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Arafat Calls For January Elections, Israeli Incursions Continue
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| Arafat
told reporters he thought Bush was not referring to him when
he talked about changing the Palestinian leadership |
JERICHO
, June 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Palestinian President
Yasser Arafat threw down a challenge to U.S. President George W. Bush
Wednesday, June 26, calling elections for January 2003, while
Israel
dug in for a long stay in the
West Bank
and prepared incursions into the Gaza Strip.
Chief
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told a press conference Wednesday
in
Jericho
, the only major
West Bank
city not reoccupied by
Israel
, that presidential and legislative elections will be held between
January 10 and 20, and local elections in March 2003, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) said.
He
added that Arafat’s Palestinian Authority was working on a series of
reforms in the judiciary and security services that would be ready in
the coming months.
The
Palestinian leadership called on the G8 summit of industrial powers to
pressure U.S. President George W. Bush for “action and not vision”
on the
Middle East
conflict.
The
call was made by Erakat at the same news conference, as he urged the
G-8 meeting in Canada to try to convince President Bush that “what
Palestinians and Israelis need is action not vision” to resolve the
Middle East crisis. “Vision constitutes no policy.”
Analysts
said Arafat could be confident of few serious political rivals,
putting Bush in a quandary if he is re-elected.
Bush,
in a long-awaited speech Monday, June 24, outlining his strategy for
the troubled
Middle East
, told the Palestinians to vote out leaders “tainted by terror”
and that they could expect
U.S.
support for an independent Palestinian state within three years.
However,
U.S.
strategy was not clear in the case if Arafat did win re-elections.
Secretary
of State Colin Powell said the
United States
hoped that the Palestinian people would not re-elect him but would
respect the results of a free and fair poll.
“We’ll
just have to see how that plays out,” Powell said in an interview
with National Public Radio. “I mean, we will deal with the
circumstances as we find them.”
Erakat
also called on Bush’s fellow leaders in the powerful Group of Eight
(G8), who are skeptical about the U.S. president’s call on
Palestinians to ditch Arafat, to put pressure on him for “action not
vision” at a summit in Canada.
Shortly
after arriving in the secluded
Rockies
resort of Kananaskis, Bush was put on the spot by reporters on an
issue expected to overshadow all others there.
Bush
repeated, “The Palestinians need new leadership, elected
leadership,” and defended
Israel
’s latest military incursion into Palestinian-held lands.
“Everybody
has a right to defend themselves, but all parties must work toward
peace. If they’re interested in peace, they've got to work toward
peace,” he added.
Germany
,
Britain
, the European Union and
Russia
have already publicly distanced themselves from Bush's demand.
Israeli
troops, meanwhile, entered a new
West Bank
town in the
Hebron
district Wednesday, imposing a curfew, after abducting five more
Palestinians overnight.
Soldiers,
backed by several jeeps, moved into Halhul, south of
Hebron
, firing tear gas grenades and rubber bullets, witnesses told AFP.
The
army has taken control of seven out of the eight key
West Bank
cities, including
Hebron
, where curfews have been imposed.
Residents
in the town of
Dura
confirmed the abductions and told AFP one of the captured men was a
Palestinian intelligence officer and the other a member of preventive
security.
Witnesses
also reported intermittent Israeli shooting overnight and well into
the morning at a building in
Hebron
that houses the offices of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority.
There were no reports of injuries.
Israeli
daily newspaper, Ha’aretz, reported that Avi Dichter, head of the
Shin Beth intelligence organization, had persuaded the government to
keep troops deployed in the
West Bank
until the completion of a security barrier separating it from
Israel
, AFP said.
Work
on only the first section of the barrier has begun, and is expected to
take between four and six months to complete.
Israeli
minister without portfolio Danny Naveh said the country’s forces
were in effectively in control of all the autonomous Palestinian
territory in the
West Bank
and would probably be there for a long time.
“They
will stay there as long as is necessary,” he said.
Meanwhile,
Israeli leaders sent mixed signals about planned operations in the
Gaza Strip, newspapers reported.
“We
are not going to get bogged down in the Gaza Strip. From my past
experience I know that area better than anyone, and those who think
the army should go back there understand nothing,” Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon said.
Sharon
was speaking on Tuesday, a day after he told members of his Likud
party that
Israel
was preparing a major operation in
Gaza
against the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas.
On
Monday, an Israeli helicopter attack in the Gaza Strip killed six
people in two cars, including two Hamas members, and wounded 10
others.
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