Labour-led government contends is false. It also firmly refutes a Likud claim made in campaign posters that Peres would divide Jerusalem if he is elected .
"It's a national mistake to come and to create a conflict on an issue that 90 percent of the people in Israel and the Labour party from left to right, hawks and doves, are united," said Israeli Interior Minister Haim Ramon.
With polls showing Peres and Labour still running well ahead of Netanyahu and the Likud opposition, Labour is calling for the Jerusalem question to be kept out of what looks like what will become a bitterly fought campaign.
Labour says the Likud's attempts to focus on Jerusalem are a sign of desperation over its inability to cast doubts on Peres' broader peace policies. The Likud clearly hopes this super sensitive issue could be Labour's soft spot, through which it could close the gap.
The Likud's charges aren't new, but by putting the spotlight on the future of east Jerusalem -- claimed by Palestinians as their future capital -- Peres could be drawn into hard-line commitments that might complicate future Palestinian-Israeli peace moves.
Current tensions focus on a five-day closure by Israel of the West Bank and Gaza. It is being kept intact through the end of the Muslim holiday starting Monday, when Israeli intelligence anticipated an attack from Islamic militants. Palestinian police have reportedly thwarted two actual would- be suicide bombings in the past week.
In the other direction, hundreds of disgruntled Israeli farmers sought to break the blockade into Gaza. They were protesting their government permitting cheaper Palestinian produce into Israeli markets. Troops stopped them from crossing into Gaza.
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