Good analysis of Arafat's style and position from the Jordan Times. Not much love lost there for either side, I would say:
Militiamen say they don't take orders from Arafat; Israel says he's in control
RAMALLAH (AP) — It took just a quick telephone poll among regional leaders of the Al Aqsa Brigades militia to reach an unanimous decision — despite a truce ordered by Yasser Arafat, they would avenge one of their own killed in a bombing blamed on Israel.
Since the decision about two weeks ago, 11 Israelis and an American have been killed in Palestinian shooting and bomb attacks, the United States has called off Mideast mediation efforts and US President George W. Bush has sharply rebuked the Palestinian leader for not fighting terrorism.
Militants increasingly appear to be setting the Palestinian agenda, and despite the world's growing impatience with him, Arafat has not tried to crush the militias that attack Israeli civilians — whether those run by political rivals Hamas and Islamic Jihad, or the Al Aqsa Brigades linked to his own Fateh movement.
Is Arafat, then, behind the violence? Israel says yes, he is a terrorist; his Dec. 16 truce declaration was a sham, intended to deflect international pressure and buy time for his fighters to regroup and rearm. A 50-tonne Iranian weapons shipment intercepted en route to the Gaza Strip last month is proof of Arafat's intentions, Israel says.
Arafat's aides say Israel disrupted a good-faith effort at a ceasefire. Arafat can't be expected to act — and possibly risk armed confrontation with the militias — when his headquarters are besieged by Israeli tanks, his security forces are hobbled by Israeli strikes and there is scant hope Israel will meet even the Palestinians' minimal demands for peace, they say.
A look at the Palestinian command structure reveals only a halfhearted effort by Arafat, based on persuasion rather than coercion, to protect the truce.
Arafat's reluctance appears tied to widespread public sympathy for the militants; 92 per cent back shooting attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to one recent poll.
In the latest deterioration, a key event was the Jan. 14 killing of Raed Karmi, leader of the Al Aqsa Brigades in the West Bank town of Tulkarem who had boasted of killing two Tel Aviv restaurateurs last year. He died in a bomb explosion widely attributed to Israel.
Karmi's death had been preceded by more than a month without Israeli civilian deaths — the longest such period since fighting erupted in September 2000.
Israel claimed Karmi was planning attacks, while the Palestinians said Ariel Sharon had Karmi killed to torpedo a truce that, if maintained, would have forced the Israeli prime minister to freeze Jewish settlement activity as part of a US-backed peace plan.
Hussein Al Sheikh, Fateh leader in the West Bank, said he was asked by Arafat after Karmi's death “not to have any revenge attacks.”
Sheikh was noncommittal and Arafat didn't press — an approach Israel says amounts to wink-and-a-nod approval to commence violence.
“I told (Arafat) that this is difficult, that I cannot tell people not to take revenge for Raed Karmi,” Sheikh said in an interview. He said he told militia leaders of Arafat's request, but added that “I didn't forbid” revenge attacks.
Sheikh said Arafat has no direct ties to the movement's militia. However, whereas persuading Hamas and Islamic Jihad to follow his guidelines can be difficult, the Fateh militiamen generally fall in line.
This hands-off approach is typical of Arafat, who throughout his long career has tended to avoid clear-cut decisions.
“When the uprising was going on and he was in a way encouraging it, he wasn't doing anything in particular, just letting it go by itself,” noted Palestinian political analyst Ghassan Khatib.
The Al Aqsa Brigades, formed three months after the outbreak of the fighting, include several hundred gunmen.
Most are Fateh loyalists.
The militia has carried out scores of shooting attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza, but until now had largely refrained from attacks inside Israel.
Some cells are financed by Fateh politicians hoping to enhance their clout, and Israel has accused another Fateh leader, Marwan Barghouti, of ordering attacks.
One militia leader, who would only give his nom de guerre of Abu Mujahed, said he received a weapon as a gift from a senior Palestinian security official, to ensure loyalty.
Abu Mujahed, 31, who says he helps recruit members and oversees weapons training, said that after Karmi's killing he polled militia commanders to decide on a response.
“Everybody said the ceasefire is just a joke,” said Abu Mujahed, a Czech-made mini-machinegun stashed in his laptop computer case. “We decided on our own” to take revenge, he added.
Implementation was swift.
Since Karmi's death, Al Aqsa gunmen have killed 10 Israelis and a longtime American resident of the country in four shootings, two of them suicide attacks. The militia also claimed responsibility for a West Jerusalem bombing this week that killed an Israeli man and the Palestinian woman who carried the explosives.
Palestinians overwhelmingly support such attacks, though a large majority also hopes for a quick resumption of peace talks with Israel, according to a December poll by the Palestine Centre for Policy and Survey Research.
In a survey of 1,357 respondents, 92 per cent backed attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza, 58 per cent were in favour of attacks on civilians in Israel, and 76 per cent opposed recent arrests of militants by Palestinian security forces. The margin of error was 3 per cent.
Pollsters said Palestinians are desperate and angry after 16 months of fighting that has killed about 900 Palestinians and brought more poverty and stifling Israeli blockades of their communities. On the Israeli side, 257 people have been killed.
Most Palestinians justify any means aimed at shaking off Israel, even if they lead to Israeli retaliation and greater hardship.
In this charged atmosphere, Arafat won't take steps to stop attacks on Israelis because of “the political risks,” said Israeli analyst Mark Heller.
Arafat has been particularly combative in his speeches ever since Israeli tanks effectively confined him to his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah two weeks ago.
“Now we are on our way to bring victory and dignity to the Arabs by fighting for Jerusalem and its holy places,” Arafat told about 500 Fateh supporters this week.
Grinning and flashing a V-sign, he joined in a chant by a few young Fateh activists at the back of the room: “We're going to Jerusalem with a million fighters.”
Still, he did not electrify the audience as he used to at the height of his popularity in the mid-1990s, after Israel handed parts of the West Bank and Gaza to Palestinian control and statehood appeared within reach. His approval rating has dropped from 71 per cent to 36 per cent over the past six years, according to the Palestine Centre poll.
However, no serious challenger has emerged, and criticism has been muted, largely because Arafat remains the symbol of Palestinian aspirations and many Palestinians feel he is being victimised by Sharon.
Arafat aide Ahmad Abdul Rahman complained the Bush administration has blindly bought the Israeli argument that Arafat will only act under pressure.
Bush said last week he was “very disappointed” in Arafat and accused him of “enhancing” terrorism by ordering the illegal weapons shipment.
“If the Israelis put Arafat under siege and humiliate him daily and humiliate his people, his control is zero,” Abdul Rahman said, adding that if Arafat tries to enforce a ceasefire now, “he will be a joke for the people.” Palestinian officials insist they've done the best they can.
Tawfik Tirawi, the head of Palestinian intelligence in the West Bank, said that since the Dec. 16 truce announcement, security forces have arrested some 150 suspected militants, including 18 on a list of 33 the United States asked to have taken into custody. Israel says the arrests were largely a fiction, with some not even being detained, others held in apartments and no one interrogated.
Tirawi said Israel was undermining his work with airstrikes on Palestinian security installations.
In the West Bank, Palestinian policemen can't move between towns because of Israeli blockades, and in the Gaza Strip, security officials estimate 60 per cent of their bases and offices have been destroyed by Israel.
The Israeli army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, argued the relative calm after Arafat's truce call proved he was in control of the militants.
Arafat made a secret deal to suspend attacks, but “there has been no strategic fight against terrorism,” Mofaz said last week. “At a certain point, they (the militias) received instructions to resume armed operations.”
Palestinians from all groups deny Arafat has initiated attacks by Hamas and Jihad, which dispatched more than 30 suicide bombers in the past 16 months.
Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, said the group decided to resume bombings after Israeli commandos raided a Hamas bomb factory and safehouse in Nablus on Jan. 22, killing four militants.
As for the Al Aqsa Brigades, Sheikh said even though they've avenged Karmi, “If Israel assassinates anyone else, whether from Fateh or another group, the reaction will be very strong. We refuse to be victims.”
jordantimes.com |
