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Politics : The Palestinian Hoax -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Machaon who wrote (3128)	12/5/2002 8:56:20 AM
From: lorne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3467

Palestinian leader calls for removal of Arafat's team By PAUL ADAMS With a report from Associated Press Wednesday, December 4, 2002 – Page A18 TEL AVIV -- Yasser Arafat's shaky grip on the Palestinian leadership has taken yet another blow, this one delivered from an Israeli jail cell. Marwan Barghouti, a popular and militant leader of Mr. Arafat's own Fatah faction, currently facing murder charges in an Israeli court, said the Palestinian leadership had failed and should be replaced. "It is the time for many of the Palestinian leaders and officials to leave their positions after failing in their roles and responsibilities in this decisive battle," he said in a written statement passed on through his lawyer. "This should be done in a democratic and legal way as soon as possible." Mr. Barghouti called for early elections so that a new generation of Palestinian leaders could take over. He did not mention Mr. Arafat by name, however. His call was echoed yesterday from an unlikely source, someone he considers an enemy. Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz also called on the Palestinians to clean house. "Above all, the current leadership must be cleared off the stage of history," he told a conference on national security near Tel Aviv. A recently released opinion poll showed Mr. Barghouti to be the second-most-popular political leader among Palestinians, with 21 per cent support compared to Mr. Arafat's 35 per cent. Just 43-years-old, he is often mentioned as a potential successor to Mr. Arafat, who is 73. Mr. Barghouti's statement, issued in reply to written questions, comes at a time of political ferment among the Palestinians. Last week, Mr. Arafat's second-in-command in the Palestine Liberation Organization, Mahmoud Abbas said that it had been a mistake for Palestinians to take up arms in the uprising against the Israelis, now more than two years old. Mr. Barghouti, however, is taking the opposite tack. He insisted in his statement that armed struggle should continue. "Resistance is a holy right for the Palestinian people to face the Israeli occupation," he wrote. "Nobody should forget that the Palestinian people negotiated for 10 years and accepted difficult and humiliating agreements and in the end didn't get anything except authority over the people, and no authority over land or sovereignty." He said that Palestinians were pushed into the use of arms in reaction to the deployment of tanks and military helicopters by the Israeli army. Mr. Barghouti is a despised figure among Israelis. A onetime supporter of the Oslo peace agreements signed in the 1990s, he became an outspoken proponent of violence after the outbreak of the intifada. The Israeli government says he orchestrated many of the attacks against Israelis mounted by offshoots of Fatah, the Tanzim and al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade. theglobeandmail.com