Despite Violence, Israeli Leader Vows To Press On With Peace Talks

Against a chorus of demands that he halt peace talks with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said on Monday night that he would not let negotiations be disrupted by a wave of Islamic suicide bombings, including the one on Sunday that killed 19 Israeli soldiers and a civilian.

“We shall continue on the path of peace - there is no alternative,” Rabin said in an unusual televised speech to a nation still reeling from one of the deadliest episodes in its history. “We will achieve peace because that is the solution in the long run to the terrorist attacks.”

But despite his commitment to forge ahead, peace talks seemed to be frozen for now, with no clear sign of when they might resume.

Israeli officials acknowledged that public confidence was badly battered by the attack on Sunday at a rural junction in central Israel, where one or more suicide bombers detonated two explosions near a bus stop crowded with soldiers traveling to their bases.

This time, it was not just the rightist opposition that demanded a break in the talks, as it usually does after such incidents. Even a committed dove like President Ezer Weizman stretched the confines of his largely ceremonial position and, to Rabin’s dismay, issued his own call for a suspension, an appeal echoed on Monday in many newspaper commentaries and editorials.