Israel's police minister said Friday that Palestinian peace negotiators would be arrested upon their return to Israel for meeting with PLO chief Yasser Arafat.
Police Minister Ronnie Milo said the Palestinians would be detained under an Israeli law that bars meetings with members of terror groups and includes the Palestine Liberation Organization in that category.The Palestinian leaders, including chief delegation advisers Hanan Ashrawi and Faisal Husseini, met Thursday in Amman with Arafat and the session was televised.
The meeting posed an embarrassing dilemma to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's right-wing government four days before Israel's national elections.
If it prosecutes the Palestinian negotiators for meeting with Arafat, it could risk derailing the Middle East peace talks that have broad support in Israel.
Palestinian leaders have met privately with senior PLO officials since the start of the talks, but were careful not to have cameras present, leaving Israel the option to overlook them.
"There is a difference between rumors concerning briefings they received in the past and between a situation of violating a law of the state of Israel openly and in the eyes of all the world," Milo said today.