Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Fatah, the Palestinian organization headed by PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, has vowed to intensify its violent protests against Israel in the runup to elections for a new Israeli prime minister on February 6.
However, Arafat -- in a rare move -- spoke directly to the Israeli public about peace in an interview on Israeli television on Monday evening, just hours after another Israeli was killed in a terrorist attack.
But in a radio interview, Fatah leader Ziad Abu Ain said that Fatah decided to continue and escalate the intifada (uprising) launched last September.
"[It is] the decision of [the] Fatah movement to continue the intifada in different means and everywhere, especially in the occupied territory," Abu Ain said in a radio interview, adding that efforts would be increased.
The Israeli army declined to comment specifically on the Fatah threats to intensify the violence, but spokesman Lt.-Col. Olivier Rafowicz said the army would continue to do whatever was necessary to protect its citizens and soldiers.
"The goal remains to restore peace here and to stop the Palestinian violence," Rafowicz said.
An Israeli and a Palestinian were killed in separate incidents on Monday. Israeli troops shot and killed 21-year-old Mohammed Abu Moussa in a clash in the Gaza Strip.
Later in the day, Arye Hershkowitz, 55, was killed in a drive-by shooting near his home in the disputed West Bank. Security sources said they believed the attack was carried out by members of Arafat's elite personal commando unit, Force 17.
Israeli security forces arrested six members of Force 17 late last week. They are suspected of being responsible for the recent shooting deaths of at least seven Israelis.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak condemned the attack and said Israel would not "compromise in the battle against terrorism." He also vowed that the perpetrators would be apprehended.
In another development, PA negotiator Nabil Sha'ath said that the PA refuses to maintain security cooperation with Israel if diplomatic contacts are not underway. Israel relies on those contacts between security personnel in its fight against terror.
Barak suspended diplomatic - but not security - contacts with the PA on Sunday after Arafat told the economic conference in Davos, Switzerland, that Israel was waging a "barbaric and cruel war" against the Palestinians.
After his Davos speech, Arafat seemed to do an about face on Monday evening saying that he was determined to achieve a peace. Speaking in English in an interview aired in Israel on Monday, he acknowledged that progress had been made in the Israeli-Palestinian talks last week in Taba, Egypt.
"We have to respect what they had achieved," Arafat said.
While it was not all that the Palestinians or the Israelis had hoped for, "it was a step forward." He added that "the most important thing [is] that we are insisting to continue."
But Arafat made it clear there would be no peace without a full Israeli withdrawal from the disputed territories, including eastern Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
Barak has promised not to hand over more than 95 percent of the disputed areas, saying Israel would retain enclaves which are home to most of the 200,000-strong Israeli community there.
Opposition leader Ariel Sharon, expected to win next week's election, has pledged to turn over much less of the disputed land - some 42 percent - which would still leave almost all Palestinians living under PA control. The remaining area is mostly uninhabited.
Arafat said Sharon's proposal was very different to the proposal of the last Likud government in which he had been a senior minister. That government, under Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu two years ago, had undertaken to withdraw completely from the contested areas, Arafat insisted.
United Nations resolutions 242 and 338 are generally considered to be the basis for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But interpretations of the resolutions differ.
They talk about the return of "territories" captured in the 1967 Six Day War, but also call for secure borders for Israel.
The PA demands all of the land Israel wrested in that war from the Jordanians (who controlled the West Bank for 17 years before that) and from Egypt (which ruled over Gaza over the same period.)
But Israeli and some Western experts agree that the borders in place before 1967 were not secure for Israel, and that full implementation of the resolutions do not require Israel to give up all of the demanded land.
Washington rebuked Arafat on Monday for his earlier comments at Davos, particularly for saying that Israel was waging a "fascist military aggression" against the Palestinian people.
"The conditions on the ground are indeed bad for both sides," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters. "Nonetheless, statements such as those made by Chairman Arafat really have no place in this process."