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Arafat balks at terms, won't go to summit
Compiled from Times wires JERUSALEM -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat announced Tuesday night that he will not attend an Arab summit today in Lebanon because of new conditions placed on his freedom of movement by Israel. Arafat's spokesman made the announcement hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that Arafat could go to the summit only if he agreed to make a televised statement in Arabic calling for a complete halt to attacks on Israelis. Sharon also said it was possible that Arafat would be barred from returning to the West Bank and Gaza Strip after traveling to Beirut if there were terrorist attacks against Israel while he was away. Palestinian Cabinet Minister Nabil Shaath said the Israeli conditions were "humiliating and ludicrous." "This is the arrogance of the power of an occupier who is illegally occupying a country, keeping the democratically elected president of that country from coming to the Arab summit to pursue a peace process," Shaath said. Arafat's decision came after two international observers near the West Bank city of Hebron were shot dead in an apparent Palestinian ambush. Earlier in the day, two would-be suicide bombers were killed by Israeli forces as they approached a crowded shopping mall in a bomb-laden car. Arafat, confined by Israeli forces to the West Bank city of Ramallah for more than three months, was advised during a phone call from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to stay put rather than risk being exiled by the Israelis. Mubarak, who also decided not to attend the summit after his government accused Israel of "playing games," warned that the Israelis might dismantle the Palestinian Authority while Arafat was away. "We cannot predict what the Israeli government will do. If I were in his place and they told me I could go, I would not go," Mubarak said. "The Israelis might not allow him to return and they will use any incident as an excuse to destroy the remaining headquarters, and the Palestinian Authority will be in exile." Instead of traveling to Beirut, Arafat plans to address the meeting via a video link. Technical equipment to make this possible was put in place at his headquarters in Ramallah on Tuesday. The decision ends days of controversy about Arafat's ability to attend the Arab League summit, where participants are expected to endorse a proposal by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah to end the Arab-Israeli conflict by offering Israel a chance to live in peace in return for an Israeli withdrawal from land seized in the 1967 Middle East War. The summit will be marked by notable no-shows: Half the seats reserved for 21 heads of state plus Arafat will be occupied by underlings. In addition to Egypt and the Palestinians, Libya, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Sudan and Mauritania are all due to be represented at a lower level, although in some cases -- including Saudi Arabia -- that is because of illness. The failure of the Arab leadership to gather in its entirety at the summit serves as a reminder of one uncomfortable reality that the Arab League has struggled to overcome since it was founded in 1945: There is no "Arab world" to speak of, not in political terms. Myriad economic, social, political and religious forces are constantly pulling at the seams of Arab unity. "Outside of our cultural identity, you have some strategic ties, but it is not a love affair," said Abdel Moneim Said, director of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, a government-sponsored think tank in Cairo. The Bush administration and officials from the European Union and the United Nations had been pressuring Sharon to relent and permit Arafat to travel freely. However, Sharon went on television Tuesday evening to complain that Arafat has done nothing to prevent terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. "Unfortunately, the conditions are not yet ripe for Chairman Arafat's departure for Beirut," Sharon said, emphasizing that terrorist attacks had continued, and even intensified, as both sides were meeting to discuss a cease-fire sought by U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni. Hostile relations between Sharon and Arafat seemed to be reaching new lows. In an interview published in the Israeli press, Sharon said he regretted promising senior American officials that he would not harm Arafat. He said he wished he had told the Americans he could not "stand by this commitment." He also said he should have gone to the Bush administration seeking help to remove Arafat from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At one point Tuesday, Sharon called on the United States to back his conditions for Arafat's trip. "If it is said to Israel by the United States that (Israel) can refuse to allow him to return if there are terror attacks, it will be easier for me to allow him to leave," he said. But White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "The president's position is simple and clear. We're dealing with a sovereign government. Governments have the right to make determinations. The American position is clear." For his part, Arafat sent a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva that was read in his name. He accused the Israeli government of using its military power to justify oppression of the Palestinians. "We are witnessing an obsolete and anachronistic mentality among hard-line extremists in the Israeli government that suffers from the illusion that military superiority is sufficient cause for claiming superior rights," he said. In such a sour atmosphere, it did not come as a surprise when Zinni announced that he had suspended talks aimed at producing a cease-fire because the two sides were too far apart. Zinni's arrival nearly two weeks ago marked a burst of optimism about cease-fire prospects, but the two sides have drifted far apart on important issues, including the timetable for disengagement and a return to substantive negotiations. Senior Israeli officials said there were only a few matters separating the parties but that the remaining differences were significant. Nonetheless, Israeli officials indicated that Zinni was willing to stay in the region for many more weeks in a determined bid to stop hostilities. The Israelis want assurances that the Palestinians are committed to stopping terror attacks as part of a cease-fire, and the Palestinians want restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement to be lifted. But Israeli officials say they can only lift the travel bans after they have proof that the Palestinian Authority is taking real steps to keep suicide bombers and others from entering Israel to attack. Neither side has been willing to make the first move, and the impasse has thus far proved impossible to bridge. The postponement of Tuesday night's planned meeting, and the dispatching of two suicide bombers into Jerusalem on Tuesday morning in a thwarted attack that could have killed a number of civilians, raised the possibility that Israel may soon resume military actions. Complicating Arafat's position is the fact that most recent attacks were carried out not by the Islamic militant groups that are in principle Arafat's opposition, but by the Al Aqsa Brigades, a group closely associated with his Fatah movement. The Al Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attempted attack, in which a car carrying explosives blew up near Jerusalem's main shopping mall after being stopped by police in a security check. The two men in the car were killed. Police said the mall was apparently the target of the planned attack. Acting on intelligence warnings, dozens of police in recent days surrounded the mall, crowded with shoppers preparing for the Jewish holiday of Passover, which begins at sundown today. An Israeli military official told the Associated Press that Israel passed on warnings about Tuesday's attacks to the Palestinian Authority a few days ago, but no significant action resulted. There were more deaths later in the day when two members of an unarmed observer group from Scandinavian and European countries were ambushed and killed by Palestinians as they traveled on a West Bank road near the contested city of Hebron frequently used by Israeli settlers. They were the first members of the observer group known as the Temporary International Presence in Hebron to be killed. The group has been operating for eight years. Colleagues said the two men who died were from Switzerland and Turkey. Another observer wounded in the attack, Capt. Huseyin Ozaslan from Turkey, told Israel Radio that the assailant was wearing "a Palestinian police uniform, carrying a Kalashnikov" assault rifle. The Palestinian mayor of Hebron denied that Palestinian gunmen were responsible. "The observers were shot by Israeli soldiers who according to doctors fired at them ... bullets which are only used by the Israeli army," Mayor Mustafa al-Natsheh told Reuters. The force was put in place in 1994 to help keep the peace after an Israeli settler killed 19 Muslims in a shooting rampage.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
