Arafat's Demise
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They won't end his reign, but Israelis openly debate
a post ArafatMiddle East.
DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
r
Jerusalem
or the first time, Israeli
political debate is focusing
openly on the prospect of
life after Yasser Arafat.
This follows a marked drop in the
Palestinian Authority leader's interna-
tional standing.
While the world is not yet writing
off Arafat, Israelis on all points of the
political spectrum seem to feel it is
both legitimate and practical to debate
the prospect of Arafat's possible —
and perhaps imminent — removal
from power.
If such a scenario does come about,
it is not likely to be as a result of
direct Israeli intervention.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who
returned from a visit to the United
States in early December, has told his
aides that he was asked for, and gave, a
firm commitment to U.S. President
Geroge W. Bush that Israel would not
kill Arafat or otherwise harm him.
The prime minister's vow apparently
extends to the idea — float-
ed by some Israeli hawks —
of deporting Arafat or bar-
ring him from returning to
the country when he goes
off on one of his many jaunts abroad.
Israeli missiles destroyed two of
Arafat's helicopters in an attack in the
Gaza Strip last week. Warplanes
bombed a compound close to his
Ramallah headquarters while he was
working inside.
But these attacks were intended
more as warnings than as serious
efforts to strike at Arafat himself.
Later in the week, Sharon indicated
that he was liable to turn down a
request from Arafat to fly to Qatar for a
gathering of Islamic foreign ministers.
"He is too busy arresting terrorists,"
Sharon sarcastically told the Israeli
Cabinet. Perhaps to save himself the
risk of humiliation, Arafat decided not
to make the request.
Sharon has disclosed to Time maga-
zine that he recently sent his son,
Omri, on a secret mission to assure
Arafat that he faces no physical danger
from Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
said Tuesday that Israel was not trying
to topple Yasser Arafat as head of the
Palestinian Authority. But he warned
that unless Arafat acts firmly to stop
terrorism, he runs the risk of being
deposed by Palestinian extremists.
"Arafat made mistakes, but it is not
for Israel to decide who will lead the.
Palestinians," Peres told a news confer-
ence following talks in Rome with
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
"We are not going to dismantle the
Palestinian Authority nor topple
Arafat, but we demand he take respon-
sibility" to end the violence, he said.
Political Future
For Sharon, the issue is not Arafat's
personal safety but his political future.
Sharon has been warned repeatedly,
both by Palestinians, foreign experts
and some Israelis, that military pres-
sure on the Palestinian Authority
could weaken Arafat's rule to a point
where it simply implodes.
To judge by his responses and by the
Israel army's operations in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, Sharon is pre-
pared at least to consider that scenario.
Sharon wants to force
Arafat to confront the fun-
damentalist factions in the
Palestinian territories, make
sweeping arrests of known
militants and hold and interrogate
those incarcerated, instead of letting
them walk free after a few days.
If that means a situation approach-
ing a Palestinian civil war — from
which Arafat emerges diminished or
even defeated — then so be it, Sharon
seems to be saying.
Significantly, the prime minister has
taken issue with the conventional
Israeli wisdom that if Arafat falls,
more radical forces inevitably will seize
power. Sharon suggested in several
conversations this week that Arafat's
fall might throw up more moderate
leaders with whom Israel could deal
more productively.
Even if it doesn't, Sharon said, it
might be better for Israel to deal with
which makes
a group like Hamas
no secret of its intention to attack
Israel — than with Arafat, whose
allegedly mask a more
b
moderate . words
belligerent agenda.
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