Foreign ministers and diplomats at the United Nations Friday sharply criticised Israel for its failure to push the three-year peace process with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

In Security Council debate, diplomats from Europe and the developing world blamed Israel’s new rightist government for sparking three days of violence in the Palestinian territories, in which at least 86 people have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded.

“Sadly, the violence was predictable,” British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind said. “The fires of frustration have been smoldering.”

Despite opposition from Israel and the United States, the diplomats called for the closure of a tunnel beneath Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and for concrete Israeli steps, including withdrawal of troops from the Palestinian town of Hebron, to restart the peace process.

Farouk Kaddoumi, head of the PLO’s political affairs division, accused Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government of fuelling unrest because of its unwillingness to honour the peace agreements, signed in 1993 by the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO President Yasir Arafat.

Netanyahu “wants negotiations to be set up on moving sand,” Kaddoumi argued. “It does not mean anything, except to kill time.”

While the peace talks have stalled, Kaddoumi added, the closure of Israel’s borders for security reasons has caused Palestinian unemployment to rise to 50 percent of the population. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has increased the number of settlements for its immigrants on Palestinian land and isolated Jerusalem, which both sides regard as their capital, he said.

“If Israeli measures continue, then the peace process would be in mortal peril,” Kaddoumi argued.

Since Palestinians were shot while protesting the Al-Aqsa tunnel Wednesday, the PLO envoy said, “the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories have been subject to brutal assault by the Israeli Army and police force.” Israel, he said, bears “full responsibility for these events.”

Other diplomats agreed with that claim.

“The opening of the tunnel is the most grave of a number of measures which directly affect the Palestinians’ lives: the closure of the territories…the destruction of buildings, the extension of settlements and so forth,” French Foreign Minister Herve de Charette said.

“What we see is Israel leaving its basic points which have been agreed to,” Amre Moussa, Egypt’s foreign minister, added, noting the stepping of up settlement activity and sudden shifts in the demographic composition of Jerusalem. Jerusalem’s status, he asserted, must be decided only by future negotiations.

“A lack of commitment by Israel would lead to a setback for the whole process,” Moussa said, including a wide range of Arab- Israeli peace talks pushed by Rabin’s previous Labour government.

Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy dismissed such criticisms as “an orchestrated attempt to place blame on Israel.” But he said the current crisis, including the furore over the tunnel, is “merely a pretense” to force Netanyahu’s Likud government to change its stance on peace talks.

He maintained that his government had consulted with all Jerusalem’s main religious authorities before opening the tunnel, an act he said was done for the convenience of tourists.

“No matter what claims may be held against Israel, they in no way justify the incitement to violence and the use of live weapons” seen in recent days, Levy said. “An atmosphere of escalation, threats and a call for armed struggle will not move us from our policy.”

Nor is the Security Council likely to prod Israel with anything stronger than the criticisms of the Friday debate.

The United States, Israel’s ally and a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, said it would reject any moves by the United Nations that could escalate the rhetoric on the crisis. That has been a sign to many here that Washington will block any resolution on Jerusalem that even asks Israel to close the tunnel.

Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeni Primakov demanded such a resolution by the 15-member Council Friday. But U.S. President Bill Clinton is facing re-election in November — a potential factor behind Washington’s desire “not to play the blame game” in this crisis, as State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns put it.

U.S. sources told IPS that the White House is interested in a proposal from Jordan’s King Hussein for a joint Arab-Israeli commission to oversee all “sensitive” disputes concerning historic Jerusalem sites, including the tunnel. Rifkind of lauded that proposal and offered Britain’s help on such a commission.

But Israel has rebuffed calls to close off the tunnel even temporarily, and attempts to broker a meeting between Netanyahu and Arafat have failed to bear fruit. Even U.S. officials have privately conceded that Israel has not been cooperative on alleviating the current crisis, although they maintain the United Nations can do little to help.