nytimes.com
A Top Palestinian Official Calls for End to Suicide Attacks
By SERGE SCHMEMANN
JERUSALEM, Aug. 30 — The senior Palestinian security official, who has been negotiating with Israel on a cease-fire, denounced suicide attacks in an interview with an Israeli daily as "murders for no reason" and said he was demanding that militant organizations abandon them.
While officials of the Palestinian Authority have criticized suicide bombings in the past and have claimed to oppose them, Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, who was appointed Palestinian interior minister last June, has emerged as the primary Palestinian contact with Israelis in talks on easing violence. He has also been holding meetings with all Palestinian factions, including the radical groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in an effort to forge a common front.
It was also noteworthy that the comments appeared in an interview with Israel's largest daily, Yediot Ahronot. Mr. Yehiyeh and another ranking Palestinian, Mohammed Dahlan, who is Yasir Arafat's top security adviser, have been seeking in recent weeks to project a conciliatory, moderate image to Israelis.
Mr. Dahlan, a 42-year-old former chief of security in the Gaza Strip, has given several interviews to Israeli newspapers, including one that was on the front page of today's Yediot Ahronot with Nahum Barnea, the paper's influential columnist. In it, Mr. Dahlan declared that he was optimistic that the current violence would lead to peace.
"I am optimistic," he said. "Peace is on the way. A year, or two, something like that. Realy. This is the last round."
In his interview, Mr. Yehiyeh said he had told all Palestinian factions: "Stop the suicide bombings, stop the murders for no reason. Return to the legitimate struggle against the occupation, without violence and following international norms and legitimacy."
Suicide attacks, he said, harmed the Palestinian cause. "Children were exploited for these attacks, when they could have made a much more positive contribution to future Palestinian society."
Mr. Yehiyeh acknowledged that Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as the radical wing of Mr. Arafat's movement, Fatah, had not agreed to forswear terror. The extreme groups have publicly rejected Mr. Yehiyeh's proposals, though talks among the factions continue. The next meeting was set for Sunday.
Mr. Yehiyeh was also the Palestinian official who negotiated with the Israeli defense minister, Benjamin Ben Eliezer, on an agreement to pull Israeli troops back from Bethlehem and Gaza, and eventually other towns, if the Palestinians kept the peace. Though the process stalled after an initial pullback in Bethlehem, Mr. Yehiyeh said that Palestinians had "full control" in Bethlehem, which has remained peaceful since the Israelis allowed the Palestinian police to return on Aug. 19.
Both Mr. Yehiyeh and Mr. Dahlan have insisted that they are acting under the authority of Mr. Arafat, the Palestinian leader, who remains secluded in his Ramallah headquarters. But Mr. Dahlan, at least, urged Israelis not to focus so much attention on Mr. Arafat.
"Don't waste time on dreams over who will come after Arafat," he said. "For better or for worse, Arafat represents the consensus. Everything else is nonsense."
So far, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the military chief of staff, Lieut. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, have made no public signs of changing their harsh policies. General Yaalon made headlines over the past week when he declared that if Israel did not defeat the Palestinian Authority, Israelis would face a "cancerous threat." Mr. Sharon declared that General Yaalon's comments were "true and correct."
Israeli military operations in the West Bank and Gaza have also continued undiminished, with daily reports of raids to nab militants, often leading to Palestinian casualties.
Yet after a period of relative quiet, the Israeli public indicated at least an interest in the tentative steps made Mr. Ben Eliezer, who is also head of the moderate Labor Party. The weekly poll in the daily Maarive showed Mr. Ben Eliezer rebounding in popularity within his party, from 22 percent to 31 percent, though he continued to trail Mr. Sharon by a wide margin.
In another development, Reuters reported that an 18-year-old Palestinian woman was executed by the radical wing of the Fatah movement, the Al Aksa Brigades, for purportedly collaborating with Israel. The woman, Rajah Ibrahim, was the second woman to be killed by Al Aksa in a week.
Palestinians with ties to Al Aksa told Reuters that Ms. Ibrahim was seized in Tulkarm, one of the West Bank towns under siege by Israel, and was accused of providing the information that the Israelis used to track down and kill the Al Aksa commander in Tulkarm, Raed Karmi, in January.
Dozens of men have been killed by Palestinians after being accused of helping Israelis in their hunt for militants. But last week, Ikhlas Yassin, a 35-year-old mother, also from Tulkarm, became the first woman so killed in the 23-month uprising. The Palestinians produced a videotape in which she said she had passed information to the Israelis through her brother about a man wanted, and later killed, by the Israelis. |
