Israel Says Wall Must Separate Palestinians

ISRAELI leaders, responding to the Jan. 22 bombing that claimed 19 lives, said the only way Israelis and Palestinians could live in peace was through a permanent separation of the two peoples.

Environment Minister Yossi Sarid on Jan. 24 called for the construction of a border fence between Israel and the West Bank.

And Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in a televised address to Israel Jan. 22 said, ``We want to achieve a separation between you and us,'' as a means of protecting Israelis from guerrilla attacks.

Still talking

ISRAELI Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Jordan's Crown Prince Hassan, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa will meet at a Paris conference Feb. 18.

Along with French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, the leaders will speak at the three-day conference on the future of the region after Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Libya or Iran?

BRITAIN was under pressure Jan. 24. to say whether it was aware of United States intelligence documents placing Iran, not Libya, at the center of the bombing of a Pan Am jet that killed 270 people in 1988. The Daily Record, a Scottish newspaper, quoted US Air Force Intelligence Agency files as saying that an Iranian diplomat paid $10 million for a guerrilla group to blast the airliner.

Britain and the US have blamed Libya for the bombing, issuing arrest warrants in 1991 for two Libyans.