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Israeli Raids on P.A. Resume, Sharon Denies Plans to "Get Rid of Arafat"
JERUSALEM, Dec. 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - As security talks between Palestinians and Israelis got underway Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon denied any plans to get rid of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, following claims by Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit that he does, a spokesmen told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The prime minister has pledged to Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and U.S. President George W. Bush that he will not hurt Arafat personally," Sharon's spokesman said.
Sharon met Maher Thursday in Jerusalem and had talks Sunday in Washington with Bush.
The Turkish prime minister said earlier Friday in Ankara that Sharon "openly expressed," in a telephone conversation with him this week, his intention to "get rid of" Arafat.
"In my telephone conversation with Mr. Sharon the other day, he openly expressed his intention to get rid of Mr. Arafat," Ecevit, whose country is Israel's top regional ally, told a press conference.
Ecevit, who described Arafat as "irreplaceable," said the conversation took place on Tuesday, the same day he sharply rebuked Sharon for "excessive and unjustified" actions against the Palestinian Authority.
His comments triggered immediate denunciation from Arafat's political advisor, Nabil Abu Rudeina, who warned Israel that any attempt to dislodge Arafat was tantamount to "playing with fire".
"The Israeli government is playing with fire," he told AFP in Gaza City, speaking by telephone from the West Bank town of Ramallah.
"Ecevit revealed a very dangerous and premeditated Israeli plot. We strongly warn against any attempt to pursue these Israeli plots, which will only lead to more violence and tension as well as lack of stability," he said.
A poll published Friday by the Israeli daily, Ma'ariv, showed that a crushing majority of Israelis were in favor of moves to eliminate Arafat politically, though another survey in the mainstream Yediot Aharonot indicated that 75% were opposed to his "physical liquidation".
Abu Rudeina criticized the pre-dawn Israeli raid and their timing just after a series of high-profile diplomatic talks Friday involving Israeli, Palestinian, U.S. and Egyptian officials.
"We will hold Israel responsible for undermining American and international peace efforts," Abu Rudeina said, referring to the planned meeting between U.S. peace envoy Anthony Zinni, Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres later Friday.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior said here Friday that Arafat was "irrelevant".
"Arafat has become irrelevant and when he is irrelevant we have to do ourselves what we don't want to do," Melchior said in an attempt to "justify" Israel's deadly attacks on Palestinian resistance activists and the Palestinian Authority.
He told reporters Arafat was engaged in "a ritual of farce" in promising to arrest terrorists and then not holding to his pledge.
"Either Arafat is irrelevant or he is responsible. If he is responsible he has to do what he has taken upon himself to do," Melchior said. "It's not that we want him to be our police. We want him to be his police. This is our absolute demand."
But critics wonder how Israel can demand that Arafat take steps to curb what Israel calls "terrorism" when Israel systematically hinders Arafat's ability to do so by destroying his police stations and headquarters.
Don Peretz, Professor Emeritus of political science at Binghamton University in New York is inclined to think that the recent attacks by Israel on the Palestinian Authority headquarters and the systematic destruction of its police stations were a bid by Sharon to topple the P.A.
"There are some in the Israeli government that specifically want to topple the Palestinian Authority and Yasser Arafat," Peretz told IslamOnline.
The official also insisted that Sharon was not trying to kill Arafat or topple his Palestinian Authority. However, political analysts seem to think that Sharon and his right wing government seem to be intent on doing just that.
"Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and the Labor Party are opposed to toppling the P.A. as it would cause more turmoil in the region. But Sharon's recent attacks on the P.A. probably were a bid to topple it [the P.A.], Peretz further stated.
Meanwhile, Palestinian-Israeli security talks opened Friday in Israel in the presence of representatives from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a spokesman for the Israeli defense ministry told AFP.
Spokesman Yarden Vatikai said the meeting "is taking place somewhere in Israel," without giving a precise location.
Several senior Israeli officials, including the head of the internal security service, Shin Beth, Avi Dichter, were taking part in the talks, he said.
But Israeli military radio said that U.S. peace envoy retired Marine Corps General Anthony C. Zinni was also attending the meeting, which it said was being held in Tel Aviv.
Zinni, who met separately Thursday with Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, has given Palestinian officials a 16-page document outlining ways of dealing with terrorism, the radio said.
The heads of the Palestinian preventative security in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Colonel Jubril Rajub and Mohamed Dahlan respectively, as well intelligence chief Tawfiq Tirawi attended the talks, the radio said.
The meeting was the second of its kind of the top level Israeli-Palestinian security high commission since November 25, before a spate of bombings on Israeli targets drew retaliatory raids on the Palestinian territories.
It came hours after Israel broke a 48-hour lull in attacks on Palestinian targets and launched an air raid on Palestinian police headquarters in Gaza, injuring 18 people and reducing the compound to rubble.
Israel stepped up pressure on the beleaguered Palestinian leader Friday with a devastating attack on a police headquarters and fresh accusations that Arafat is failing to control anti-resistance activists.
A single U.S.-made Israeli F-16 warplane dropped two 1,000-pound (450-kilo) bombs on a police compound in Gaza. Eighteen people were injured and two buildings were reduced to rubble in the air raid, the first after a 48-hour lull in attacks on targets of Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
"The Israelis hit the police headquarters even though we are the ones who are responsible for implementing the Palestinian Authority decision to ceasefire and arrest those who violate it, and keep security," a Palestinian policeman said at the scene.
A 10-year-old boy said his father and brothers were wounded by the flying pieces of debris outside their home two blocks away.
"I heard the explosion; at first I didn't know what it was, but then I knew it was from an Israel bomb," said Abdullah Abu Thuraya.
"I heard my father and my two brothers and another man shouting 'Help us, Help us.' Then I saw my father with blood on his face and hand," he added.
Israeli forces carried out similar raids on Monday and Tuesday.
The air raid raised Palestinian fears that the Palestinian-U.S.-Israeli security meeting was already doomed to collapse.
This concern was heightened by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, who told reporters in Cairo that an urgent peace-seeking mission to Israel he made on Thursday had "failed".
"It is not a secret that talks failed to bring about a convergence of our points of view," Maher told journalists on returning to Cairo Friday.
For his part, Peres said to Israeli public radio, "I told Arafat: you know have a pause. Exploit it in order to re-establish the credibility that is necessary for a resumption of negotiations."
"I don't believe in Arafat. I believe in peace," Peres said, adding that Arafat had acted so far "in a very limited way" and warning that as a result, Israeli attacks will continue.
Israel gave Arafat a 24-hour ultimatum on Wednesday to carry out the arrests or face more attacks, saying the 180 resistance activists Palestinian security officials say they have seized since Saturday are small fry.
Apart from the air raid, which also damaged four other buildings in Gaza City, officials said, Israeli tanks and troops made two incursions near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, arresting several people and searching houses, Palestinian witnesses and security sources told AFP.
But the army failed to catch Issam Abu Daka, a leader of the Damascus-based Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) group, who had already escaped.
Tension also gripped the streets of Gaza City where Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the popular spiritual leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, still remained under house arrest.
Arafat ordered his police Wednesday night to put Yassin under house arrest, triggering clashes between the cleric's supporters and Palestinian security forces in which a Hamas member was killed.
Thousand of mourners attended the funeral Friday of Ahmed Akram Silmi, 22, who was shot in the back when he and around 2,000 other Hamas supporters formed a human shield around Yassin's house to prevent police from moving in.
The beleaguered Palestinian leader meanwhile appealed to Arab countries and the world to come to his rescue, charging that "extremist elements in Israel" want to destroy the Middle East peace process
"I am not asking for the impossible," Arafat told Egyptian state television.
He also blamed his own people for the tension, telling the Arabic daily Al-Hayat that, "All Palestinian organizations and factions must respect the truce."
Asked if he could move around following heavy Israeli air attacks, Arafat said, "It is very difficult; the siege is total."
In addition, a special meeting of Arab League foreign ministers to discuss the Middle East crisis, scheduled for Sunday in Doha, has been postponed, a senior official of the league told AFP without explanation.
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