Hassling llamas

ERIC SILVER

reaching the point of treason" by
acting against Hamas and restricting
Sheik Yassin, whom it lauded as "the
prince of holy warriors." Beyond the
range of the Palestinian police, Iran
and its Hezbollah ally in Lebanon
urged Palestinian Muslims to kill
Arafat (ironically, on the same day
Israel marked the third anniversary
of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination).
The curbs on the Palestinian and

"

Israel Correspondent

Jerusalem

y

assir Arafat is determined to
stop Hamas terrorists — or
intrusive international jour-
nalists — from blowing the
Wye agreement off-course. The
Palestinian leader's security services
cracked down on both this week with
unprecedented severity.
The Islamic movement responded
by threatening to turn its guns on
Arafat's police. The Israel-based for-
eign press corps protested to the
Palestinian Authority and appealed to

Ned Walker, the U.S. ambassador in
Tel Aviv, to intervene.
Until now, Hamas has refrained
from provoking the Palestinian police.
Arafat, for his part, tried to integrate
Hamas' political wing into the nation-
al mainstream, even appointing one of
its more flexible leaders to his
Cabinet. He resisted Israeli demands
to condemn attacks on Jewish settlers,
dubbed legitimate targets by
Palestinian spokesmen.
With another 13 percent of West
Bank territory in the balance, however,
this co-existence is crumbling.
Following a suicide bomb attack last
Thursday on an Israeli school bus near
the Gush Katif settlement block,
Arafat's police arrested more than 300
Hamas activists in the Gaza Strip and
raided the home of their spiritual
leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, seizing
documents, videotapes and arms.
The wheelchair-bound preacher,
whom Arafat welcomed as a national
hero when he was freed last October
after eight years in an Israeli prison, was
placed under house arrest. His telephone
was cut and a cordon of 50 uniformed
and plain-clothed security men barred
visitors from his home in the Sabra
neighborhood of Gaza City.
Arafat, who instantly condemned
the bus bombing, complained that
extremists on both sides were trying to
derail the Wye deal. "From our side,"
he said grimly, "we are controlling it."
He accused Sheik Yassin of abetting
violence. "He is supporting terrorist
activity," the Palestinian leader told
reporters after receiving a visiting
Swedish minister. "We found weapons
in his house and three persons were
hiding there."

foreign media began immediately after
the White House signing last month.
Early this week the Palestinian
Information Service advised journalists
that they could no longer roam freely

A month ago Arafat
was embracing
Sheik Yassin.

Yassir Arafat seemed
to wage war this week,
and the anti-peace Islamic
militant group vowed to fight back.

Palestinians don't lightly call each
other terrorists.
Hamas hit back with a leaflet faxed
to the Reuters news agency threatening
"the horrors of civil war" if Arafat did
not call an immediate halt to the crack-
down. "The Palestinian Authority's

continued repression," it warned, "may
push many of the sons of Hamas and
its military wing to disobey the orders
of their leaders and to direct their guns,
out of necessity, against the authority's
security apparatus."
The leaflet charged Arafat with

in Arafat's domain. Palestinian
reporters were threatened with censor-
ship and jail if they relayed anything
deemed harmful to the Palestinian
Authority.
On Monday the police detained
Taher Shriteh, the Gaza correspondent
for Reuters and other foreign news
organizations, and interrogated him
for two hours about how the wire ser-
vice received Hamas' anti-Arafat
leaflet. (It was faxed directly to
Reuters' Jerusalem bureau from the
West Bank.)
At the same time, Arafat's minions
opened an office on the Palestinian
side of the Erez crossing between Israel
and Gaza. From now on, foreign jour-
nalists will have to give advance notice
that they are coming. To make sure
they do as they're told, the foreign cor-
respondents' local assistants — Arab
journalists who arrange appointments,
translate and chauffeur them around
— will have to sign a guarantee that
they won't publish anything detrimen-
tal to the Palestinian Authority. ❑

Arafat
Grants Delay

Jerusalem JTA — Yassir Arafat agreed
to a request by Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu to postpone the
start of their latest land-for-security
agreement. The delay was needed to
give Israel's Cabinet and Knesset a
chance to vote on the pact, Netanyahu
said during a call to the Palestinian
leader. The Wye agreement, which was
to go into effect Monday, does not call
for major Israeli steps during its first
week of implementation.

11/6
1998

Detroit Jewish News

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