West Bank On High Alert: Netanyahu Sends Message To PA To Enforce Calm

Netanyahu Sends Message To PA

Security forces were on high alert in the West Bank and east Jerusalem on Sunday morning amid concerns that the death of Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat in Megiddo Prison on Saturday would set off violent Palestinian demonstrations.

The Palestinian Authority on Saturday strongly condemned Jaradat's death from an apparent heart attack and called for a UN investigation into the case.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent a message to the Palestinian Authority to calm tensions in the West Bank on Sunday as Palestinians rioted and threw stones at security forces near Hebron.

Senior officials in Jerusalem said that Netanyahu made the request to the PA leadership through his peace talks liaison Yitzhak Molcho.

An IDF soldier was injured from stones thrown by Palestinians close to Beit Hadassah in Hebron.

The IDF employed riot dispersal methods in attempts to contain the rioters.

Jaradat's death came amid heightened tensions as a group of security prisoners in Israeli jails engage in an ongoing hunger strike. Even before Jaradat’s death, Palestinians rioted and attacked security personnel in several places in the West Bank and in east Jerusalem on Friday.

The IDF is investigating the possibility that Israeli civilians shot two Palestinians from Kusra, near Nablus, during clashes with settlers and the IDF on Saturday.

Aron Katsof, a spokesman for the Esh Kodesh outpost, said that Palestinians attacked his small community around noon by throwing stones and that he and others from the outpost and nearby settlements went out to defend their homes. He denied that anyone had shot at the Palestinians.

'Third Intifada' Is Already Here, PA Officials Say

Three thousand Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails went on a hunger strike Sunday to protest the death of Arafat Shalish Shahin Jaradat in Megiddo Prison the day before, amid a wave of clashes in the West Bank that has been stoking Israeli concerns of a third Palestinian intifada, or uprising.

Palestinian officials on Sunday morning warned that another popular uprising was indeed unfolding, but asserted that protesters would stick to the path of nonviolence.

“The death of the prisoner is the culmination of an already-tense situation,” Kadoura Fares, a former PA minister and the head of the Palestinian prisoner’s club, told Maariv. “All of the incidents reveal a clear trend – we’re facing an intifada. The hunger-striking prisoners and the tense demonstrations, the violent clashes during which Palestinian civilians are killed, and the frozen peace process – all indicate that we’re sitting on a barrel of dynamite.”

“It may very well be that Jaradat’s death will turn out to have been the match that lit it,” he added.

Jaradat, 30, died of an apparent heart attack Saturday afternoon, according to Prison Services spokeswoman Sivan Weizman.

Following the announcement of Jaradat’s death, prisoners briefly rioted in the Ofer Prison in the West Bank. In Hebron, Palestinian protesters clashed with security forces, who dispersed them using teargas. One soldier and two Palestinians were lightly injured.

Likud Proposes Joint Talks With Yesh Atid And Jewish Home

In what appears to be a concession to the alliance struck between surging political powerhouses Yesh Atid and Jewish Home, Likud officials proposed to hold coalition talks with representatives of both parties at once.

“We told the Jewish Home people that if they are indeed in a close alliance with Yesh Atid, we should sit together in coalition talks too,” a senior Likud official told Maariv. “It’s a waste of time to meet separately with representatives of both the parties. If there is a pact in place and a joint veto on the inclusion of ultra-Orthodox parties in the government, we might as well all meet together.”

Talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-Beytenu and his former aide Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home were scheduled to resume on Sunday, after representatives met on Friday. The negotiations were said to be held “in a good atmosphere” and dealt with aspects of the coalition’s guiding principles.

Representatives of Bennett’s party were reported to have discussed but not demanded the possible revocation of Netanyahu’s agreement with Hatnua chief Tzipi Livni, whereby Livni joins a Likud-led coalition in exchange for the Justice Ministry portfolio and the task of heading peace talks with the Palestinians. Bennett has been an outspoken critic of such negotiations, and his party represents a cross-section of voters who are largely opposed to a two-state solution along pre-1967 lines.

The differences between the two potential coalition partners were sharpened Saturday, when Livni spoke harshly against government plans to build a new settlement in the contested area known as E1.

“We don’t have to make provocations that just poke out the other side’s eye and stir up the world against us,” she said.

Friday’s Likud-Jewish Home coalition talks ended without any specific signs of progress, and the Likud-Beytenu team then met with Shas’s leadership triumvirate of Aryeh Deri, Ariel Atias, and Eli Yishai. Netanyahu’s key challenge is to find a formula for expanding the number of ultra-Orthodox young men entering military service; Jewish Home and Yesh Atid want almost all Haredi men to serve, while Shas and United Torah Judaism want wide-scale exemptions for full-time Torah study.

Three weeks after Shimon Peres charged Netanyahu with forming a coalition, it is this issue that has made the task so complex, and is gradually fueling speculation that Netanyahu may not be able to build a Knesset majority, though his aides remain confident he will do so.

According to a source within Shas, Friday’s meeting ended without progress and there are still significant gaps between the two sides regarding ultra-Orthodox service.

The Jewish Home party has made it clear that an alliance formed with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, according to which both parties would either join the government together or join the opposition, remains firm. Jewish Home representatives on Friday also said they backed Yesh Atid’s demand that ultra-Orthodox schools teach the full “core curriculum” of subjects, including English and Mathematics, as a condition for state funding.

“The pact with Lapid is iron-clad,” party sources said. “We would rather have new elections than join the government without him.”