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Arafat Intends to Make Bethlehem Christmas Visit
RAMALLAH, West Bank,
Dec 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat said Saturday he intends to make his annual Christmas visit to the traditional birthplace of Issa (Jesus) in Bethlehem, with or without approval from Israel.
Israel controls the roads in and out of the West Bank town, and Arafat has been effectively confined to the city of Ramallah since Israel destroyed his main source of transportation, helicopters, at the beginning of the month. The Israeli strike, followed by a tightened cordon around Palestinian towns, came after a Dec. 12 attack by Palestinian activists that killed 10 Israelis traveling on a bus.
"I will go [to Bethlehem] although Israel will not give me coordination," Arafat told a news agency reporter during a meeting on Saturday with Jewish peace activists from the United States. "I will go, even walking.''
Israeli officials have hinted that they will keep Arafat confined to Ramallah until Palestinian security forces arrest four suspects they accuse of involvement in the Oct. 17 "targeted killing" of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, who was shot dead in east Jerusalem. Israel says the suspects fled to the nearby Ramallah area.
"There is a lot of work for him to do in Ramallah," Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for hardline Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Friday. "He has to arrest Zeevi's murderers."
Jordan has, in the past, loaned Arafat a military helicopter to ferry him in and out of Palestinian territory, but Palestinian legislator Hannan Ashrawi, who attended the meeting, said that would also require Israeli approval.
Though the globetrotting Arafat has not left Ramallah in recent weeks. International delegations have been traveling to meet him in the town, just a few miles north of Jerusalem.
Arafat has been going to Bethlehem for Christmas celebrations every year since the town came under Palestinian control in 1995.
Palestinian officials were still trying to resolve the issue with their Israeli counterparts in advance of the Christmas Eve ceremonies on Monday, Ashrawi said.
Israel's Minister without Portfolio, Tzipi Livni, disclosed Saturday that Arafat had not made any formal request to Israel to be allowed to attend Christmas ceremonies in Bethlehem. Livni was speaking in an interview on Israel Radio, quoted by the Ha'aretz daily.
"Arafat has not asked," said Livni, "Why are we bothering with the question of 'what if he asks?'".
"Christmas is in two days. The government of Israel has not received an application from Yasser Arafat. We are not talking about an act of freedom to worship, rather he wants to continue to create a link between the Christian issue and the Palestinian issue. That is one of the factors we will have to weigh, if and when he makes a request," said the minister.
"By the way," added Livni, "I would be happy if he would stop reading those texts from the Qur'an and switch over to the New Testament, he is not a Christian as we know."
Responding to a report that Arafat has said that if he is not granted permission to travel to Bethlehem, he would walk, Livni said, "it is convenient for him that we discuss the issue...he is creating the atmosphere that he is the victim."
There has been mounting speculation in the last few days as to whether Arafat would apply to Israel for permission to attend Christmas Mass in Bethlehem, as he has done every year since 1995, and whether Sharon would accede to his request.
Opposition leader Yossi Sarid, also speaking on Israel Radio, said that "If Israel's response to what Arafat is doing now, is to prevent him from going to Bethlehem on Christmas, that will be another serious mistake."
"He has not requested [permission] because he knows he will be rejected, but if Israel were to announce that they would let him go he would apply," added Sarid
Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, thousands of mourners attended funerals Saturday for six Palestinians. At one point, they formed a human chain to prevent any further outbursts of factional violence, which have gripped Palestinian communities the last two days.
The six separate funerals in and around Gaza City all took place without incident, as Palestinian leaders called for an end to some of the worst Palestinian infighting in years.
Arafat's recent call for an end to attacks against Israel, followed by a crackdown carried out by the Palestinian security forces, led to violence that left seven Palestinians dead and nearly 100 injured on Thursday and Friday.
The Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, announced Friday it was halting attacks inside Israel, including bombings, to help ensure Palestinian unity.
Islamic Jihad, another group that has carried out multiple bombings, distributed leaflets at Saturday's funerals saying it would do its part to preserve Palestinian unity. However, the group has not said explicitly that attacks have been suspended.
"Islamic Jihad desires to work in order to protect the Palestinian national interest,'' Nafez Azzam, one of the group's top leaders, told news agencies on Saturday.
Asked if that meant that bombings against Israel would cease, Azzam said that that was a decision for the group's military wing, but added, "As a politician, I believe we have to work to protect our national unity."
As one of the funeral processions for an Islamic Jihad supporter moved past a police station, members of the group joined hands to form a line and prevent anyone in the crowd from advancing toward the station.
The corpses of Palestinian teenagers wrapped in the flags of resistance groups were carried in the streets, grieving relatives grabbing at the bodies or prayed over them at the mosque.
Saturday's burials were far from ordinary. There was no deafening staccato of gunfire unleashed into the air, no angry cries of revenge against Israel.
The bullets, which killed the six youths in the Gaza Strip, came from Palestinian guns, not Israeli's, after a wild gunbattle between Palestinian police and resistance group supporters on Friday turned into the worst inter-Palestinian fighting since the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994.
Palestinians say the fighting played into the hands of Israel, which they see as benefiting from the destabilization of their society as they fight to oust Israel from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
That is why Palestinian officials and activists agreed, in one of the first such agreements during the uprising, that there would be no police or gunmen at the funerals, and that the youths would be buried in separate convoys to avoid the explosive potential of a single large scale, angry procession.
"We are trying to prevent the situation from declining into sedition. The Israelis would like that," said Osama Ashgar, as he sat glumly in a truck waiting to bury his nephew, Abdel-Karim, shot in the heart in the market on Friday. "Our weapons should not be aimed at our youth. It would be better if the guns were aimed at the Jewish settlements."
"Palestinian blood should not be shed by Palestinians!" shouted mourners through megaphones as crowds took the bodies from the morgue and into the streets.
"This is a day of sadness for all of us," said Hamas activist Ibrahim Salah, standing outside the mosque as mourners inside prayed over Ashgar's body. "But the armed factions agreed to keep from the Palestinian Authority areas."
In a nearby mosque, 67-year-old Hussein al-Khalidi, a resident of the camp, spoke in a circle of elders as they reclined on a mat in the courtyard. "This fighting among Palestinians only hurts us and benefits Israel," he said.
"God forbid we go from fighting a resistance to becoming a second Lebanon," he said.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that with Palestinians pledging to halt attacks, the next move was up to Israel.
Erekat said he told Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in a telephone conversation Friday that he expected Israel to stop its strikes on suspected Palestinian activists and lift its blockade of Palestinian towns and villages.
"The ball now is in the Israeli court to stop all acts of aggression, to stop the policy of assassinations, to lift the closure and to return to the negotiating table," he conveyed.
Peres said Saturday that Israel would carry out strikes against Palestinians suspected of masterminding attacks against Israel. Speaking on Army Radio, Peres said that Israel would hit, "any walking time bombs who are on their way to carrying out terror attacks in Israel."
The Israeli foreign minister added that he was pleased by a Friday statement issued by Hamas in which it said all attacks in Israel would be stopped. However, Peres stated he had adopted a wait and see attitude, saying, "the test is in the results."
The Palestinian cabinet, meeting Friday night in the West Bank town of Ramallah, issued a statement welcoming the Hamas move as an important contribution.
The Hamas announcement was seen as a victory for the beleaguered Arafat, who has been under intense U.S. and European pressure to prevent attacks on Israel.
Hamas said it had ordered attacks in Israel suspended "until further notice" to preserve Palestinian unity. It was the first time Hamas had made such a promise in the 15 months of the Intifadah, or uprising.
However, Hamas's decision only referred to stopping attacks within Israel's borders, not in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, leaving open the possibility of further resistance activity against Jewish settlers and soldiers there.
Israel's reaction was guarded.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have reached an understanding regarding the issue of the Hamas leader, Dr. Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi. Based on the understanding, al-Rantissi will remain under house arrest.
At a meeting held at the home of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Palestinian Authority officials and Hamas representatives agreed that armed Hamas members currently guarding al-Rantissi in his home would be replaced by guards from the Palestinian security forces, who would then place him under house arrest.
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