ISRAELI right wing opposition groups cited the killing of two soldiers by Palestinian gunmen on Tuesday as proof that the peace accords with the Palestinians are not viable. The Israeli soldiers, shot dead in the West Bank, were buried yesterday.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, insisted yesterday that neither the shootings, nor threats of further violence by radical Islamic groups, would be allowed to disrupt Saturday's first Palestinian elections.
Having apparently received warnings that radical Jewish groups may also try to disrupt the elections, the Israeli police and army are planning to deploy thousands of personnel on main roads in the West Bank and especially in East Jerusalem, with the aim of preventing confrontations between Palestinian voters and Jewish settlers.
Posters have been pasted in Hebrew and English in East Jerusalem warning the 49,000 Palestinians with voting rights there that they risk losing their Israeli citizenship status if they go to the polling booths. The warning, which is untrue, is signed in the name of a Likud party activist.
The Likud, along with the rest of the Israeli opposition, is furious that East Jerusalem Palestinians have been given the right to vote, since they consider this implies some kind of Israeli recognition of Palestinian rights to self government in East Jerusalem - the part of the city where the Palestinians want to establish the capital of an independent state, but where Israel insists its sovereignty must prevail.
Some right wing and settler radicals are vowing to march through East Jerusalem on Saturday to protest against the elections.
Mr Ehud Olmert, Jerusalem's Likud mayor, argued yesterday that, by allowing Palestinian residents of the capital to vote, Israel was effectively bolstering Palestinian claims to the city. When Israel and the Palestinian leadership come to negotiate the final status of Jerusalem at talks scheduled to start in May, he argued, the Palestinians will use the elections are a precedent. "They'll say that Jerusalem was a voting centre ... an integral part of ii Palestinian district that we helped establish."
The Israeli legislation enabling East Jerusalemites to vote was only approved by the Knesset late on Tuesday night, by a 48 to 44 majority. News of the shootings of the two Israeli soldiers - on the road from Hebron to Jerusalem - was received in the course of the stormy debate preceding the vote, and triggered a new wave of anti government invective.