A week after announcing that Israel was cutting off contacts with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat because he was “irrelevant,” Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon approved a resumption of meetings between his intelligence officials and Arafat’s security chiefs Wednesday.
The two sides reportedly met at an undisclosed location Wednesday evening, but Palestinian officials said the meeting had achieved little.
Soon after, gunfire erupted outside the home of Hamas leader Abdul Aziz Rantisi when Arafat’s police tried to arrest him as part of a crackdown on Palestinian radicals. Rantisi had openly resisted Arafat’s call Sunday to stop attacks against Israel.
The police were prevented from reaching the Gaza City home by Hamas militants, most of whom fired their guns skyward. Three people were hurt.
Some of the gunfire reportedly was aimed at the convoy of Palestinian intelligence chief Amin al-Hindi.
The moves followed telephone calls by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to Arafat and Sharon on Tuesday, and after Arafat’s Palestinian Authority said it was continuing a crackdown by arresting at least 12 of its own police officers for involvement in attacks on Israel.
While Sharon continued to express doubts about Arafat’s intentions, Israeli officials said Wednesday that they were willing to ease their military blockades of Palestinian cities if Arafat’s security officers stepped in to prevent bombing and shooting attacks.
“If they take over [preventing attacks], we shall immediately withdraw our forces,” Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said after meeting with European envoys to urge them to increase pressure on Arafat.
The new diplomatic gestures were attempts to exploit a relative lull in Mideast violence after Arafat’s call Sunday for his people to stop attacking Israel. Using the word “terrorist” for the first time, the Palestinian leader demanded an end to suicide bombings and other attacks, a recognition of the immense world pressure he faces to rein in Palestinian militants.
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In his telephone calls, Powell urged the two sides to resume contacts. He told Arafat that the Palestinians needed to do more to control the violence, but he also insisted that Israel be “ready” to help the Palestinians in those efforts, including lifting restrictions that impose “real hardships.”
“Israel needs to be prepared to do its part to create an environment in which Palestinians can sustain and expand their efforts,” said Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman, echoing Powell’s words to Sharon.
UN plans to debate issue
In New York on Wednesday, the UN General Assembly scheduled an emergency debate on the Middle East situation for Thursday. Arab and non-aligned nations requested the debate after the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution that stated the Palestinian Authority was essential to the peace process.
Last week, Sharon announced that Israel was severing all ties with Arafat after declaring him “irrelevant” because he was not preventing Palestinian terrorist attacks. That announcement followed a brazen ambush in the West Bank in which Hamas militants bombed and machine-gunned a busload of Jewish settlers and then attacked rescue workers who rushed to the scene.
Ten died and 30 were wounded in the attack, the latest in a particularly bloody flare-up in the Mideast conflict in which more than 100 people have died since the end of November. Each side blamed the other for instigating the wave of attacks and counterattacks.
Israeli officials said Wednesday that Avi Dichter, head of Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency, had been authorized to hold talks with Palestinians toward a cease-fire. Officials in Sharon’s office explained the resumption of contacts by saying that the prime minister had intended only to cut ties with Arafat himself.
“There’s a difference,” the official said.
Arafat made his most unequivocal call for a cease-fire Sunday after European officials joined the U.S. in putting the onus on him to contain the latest violence and he was faced with international isolation.
That call was rejected by most Palestinian radical factions, and it was deeply unpopular on the street as well. According to an opinion survey by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, 57 percent of Palestinians believe Arafat’s call for a cease-fire is “unjustified,” while 72 percent think the same way about Arafat’s orders to have violators arrested.
180 radicals arrested
Palestinian officials say Arafat’s police have arrested 180 radicals and closed dozens of their offices in what they say is a crackdown. On Wednesday, they also said they shut down two workshops where militants were making mortars to fire at Israel.
Palestinian officials said the police officers arrested Wednesday were also members of the military wing of Arafat’s own Fatah faction, a group called the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. The arrests, the first of their kind, were made in Gaza.
“We will arrest anyone who violates authority decisions,” said Mohammed Dahlan, Arafat’s security chief in Gaza.
Israeli army officials reported a falloff in shooting incidents overnight Tuesday, but Sharon told British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a phone conversation Wednesday that he did not believe Arafat had “made a strategic decision to abandon terrorism” and is “not acting to foil terrorism,” according to a statement from Sharon’s office. Sharon told Blair there had been 49 “terrorist” incidents since Arafat’s speech, leaving four Israelis injured, including a young boy.