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Israel Considers Banning Arafat From Bethlehem Christmas Services
JERUSALEM, Dec. 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The government of hardline Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is trying to decide if it will allow Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to travel to Bethlehem for the traditional Christmas Day services.
Arafat has been under virtual house arrest at his offices in the West Bank city of Ramallah, which has been surrounded by Israeli tanks for two weeks.
Israeli forces attacked Arafat's Gaza City headquarters, destroying three of the Palestinian leader's helicopters. Israeli bulldozers also destroyed the runways at the Gaza International Airport.
Sharon has declared the Palestinian leader "irrelevant" and claimed that he is directly responsible for a series of attacks by the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, whom have killed 26 Israelis and wounded dozens more.
Arafat, who denounced the attacks, has appealed to Palestinians to halt all armed attacks against Israel. But Israel and the United States have demanded that Arafat crackdown harder against Hamas and other groups resisting Israel's military occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
So far, the Sharon government has indicated that it opposes an Arafat visit to Bethlehem.
"Yasser Arafat has not yet presented a request to go to Bethlehem, but if he did, it would be turned down so long as he has not had the two killers of the minister arrested," said an Israeli official, who asked to remain anonymous, according to Israeli radio.
The official was apparently referring to Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi, who was killed by Palestinian gunmen at a Jerusalem hotel last October. Zeevi's murder came in apparent retaliation to Israel's assassination of a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
He said the three men were in the Palestinian autonomous zone of Ramallah in the West Bank, where Arafat himself has been under virtual house arrest for several weeks.
The official also demanded the arrest of Ahmed Saadat, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian (PFLP), whose armed wing claimed the assassination.
Since the Israeli army withdrew from Bethlehem in 1995, Arafat, a Muslim, has every year headed Christmas celebrations and attended midnight mass at the Saint Catherine church, next to the Basilica of the Nativity.
France advised Israel on Friday against stopping Arafat from attending a Christmas mass in Bethlehem in the West Bank, after it was earlier reported that Israel would do so.
"We do not think it would be useful to stop Yasser Arafat from going to Bethlehem," said foreign ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau. He added, however, that French authorities had received information that Israel would, in fact, allow Arafat to make the trip, but gave no further details.
Israeli officials have not made any official comment on the subject, while Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has publicly declared he is against banning Arafat from attending the religious celebrations.
Peres also stressed that any decision would have to include himself and Defense Minister Benyamin Ben-Eliezer in the framework of a mini-cabinet meeting, but that the issue had not yet been raised.
Some Israeli cabinet ministers told Israel Radio that Israel should allow Arafat to participate in Christmas ceremonies in Bethlehem because they are of a religious nature, and not nationalistic.
An official of the Roman Catholic patriarchate said it would be "arrogant of the Israeli authorities" to refuse Arafat permission to attend the Christmas ceremonies, and "we very much hope he will attend."
Representatives of Christian churches had met Arafat on Monday in Ramallah, and the Palestinian leader had vowed to "go to Bethlehem even if he had to come on foot," a Christian leader who asked not to be identified told Agence France-Presse.
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