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Isolating Arafat "Totally Irresponsible": Former Israeli Aide
PARIS, Dec 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - One of the major Israeli architects of the Oslo accords on Saturday condemned his government's policy of seeking to isolate Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, as Israeli occupation forces began withdrawing from the Palestinian-run town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip where tanks and troops had moved overnight, news agencies reported.
In an interview published Saturday in the Paris daily, Le Monde, Yossi Beilin, who served as minister of justice in the Labor government of former prime minister Ehud Barak, said, "It is totally irresponsible and dangerous to the national interest to isolate Arafat."
"It is absurd to imagine finding replacements for Arafat," Beilin continued. "The Israeli government is under an illusion in believing that tomorrow it will find other, more moderate spokesmen than those who are behind Arafat."
Beilin, however, agreed that Israel was left with little choice but to respond after the attacks at the beginning of December.
"But its reaction was not intelligent," he said.
The former minister remarked that over the past weeks the idea was that a U.S.-European coalition would maintain its support for Israel to pressurize Arafat to take on resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Nevertheless, "the current situation is absurd," Beilin remarked. "The international community is calling on Arafat to act against 'Islamic terror', and Israel is destroying his infrastructure, which denies him the means to do just that."
Beilin also denounced statements made in Le Monde Thursday by Israeli Minister of Internal Security Uzi Landau who said that he preferred Hamas to lead the Palestinian Intifada, or uprising against illegal Israeli occupation, rather than Arafat, since that would make the situation "clearer".
"If the Islamists take power among the Palestinians, it will be hell for us in Israel, and for them," Beilin stated.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday condemned Israeli attacks on Palestinians and urged both Israel and the Palestinian Authority to also act to stop violence, Interfax news agency reported.
Russia "does not accept Israel's military operations in the occupied territories," Putin said in a message to Arafat. He also expressed his "deep concern" over the situation.
He condemned Israel's "blockade and bombardment of Palestinian territories, incursions by the armed forces into Palestinian towns and extra-judiciary reprisals".
"The choice of these measures will not solve the problems that have accumulated in Israeli-Palestinian relations," he said.
"It is possible, despite the dramatic nature of the present situation, to redirect events towards a political solution."
Putin said he hoped the Palestinian Authority would for its part "resolutely oppose terrorism".
"People who organize terrorist acts are not only targeting Israel. They are also seeking to undermine the authority of the Palestinian administration's leadership and torpedo the peace process for good," Putin said.
He pleaded for an end to all forms of violence on both sides and urged them to return to efforts to find a political solution to the Middle East conflict.
Such a settlement would have to be based on U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, he added.
Russia "will seek to provide a strong contribution to the achievement of those aims," Putin said.
Meanwhile, Israel began withdrawing from Beit Hanun, where Israeli troops shot and critically injured a Palestinian teenager Saturday amid a massive re-occupation of the West Bank, hospital officials and witnesses said.
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