The Palestinian conference and Arafat
Palestine, Politics, 8/30/1997

Palestinian Authority leader's national unity talks with radical Palestinian groups last week, in defiance of Israeli protests, shored up domestic support for embattled Palestinian leaderYasser Arafat. Even Arafat's bitter rivals said they were standing by him.

Delegates said the two-day talks, which ended in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Thursday, showed Palestinians had closed ranks behind Arafat in response to Israeli sanctions imposed after a double-suicide bombing in Jerusalem last month.

"The very fact that these people are here in dialogue is the beginning of a united front," Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath said in Ramallah.

Leaders of fundamentalist and radical groups who attended the "national conference to confront challenges" praised Arafat for opposing demands for crackdowns on suspected militants.

But the meeting concluded without resolving deep-seated differences over Arafat's 1993 peace deal with Israel, reports of ministerial corruption and complaints over a "lack of pluralism" under his rule.

Arafat outraged Israeli officials on the first day of talks in Gaza when he publicly embraced Abdelaziz Rantissi, a leading member of the fundamentalist Hamas movement who called for resistance and confrontations against Israel.

Israel says it suspects Hamas was responsible for the July 30 attack that killed 16 people including two suicide bombers. It demanded Arafat round up militants and condemned him when he, instead, hugged the killers of women and children.

Arafat arrested hundreds of suspected militants after a wave of bombings killed scores of Israelis last year but this time he has rejected Israel "dictates" that he does the same.

"This is a conference to support the stand of our people against Israeli and American pressure on the Palestinian Authority to crack down on the infrastructure of Israeli movements," Rantissi told reporters in Gaza.

Hamas, which boycotted the last Palestinian conference in April to protest the detention of its members, could not stay away while Arafat resisted Israeli pressure.

"If they are standing up for our will, our place is here," Rantissi said and added Hamas would never accept Arafat's peace deal with Israel and denied the movement had made a pledge to halt violence against Israel.

In a step aimed at winning over opponents of the peace accord, Arafat told the Gaza conference he had not forgotten the seven-year-Intifada uprising against the Israeli occupation. "All options are open" he said, if talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu break down. But he also reached out to the Israeli leaders, saying "Supporters of peace in Israel, we are with you.²

Palestinian officials stressed Arafat was not calling for violence and said it was Netanyahu, not the Palestinians, who was derailing the peace talks by building settlements on the occupied Arab land and stalling on previously signed accords.

"We are committed to the Oslo agreements. It is the other side who wants to destroy them," said the Palestinian presidency secretary-general, Tayeb Abdel-Rahim replying to demands from the Islamic Jihad representatives that Arafat cancel the peace deal.

Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai said the meetings showed Arafat faced severe internal difficulties.

Given the distress facing him, he is trying within the Palestinian camp to find as wide a common denominator as possible, he said in an interview with the Maariv daily.

But in the end he also knows Hamas is the main threat to the Palestinian Authority. The crisis with Israel and the show of Palestinian solidarity had overshadowed long-standing grievance over Arafat's rule and the troubled peace.

"Every time the peace process stumbles, it is translated into gains for Hamas," Zaid Abu Amr said in Gaza. "Arafat may be genuinely threatened by Netanyahu and his schemes. He needs a lot of support."

Last month Arafat's whole cabinet offered to resign after a committee recommended two ministers stand trial for corruption.

And alongside pledges of support for Arafat's defiance of Israeli pressure, there were countless calls at the Gaza and Ramallah meetings for greater pluralism and accountability in the Palestinian Authority.

But Abu Amr said the meeting, the third gathering of Palestinian factions this year, would not bring about change. "This is a rally, a show of support for Arafat. He is not ready for power sharing."

Previous Stories:
  Israel criticizes Palestinians over national unity meeting   (8/22/1997)
  Jihad, Hamas reiterate attitude against Oslo   (8/21/1997)
  Arafat heads national unity meeting including Hamas   (8/20/1997)

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