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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eashoa' M'sheekha who wrote (51612)	10/12/2002 7:30:20 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

I think Arafat is toast, the Pals just have no mechanism by which to replace him, literally. Now that Bush has cut him off even the Eurocrats are cooling to him. The European Union is slowly moving closer to the American view of the Palestinian Authority and its chairman, Yasser Arafat, according to reports that have reached Jerusalem in advance of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's planned trip to Washington next week. Four days ago, Arafat hosted the EU's foreign policy coordinator, Javier Solana, at his office in Ramallah. Solana reportedly used the meeting to deliver a stern warning and urge Arafat to transfer the reins of power to someone else. Moreover, senior EU and United Nations officials have recently been saying in private conversations that Arafat is an obstacle to reforming the PA and must be replaced. haaretzdaily.com Israel is betting on making a number of local deals with local leaders who are prepared to be more pragmatic. Seems to be working in Bethlehem, where a truce is holding. The Jerusalem Post has a long article that interviews various leaders. Excerpt: Muhammad Abu Khalil, the Fatah officer for the rough Dehaishe refugee camp south of Bethlehem, chimes in, "What else do you want me to quote?" Here's another, adds Abu Khalil, the 14-year veteran of Israeli prisons, with a soft spot for Nobel laureate S.Y. Agnon, through a plume of smoke: "'You can't live forever on the sword,' that is Dayan," he says in his flowing Hebrew, his lips slyly creasing upwards. Apparently, residents of Bethlehem are taking Israel's fabled one-eyed General Moshe Dayan's aphorism seriously of late. "The fight is necessary, but there are many different types of resistance. We are now aiming for a more grassroots intifada, using other types of conflict," says Abu Khalil almost defensively. Much of the shift has to do with the "damaging and painful blows that have harmed the armed group's ability to continue the struggle," notes Abu Khalil using clinical language. According to the UN Charter, he says, the Palestinians have the right to "struggle against the occupation," but stones are just as effective as bullets says Abu Khalil. "After all what can we do against the Apache? Nothing; nothing but die." It was Abu Khalil who made the controversial decision to clear Fatah out of the Dehaishe camp as IDF tanks rumbled towards it . This "strategic withdrawal," saved the lives of tens, perhaps hundreds, he says. "The fighting in the camp could have been as bad as Jenin," where 22 Israeli soldiers and more than 50 Palestinians lost their lives. Getting back to the matter at hand, Abu Khalil notes that the Israeli public, not the Europeans or the Americans, is the Palestinians real "target audience." "It is the Israelis not the Finns who we will have to live side by side with; we can't completely lose the Israeli people. We have to show them that they have to stop the occupation, but will be able to live next to good neighbors afterwards," notes Abu Khalil. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1034014731312