Battle with Israel resurrects Arafat
By Steve Rodan, Middle East Newsline
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, October 4, 2000
JERUSALEM — Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat arrived
in Amman in a better mood than usual.
Arafat kissed both cheeks of Jordan's King Abdullah and then pulled the
monarch toward him and kissed his forehead. Later, the two men sat
down and Arafat reviewed a list of demands he wanted Abdullah to relay to
Israel and the United States.
In less than a week, Arafat has risen from being under the thumb of
Israel and the United States to an Arab hero -- leading the fight for
Palestinian rights in a battle that rages in Israel, the Palestinian
territories and even in Jordan. As Arafat met the young Jordanian king on
Monday, tens of thousands of Palestinians, chanting "Death to the Jews,"
demonstrated in refugee camps in and around Amman. Demonstrations were also
reported in Damascus and Sanaa.
Palestinian sources said Arafat is pleased with the current fighting.
The violence, called the worst in Israel since the 1948 war of independence,
has been so intense in the Jewish state that the north has been cut off from
the rest of the country and both domestic and international flights have
been disrupted.
Arafat, the sources said, feels he has regained the ground he lost to
Israel during the peace offensive by Prime Minister Ehud Barak since July's
Camp David summit. They point to Western attention on the killing of
Palestinian youngsters by Israeli troops rather than the attacks by
Palestinian gunmen on Israeli positions.
The Israeli sources discount Palestinian arguments that last week's
visit by Likud chairman Ariel Sharon to Jerusalem's Temple Mount sparked the
violence. They said PA and Fatah forces were stockpiling ammunition and
weapons 10 days before the violence erupted on Friday.
Israeli Internal Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami said he received a
pledge by PA security chief Col. Jibril Rajoub that violence would not erupt
unless Sharon actually entered the mosques on the Temple Mount. Sharon did
not enter any mosque.
Regardless, the question is what does Arafat do for a closing act? It's
an argument
that is raging within Israeli government circles and pits aides of Barak
against heads of the security services.
Some Barak aides insist that Arafat wants to end the fighting and return
to the negotiating table in a stronger position. The problem is he simply
can't control the violence. They said Arafat pledges nightly to U.S.
officials that he will end the fighting. But every morning, the clashes
resume.
The latest pledge was made on Tuesday when Israeli and PA officials said
Arafat agreed to an immediate ceasefire in the territories. Israeli security
sources don't expect this pledge to be implemented.
"What Chairman Arafat has managed to do is badly hurt the peace process
and the willingness of Israelis to make concessions for peace," Interior
Minister Haim Ramon said.
Israeli security sources disagree. They said Arafat wants Israeli blood
to relay a warning of what will take place if the Palestinians don't get
what they want in any settlement. He has been encouraged by the growing
power of his Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia, bolstered by soaring oil
prices.
Arafat, the sources said, wants to provoke Barak into a massive
retaliatory response that will remind the West of Kosovo in 1999. This way,
the sources said, the West will intervene quickly and massively.
PA officials do not deny this. They said they and their Arab and Islamic
allies will demand international intervention when the United Nations
Security Council convenes later on Tuesday in New York.
"What is happening is not merely clashes," said PLO Executive Committee
secretary Mahmoud Abbas, regarded as Arafat's leading aide. "But it is an
Israeli military attack on the entire Palestinian people."
With that, Arafat hopes that the West will provide the Palestinians with
a blanket approval for independence from Israel. Already, Arafat aides have
demanded significant revisions of agreements signed between Israel and the
PA, including the deployment of United Nations forces on the Temple Mount,
an end to Israeli security checks at Gaza border posts and the removal of
Israeli heavy military equipment.
Arafat's goal, the sources said, is Western recognition of a state
without paying a political price. His target date, the sources said, is Nov.
15, the anniversary of the 1988 declaration of statehood.
"This government, this state, this police have no right to rule the
areas," PLO Executive Committee Faisal Husseini said. "The only result is
that Israel must withdraw from this area. They don't have the right to
continue after what they did here."
Israeli officials have been disturbed by the Clinton administration.
They said the United States has been remarkably quiet over the PA offensive
against Israeli forces and that U.S. Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright has refused to call on Arafat to stop the violence.
Ms. Albright has scheduled a meeting with both Arafat and Barak in Paris
on Wednesday. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak issued an invitation to the
Israeli and Palestinian leaders for a Thursday summit in the Sinai resort of
Sharm E-Sheik.
For his part, President Bill Clinton has not publicly pressured Arafat.
Instead, he expressed dismay over the killing of Palestinians, particularly
a 12-year-old and his father caught in cross-fire in Gaza.
"I was literally watching it as if it were someone I knew," Clinton
said. "And it was a heartbreaking thing to see a child like that caught in
the crossfire."
Israeli security sources said Arafat still wants an agreement. But he
wants this to be limited to what they term "a ceasefire plus," in other
words, an interim agreement that guarantees a Palestinian
state in virtually all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem
but doesn't terminate Palestinian demands.
But both Israeli and PA officials agree that the violence will not
subside immediately. They said Arafat has succeeded in inflaming the Middle
East in a way that was never achieved by his Islamic opposition.
The officials said Israel will first have to convince its Arab citizens
to end their violent protests. Then, Arafat will have to wait for
demonstrations around the Middle East to die down.
PA officials stressed that they have no plans to discourage the Arab
anger against Israel. "These activities will continue," PA Information
Minister Yasser Abbed Rabbo said. Wednesday, October 4, 2000
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