Palestinian violence marks Oslo deadline

JERUSALEM -- For Palestinians, Tuesday marked the independence day that never was. It will probably be best remembered by them as a symbol of disappointment with the Oslo peace accords.

Sporadic rioting broke out in the West Bank and Gaza as Palestinians, disgruntled with continued Israeli power over their lives, took to the streets.

Oslo's five-year period of interim Palestinian self-rule expired Tuesday, with few signs of an independent state in sight.

"There is nothing here you can call a state. It's all empty talk," said Issa Muslih, a pharmacist in a village near Bethlehem. "A state must be strong. It must have an army and be in control of its borders, but that is in Israel's hands."

In the Arab village of Beitunya, residents said that about 40 youths threw stones at Israeli border police who positioned themselves near the high school.

Israeli forces responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, wounding several of the youths, the residents said. An Israeli army spokesman said that all entrances to the village were closed after scores of Palestinians pelted Israeli troops and border police with stones and firebombs.

In the West Bank city of Hebron, Palestinians said at least four Arab students were wounded by rubber bullets. An Israel television cameraman there was hit in the hand by a rubber bullet, when troops opened fire to disperse demonstrators who threw stones and firebombs.

Several dozen Palestinians, their faces covered with scarves, fired guns into the air. A riot ensued after several hundred university students marched to the center of town, chanting "statehood is our right."

In Gaza, 100 members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine movement held a rally calling for the declaration of statehood.

At the Arab-run Bir Zeit University, a 24-year-old veteran of the Arab uprising condemned the peace accords.

"Oslo was bad from the beginning," said the man, who declined to give his name. "It has not given us peace. It has given us pieces [of the West Bank.] Yasser Arafat has achieved less than what we need. He has forgotten our years of struggle. It seems that this struggle has been for nothing."

Mahmoud Qadi, a Palestine Liberation Organization leader on campus, said that the decision last week to delay declaration of statehood was "a wise move, but it doesn't reflect our ambitions as a Palestinian people."

He cited the lack of geographical contiguity and the gaining of international support as reasons for delay, but nevertheless added he hopes a new target date will be set as soon as possible.

The idea of unilaterally declaring a state on May 4 was trumpeted by Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat last fall, but he soon gave the impression that the idea was negotiable and could be dropped in exchange for international support for the Palestinian cause.

Last week, the Palestinian Central Council, the PLO's mini-parliament, met in Gaza and overwhelmingly voted to put off any declaration until after Israel's May 17 elections.

In its April 29 decision, the council declared its session "open-ended" -- meaning they would take a wait-and-see attitude toward the Israeli elections before convening the next session in June.

"If the new Israeli government is a government of peace," said Faisal Husseini, the Palestinians' top official in Jerusalem, "then we will renew negotiations."

"If not," he added, "then we will feel free to declare independence."

Despite Palestinian reaction on the streets, many analysts here agreed that Arafat and the Palestinian people actually gained from the postponement.

Reserve Col. Shalom Harari, a former Arab affairs adviser at Israel's Defense Ministry, suggested that Arafat had made a relatively small concession -- postponing the declaration -- in return for broad international support of eventual Palestinian statehood.

Arafat scored another big prize last week when he closed ranks with Hamas.

The founder of the Islamic militant group, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who until a few weeks ago had been placed under house arrest by the Palestinian Authority, was invited to last week's meeting in Gaza as a guest of honor. With that, Yassin gave his silent blessing to Arafat's tactics.