JERUSALEM – A far-right Israeli politician was the object of an apparent assassination attempt today, and officials feared the gunmen were Palestinians.
If so, it would be the first-ever Palestinian assassination attempt on an Israeli cabinet member – and sure to throw into turmoil the Bush administration’s efforts to quiet the Israeli-Palestinian conflict amid the U.S. campaign against Afghanistan.
Rehavam Zeevi – who had just resigned his cabinet post because he felt Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was dealing too leniently with the Palestinians – was rushed to a Jerusalem hospital with a bullet wound in his head, authorities said.
“The minister is wounded in the head,” said Shmuel Shapira, director of the Hadassa Hospital. “Our best doctors are trying to resuscitate him.”
Zeevi – who went by the nickname “Gandhi” – was shot in or near his room in the Hyatt Hotel in Jerusalem.
After breakfast, Zeevi returned to his room. Initial reports said three shots were fired, one of which hit Zeevi in the head. Zeevi’s wife found him bleeding, and immediately summoned help.
Zeevi is a leader of the ultra-nationalist party Moledet, which staunchly supported keeping all the land west of the Jordan River in Israeli hands. Zeevi’s resignation from Sharon’s cabinet, announced Monday, was to take effect today.
He was one of seven members of Sharon’s coalition cabinet who were frustrated by the influence of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who hardliners believe is too willing to negotiate with Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority.
“The ideological and idealistic members of my small party are flooding me with faxes and telephone calls saying that I should not stay any more in a government which deals with Yasser Arafat,” Zeevi told The Post just 48 hours before he was shot.
Zeevi was also angry that Israeli troops were this week ordered out of the Palestinian hills in Hebron, from which Palestinians had been shooting at Israeli civilians.
Zeevi has been threatened over and over again by the Palestinians.
Over U.S. objections, Israel has in recent days carried out targeted killings of Palestinian militants, including the suspected plotter of the Tel Aviv disco bombing that killed 22 people in June.