The killing of a female Jewish earlier Monday in the Jordan Valley placed in doubt truce talks between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, and threatened to re-ignite the most serious coalition crisis since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon forged a unity government with the Labor party after winning a February election, reported Haaretz newspaper.
The woman as a 24-year-old resident of northern Israel. Her husband, who was also in the car, was uninjured, but was said to be suffering from shock, said the paper, quoting Israel’s army radio.
A report by Haaretz newspaper said Monday that an agreement was reached late Sunday between Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Peres that if the quiet lasts until Monday evening, the meeting between Peres and Arafat will take place.
But the settler’s killing cast a shadow over the meeting, and it was not immediately known if a new cancellation was in the offing.
Although he cancelled the Sunday meeting, Sharon made positive remarks regarding the Palestinians in a public appearance Sunday evening, said the paper.
"Israel wants to give the Palestinians what no one before gave them: The possibility to establish a state," Sharon told a gathering of teachers in Jerusalem. "The Turks, British, Egyptians and Jordanians did not give them such a possibility. All that Israel requests is the obligation to stop the terror," he added.
Sharon has demanded a 48-hour period of absolute calm before any Peres-Arafat truce talks take place.
The prime minister is under strong pressure from the United States to approve the talks, in order to facilitate American coalition-building ahead of expected attacks on Afghanistan and other targets in the wake of the Twin Towers and Pentagon terror strikes.
