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Palestinian Leaders Do Not Come From Washington: Erakat
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| “The real
issue is we need is to specify a road map… to end the
[Israeli] occupation” Erakat said.
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, June 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. President
George W. Bush put joy in the hearts of Israelis with his long-awaited
speech outlining his policy regarding the Middle East. But in the Arab
world, the speech was met with reactions ranging from plain outrage to
measured politeness.
Emboldened
by Bush’s speech, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reiterated
Tuesday, June 25, his demand for changing the Palestinian leadership,
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Sharon,
a hard-line former general who has on one occasion said he regretted
not killing his old foe Yasser Arafat in Lebanon 20 years, urged Bush,
during a visit to Washington earlier this month, to dump the
Palestinian President as a partner in the peace process.
Meanwhile,
the Palestinians fumed at Bush’s speech. “It is only for the
Palestinian people to determine who is their leader... and President
Bush must respect the democratic choice of the Palestinian people,”
chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erakat, told CNN Monday, June 24.
“I
cannot find President Bush’s statement acceptable,” Erakat said.
“President
Arafat is the leader of the Palestinian people. He is the president of
the Palestinian people,” he told CNN. “The Palestinian leaders do
not come from Washington.”
“The
real issue is we need is to specify a road map, as the president says,
to end the [Israeli] occupation” of Palestinian territories, he
said.
Erakat
called for a clear timetable for Israel’s withdrawal from all lands
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip seized in the June 1967 war with its
Arab neighbors, plus a resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem.
“We
need to take forward the vision that Bush spoke about in a way that
guarantees the end of the Israeli occupation,” Erakat told AFP.
“The problem is the Israeli occupation, which represents the highest
form of terrorism.”
The
official response from Arafat’s office, however, was measured
politeness. Arafat made no comment on his own fate, and characterized
the speech as “a serious effort to push the peace process
forward.”
Some
in Israel, however, echoed Erakat’s opinion. Israeli daily
newspaper, Ha’aretz, reported that MK Ahmed Tibi, a former Arafat
adviser, told Israel Radio that “Bush’s speech not only doesn’t
lower the level of violence, I assess that it will raise the level of
violence because the Palestinian response will be to increase support
for Yasser Arafat...”
The
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said in a
statement that Bush’s speech to lay out the conditions for
Palestinian statehood was “unbalanced and biased in favor of the
Israeli crimes committed against Palestinians.”
“The
American administration is giving the green light to Ariel Sharon to
liquidate the Palestinian cause,” said the resistance group, whose
leader, Ahmed Saadat, has been imprisoned in the West Bank in
connection with the killing of an extreme right-wing Israeli cabinet
minister last year in retaliation for Israel’s earlier assassination
of PFLP leader Abu Ali Mostafa.
The
group said Bush’s “ideas on a Palestinian state express an
Israeli-American vision which links its creation to the liquidation of
the Intifada,” or the 21-month Palestinian uprising against Israeli
occupation, AFP reported.
“Demanding
a change in the Palestinian leadership constitutes flagrant
interference in our affairs, since the Palestinian people are capable
of electing their leaders,” the group said.
In
his speech, Bush lays out several prerequisites that the Palestinians
must meet in order to create a “provisional” Palestinian state.
The Palestinians, Bush said, must elect a “new and different
Palestinian leadership” and adopt a new constitution with a full
empowered parliament, local-level governments and independent
judiciary; in other words, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat must
go.
The
Palestinians must also implement reforms, including auditing to ensure
what Bush termed as “honest enterprise”. They are also being asked
to undertake an externally supervised overhaul of security and police
forces that can dismantle the so-called “terrorist groups” –
that is, do everything they can to stop resistance to Israeli
occupation.
Meanwhile,
Israel was asked to withdraw its forces to positions it held in the
West Bank September 28, 2000, and to stop building illegal Jewish
settlements on the West Bank and in Gaza. Israel must also restore the
freedom of movement in the Palestinian areas, as well as release
frozen Palestinian revenues into what Bush called as “honest,
accountable hands.”
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| Bush gave
Israel the green light to liquidate the Palestinian cause:
PFLP
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The
Arab states were also given their to-do list. They must build closer
diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel, leading to the “full
normalization of relations between Israel and the entire Arab
world”, stop the flow of money, supplies and recruits to resistance
groups such as the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, Islamic Jihad,
and Hezbollah, and block the shipment of Iranian supplies to these
groups.
Bush
also called on Syria to close so-called “terrorist camps” and
expel so-called “terrorist organizations.”
“George
Bush today, also after this speech, and after months of dealing with
the Middle East, is the most hated person among Palestinians. He is
competing with Ariel Sharon for this title,” Tibi said.
Click
here to read the full text of Bush’s speech
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