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The plan to exile Arafat awaits the green light from the Israeli leadership
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OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, October 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Israeli
occupation army has carried out a practice run of an operation to
exile Palestinian President Yasser Arafat from the Palestinian
territories and has even prepared a secret final destination for the
Palestinian leader.
Israeli
forces simulated the seizure of the Palestinian President, whose
now-battered presidential headquarters were besieged for 10 days last
month, and dispatch at speed to an unnamed foreign country, the
Israeli daily newspaper, Maariv, reported Thursday, October 3, adding
only that neither Jordan nor Lebanon was to be the destination.
The
plan could be executed very rapidly if the Israeli leadership gave the
green light for a banishment, the paper said.
The
operation would deploy helicopters and aides close to Arafat could
also be bundled off into exile with their President.
After
the latest siege of Arafat's Ramallah compound and the harsh reaction
of Washington and the international community, which forced Israel to
back off, the extradition plan had been put on ice "until further
notice or until the American operation in Iraq is completed –
whichever comes first," the paper said.
The
plan had been fine-tuned at the request of far-right Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon and Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben
Eliezer.
Israeli
hardliners have long been calling for Arafat's expulsion, accusing him
of responsibility for retaliatory Palestinian resistance attacks on
Israel.
The
Israeli government decided Sunday, September 29, to relax the siege
clamped on President Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters, but kept forces
in the area to ensure besieged Palestinian Authority and security men
inside do not go free.
The
decision, taken in a meeting between Sharon, Ben Eliezer, Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres and chief of staff General Moshe Yaalon, was
prompted by heavy pressure from Washington to lift the siege in line
with a U.N. resolution.
The
Bush administration pressed Sharon to apply U.N. Security Council
resolution 1435 calling for an immediate lifting of the blockade on
Arafat’s headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The
U.S. eyed Israel's continued refusal to implement the resolution as
damaging to U.S. efforts to muster support for an attack on Iraq.
