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Arafat Under "Humiliating" Ultimatum for Christmas Mass, Vatican Criticizes
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Dec. 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israel told Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Monday to jail those responsible for the death of an Israeli cabinet minister by midnight (5 p.m. EST) or miss Christmas Mass in Bethlehem, in an ongoing war of nerves between Arafat and Israel's hardline Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
An Arab Gulf newspaper said Monday that Israel has embarked on a strategy of humiliating Arafat by banning him from attending midnight mass in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.
Despite defiant cries and appeals to the international community and the Vatican for help, the chances of Arafat making his traditional appearance at the midnight service at the birthplace of Issa (Jesus) dimmed, sparking anger in the Arab world, news agencies reported.
"Israel is punishing not only Arafat, but all Palestinians," the Emirati daily newspaper,
Al-Khaleej, said Monday.
"It goes beyond humiliation to give the impression that it is the Hebrew state which decides the personal activity of the Palestinian leader," it added under the headline, "Facing up to the strategy of humiliation."
But Arafat has vowed to attend the mass, as he has done every year since 1995.
In Beirut, meanwhile, Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa said Monday that Israel's "aggressive" policy was threatening to set the Middle East on fire, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"Israel's threats and aggressive policy will cause a big fire in the Middle East," he said on his arrival in Lebanon for a day-long visit to discuss preparations for the Arab summit due to be held in Beirut March 25-26.
"The foreign military occupation which prevents President Yasser Arafat from going to Bethlehem is obstructing a return to normal life for Palestinian people," he said.
Israeli government officials, quoted on Israeli public radio, said early Monday that Arafat could only attend the service if he jails those responsible for the death of hawkish Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi. Israel claims the killers are in still in Ramallah.
The radio quoted senior officials close to Sharon as accusing Arafat's Palestinian Authority of protecting two of the men who shot Ze'evi in the head in an East Jerusalem hotel on October 17.
Israel also wants Arafat to arrest Ahmad Saadat, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which said it killed Ze'evi in revenge for Israel's assassination of its own leader.
The Vatican, on Monday, criticized as "arbitrary" the Israeli decision to prevent Arafat from attending Christmas services in Bethlehem.
Vatican representatives have undertaken diplomatic steps to "help create a less tension-filled climate in the region," said Vatican spokesman Joaquim Navarro-Valls.
"A diplomatic demarche has been made by the state secretariat to prevent this ban imposed arbitrarily," he said.
In the meantime, Israeli military roadblocks were reinforced around Ramallah, where Arafat has been trapped for the past three weeks by Israel, and officers trained in handling sensitive situations were sent to man the posts.
In a related story, Sunday night's Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem were muted as violence overshadowed what was meant to be a joyful occasion, the day regarded by Christians as the 2,000th anniversary of Jesus's birth in the West Bank town, reported BBC's online news service.
Religious celebrations went ahead as planned, with Christians attending midnight mass in the church marking the place where Jesus is believed to have been born. The annual Christmas procession by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, on Sunday afternoon was conducted without music.
And the traditional open-air concerts and firework displays were cancelled, and Christmas lights kept to a minimum.
"It is a sad Christmas this year because of the absence of peace in the city of peace and joy," said Bethlehem's Mayor, Hanna Nasser.
One foreign visitor bemoaned the lack of Christmas spirit in Bethlehem in the Jubilee year. "It's Christmas because we know it's Christmas, not because we can feel it," she said. "They are mourning their dead and wounded," BBC reported Monday.
Bethlehem and its surrounding villages have been the scene of particularly fierce battles between Israeli occupation forces and Palestinian resistance activists.
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