The New York Times · New York, New York · 6 November 1995

CP-1995-013

In the West Bank and Gaza, Mixed Feelings

By YOUSSEF M. IBRAHIM

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RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov. 5 — Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip expressed mixed feelings today about the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, with some remembering him as the man who cracked down on their uprising against the Israeli authorities and others saying he was a visionary who recently moved with determination to make peace with Arabs .

“The whole Middle East lost a great man,” said Issa Albucheide, a marble supplier from Bethlehem, echoing the sentiments of family members. “He was a very good man. He did something nobody else could do: He made peace with the Arabs.” But such praise was rare.

Most Palestinians willing to discuss the assassination expressed mixed feelings and said it indicated that Israel was deeply divided over the changes brought by the peace agreement. “We have felt a split in Israel — now we see how big the split is,” a 47-year-old gold merchant in Ramallah said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“The Israelis saw that a lot of Palestinians are coming back, that we have police,” he said. “They began to see that this is not a joke, that this was becoming more than talk, and they got scared.”

In Gaza, where Palestinian security forces have been on high alert since Saturday night, officials of the Palestine Liberation Organization, including Yasir Arafat, were cloistered for most of the day in its headquarters, contemplating the direction of peace efforts without Mr. Rabin as a partner.

“His disappearance is going to be a big problem for us,” a senior Palestinian security official said by telephone. “He was the guarantor of continuity in the this process and the only one strong enough to impose his views on a divided country.”

For a great majority of Palestinians, there was little empathy with the death of a man many had viewed as an iron-fisted ruler of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip both as Defense Minister and then Prime Minister.

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