THE PALESTINIAN leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, yesterday rejected linking an Israeli withdrawal from Hebron with the closure of PLO offices in East Jerusalem.
"(Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) should understand that there are no conditions to implement what has been agreed upon and what has been signed," Mr Arafat said in Gaza City.
On Tuesday, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, had said "there will be no progress in the negotiations in general and with regard to Hebron in particular" as long as the Palestinian institutions remained open. Nevertheless, the prime minister has told the inner cabinet to revise its redeployment plan for the city, from which the Israeli army was to have withdrawn last March.
When Mr Shimon Peres lost the May 29th national election to Mr Netanyahu, he could not have left his successor a more explosive inheritance than Hebron, home to 120,000 Palestinians and over 400 Jews.
In the face of this explosive mix, Mr Netanyahu now hopes for a revised redeployment plan to ideally, Win Palestinian agreement placate world opinion and not alienate the Israeli right wing, especially the West Bank settlers, who helped put him in power.
While Mr Netanyahu has yet to outline even a general plan for Hebron, he did allude vaguely on Tuesday to the fact that he believed Israel should not remain in Hebron "in the situation of a military ruler".
Under the Oslo agreement, about 85 per cent of Hebron is to be handed over to Mr Arafat. The remainder of the city is to remain under full Israeli control The Defence Minister, Mr Yitzhak Mordechai, has presented a modified plan, including total Israeli control over the Cave of the Patriarchs, sacred to both Jews and Muslims.
But a group of ministers headed by former general Mr Ariel Sharon, has come up with a more hawkish alternative that will enable significant expansion of the Jewish presence in Hebron.