JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reflecting growing Israeli unease over an upcoming visit by President Clinton, suggested Monday that the trip was entirely Clinton's initiative.
"What am I going to tell him, not to come -- don't come? I can prevent him from coming?" Netanyahu asked rhetorically in an interview on army radio. "We're not accustomed to refusing someone who wants to come."In another sign of tensions arising from the trip, the speaker of Israel's parliament, Dan Tichon, said he intended to boycott events with Clinton because the president did not plan to address the Knesset.
Clinton's visit to Israel, which begins Saturday, is to be coupled with a stop in the Gaza Strip, the first by a sitting U.S. president.
The United States has repeatedly said the trip is not intended as an endorsement of Palestinian aspirations for statehood, but the Palestinians see it as a powerful boost to their sovereignty hopes.
Speaking Monday to reporters in Gaza, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat hailed Clinton's trip as "historic and great."
The presidential visit to Israel and the Palestinian lands is meant to encourage both sides to stick to the timetable set out in the Wye River peace accords signed in October.
However, Netanyahu said Clinton's trip "has value only if he strengthens the Palestinian fulfillment of their obligations" under the agreement.
In recent weeks, Israel and the Palestinians have accused one another of failing to live up to various provisions, and Israel has threatened to hold off on a scheduled Dec. 18 troop pullback.
Palestinians are angry over stepped-up Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank and Israel's failure to free hundreds of prisoners jailed for anti-Israel activity.