Israel Gets More Blame Than Support As Riots Spread

Many U.S. allies in Europe and elsewhere condemned Israel on Thursday for the explosion of violence in Gaza and the West Bank and displayed varying degrees of solidarity with the embattled Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.

The United States urged Israel to close a new tunnel entrance in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, officials said.

In a flurry of telephone calls to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders, American officials said Israel should at least temporarily shut the tunnel entrance whose abrupt opening has infuriated Palestinians and ignited two days of violence costing more than 50 lives.

European and Arab leaders also called on Israel to close the new entrance as a gesture to calm the explosive tensions. But Israeli officials said such action would amount to a dangerous show of weakness and could be construed as ceding the Palestinians authority over part of Jerusalem.

President Clinton, in remarks on the South Lawn of the White House, avoided any direct criticism of the Israelis for opening the new entrance to an archeological tunnel that runs along the western retaining wall of the ancient plateau sacred to Muslims for the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque and to Jews as the site of Solomon’s Temple and Herod’s Temple.

He called on both Israelis and Palestinians to “avoid unnecessarily provocative actions” that could further undermine the faltering quest for a Middle East peace.

But the White House press secretary, Michael D. McCurry, made clear that the administration considered the tunnel opening an irritant, as he urged the two sides to “take no steps that raise new issues that cause complications” in the peace effort. The tunnel, he added, “is clearly a new issue.”

A statement issued at the United Nations Thursday by Ireland, which holds the rotating presidency of the 15-member European Union, blamed both Israel’s decision to open the tunnel and the violence that followed for putting peace efforts in jeopardy.

Britain, Russia and France went well beyond the White House in official statements that drew attention to the opening of the tunnel and other recent Israeli moves against Palestinians that President Jacques Chirac of France called “provocative.”

At a news conference at the United Nations, Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini of Italy said the onus was on Israel to demonstrate it wanted peace efforts to continue.

Egypt’s foreign minister, Amr Moussa, prodding the Security Council to address the violence, said Israel had been “acting as if we were back in the ‘70s or even the ‘60s.”

Echoing the remarks of other Arabs, Moussa said in an interview: “We cannot leave the future of Jerusalem in the hands of the Israelis. The actions they have taken add oil to the fire.”

Moussa, who reported that President Hosni Mubarak had been in touch with the Israeli prime minister, said a deteriorating situation in Palestinian areas made it difficult to convince Arab neighbors that Israel was serious in granting Palestinian autonomy.

“Are we to conclude that the whole thing is a farce?” he asked.

“This is what many people now believe.”