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U.S.-born son of slain extremist rabbi & wife killed in West Bank

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January 1, 2001 

JERUSALEM-- (AP) - Suspected Palestinian militants fired on a car carrying the U.S.-born son of slain extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane on Sunday, killing him and his wife and injuring five of their six children, the army said. The attack came a day after Yasser Arafat's political faction called on Palestinians to intensify their uprising against Israel.

Hours after the ambush-style shooting near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, a senior member of Arafat's Fatah faction was gunned down near his home in the West Bank town of Tulkarem, Palestinians said. The army had no immediate comment, but Palestinian sources claimed it was an assassination. The dead man, Thabet Thabet, was the secretary-general of Fatah in the Tulkarem area.

The deaths sent tensions skyrocketing, with both sides bracing for retaliatory violence. The army and police were beefing up security in parts of the West Bank and in Jerusalem, where the slain settler couple were being buried Sunday.

About 2,000 people, many of them Jewish settlers, turned out for the funeral for Binyamin Kahane and his wife Talia. As the eulogies were delivered at a religious seminary before the burial, bitter denunciations of peace efforts by Prime Minister Ehud Barak's government were the central theme.

"The negotiations just produce more murders," said Kahane's brother Baruch, his voice cracking. "We need to topple this government that negotiates with killers."

A group calling itself the "Martyrs of the Al Aqsa Intefadeh" faxed a claim of responsibility for the attack to a Western news agency in Beirut. Its authenticity could not be verified.

The group, whose name refers to the holy site central to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, has claimed responsibility for several attacks against Israelis since the current violence broke out in late September.

Barak, who called the attack "grave," met with his Cabinet. Afterward, the ministers said if the Palestinians do not accept compromise proposals put forth by U.S. President Bill Clinton as a basis for talks, Israel will "take a time out" in the peace process. An outright Palestinian rebuff of the American plan would likely bring an escalation in the level of violence, the Cabinet statement said.

In the attack on the Kahane family, the army said shots were fired at the car as it passed the Palestinian village of Ein Yabroud near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ofra, causing it to flip over and crash into a ditch.

Five of the couple's children, ranging in age from 2 months to 10 years, were hurt, one seriously, hospital officials said. A sixth child had been dropped off at school before the attack, neighbors said.

Kahane's father Meir Kahane headed the now-outlawed Kach movement that advocated expelling Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He was gunned down in 1990 after a speech in New York, and a Muslim extremist was later convicted of conspiracy to commit murder.

Binyamin Kahane, a New York native, lived in the militant West Bank settlement of Tapuah and ran a religious school that adhered to his father's teachings. After the elder Kahane's assassination, Binyamin Kahane founded the anti-Arab Kahane Chai, or Kahane Lives, movement.

In the shooting's wake, army troops scoured the area. Military bulldozers flattened a hill near the village from which the shots were believed to have come.

The death of Kahane and his wife triggered an outburst of fury from Jewish settlers, who bitterly oppose U.S. peace proposals that call for uprooting dozens of Jewish settlements, and denounce Barak's policies. As word of the attack spread, settler activists scuffled with Israeli police outside the prime minister's office.

For weeks now, Palestinian gunmen have been staging roadside ambushes and drive-by shootings targeting Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Some Palestinian officials suggested settlers were a legitimate target.

"There will be no security or stability for any Israeli settler on Palestinian land," Imad Falouji, Arafat's communications minister, told The Associated Press. "We advise them to leave our land peacefully before they leave it in coffins."

Israel radio said it was unlikely Kahane was specifically targeted, but that gunmen would have known when settlers were likely to be on the road.

Barak called it the attack a grave one. "No type of violence against Israeli civilians will break our determination ... and the killers will not go unpunished," his office said. But the settler umbrella group Yesha said it held Barak and his foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, personally responsible.

"Our blood is being shed...we are paying the price for Barak's campaign for prime minister," the group said in a statement. Barak is running for prime minister against right-wing opponent Ariel Sharon, who calls for a much tougher stance toward the Palestinians.

In other violence Sunday, three Palestinians were wounded in clashes at the Erez crossing point at the northern end of the Gaza Strip, Palestinians said. In the West Bank town of Hebron, Jewish settlers scuffled with Palestinian vendors, knocking over their vegetable stands. Outside the town of West Bank town of Nablus, a predawn gun battle raged in the Askar refugee camp, Palestinians said, but no injuries were reported.

A day earlier, Arafat's Fatah movement, in a leaflet distributed throughout the West Bank, spoke of Palestinians' "utter rejection" of Clinton's peace ideas, and urged followers and fighters "to make the next two weeks days of struggle against Israeli soldiers and settlers."

Making a final peace push in his last weeks in office, Clinton is asking the two sides for a tradeoff: Israel would concede Arab parts of Jerusalem, including control of Judaism's most revered holy site. In turn, Palestinians would scale back demands on the "right of return" for millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

Both sides have signaled unwillingness to compromise on the plan's crucial points, although Israel says Clinton's proposals could be the basis for talks.

The State Department says it is awaiting a formal Palestinian response; the Palestinians say they need clarifications from Clinton first.