Palestinians Quash Protests Against U.S.

Moving to silence embarrassing pro-Iraq demonstrations, Palestinian authorities arrested opposition politicians, rounded up journalists and shut down news-gathering operations Friday.

The action was apparently aimed at stopping anti-U.S. protests at a time when Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is improving ties with Washington in an effort to achieve his goal of independence.

The demonstrations supporting Iraq and attacking President Clinton, coming just days after he became the first U.S. president to visit Palestinian territory, pose a dilemma for Arafat. He sided with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and his people are sympathetic to the Iraqis.

However, Arafat needs American friendship.

Yet in the wake of U.S.-led airstrikes against Iraq, the same American flags that Palestinian youths waved to greet Clinton are now being burned in demonstrations throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In Gaza on Friday, Palestinian security forces used guns, batons and tear gas to drive away crowds of young men chanting slogans against Clinton and his decision to bomb Iraq. Several people were hurt, and eight Palestinian journalists covering the rally for foreign news organizations were arrested and their film confiscated.

One of the journalists, a television cameraman, said he was beaten up when he refused to hand over his camera.

The journalists said they were ordered to sign a statement promising not to broadcast or write news harmful to the Palestinian Authority. Some refused, but all were eventually released.

At the same time, four leaders of the opposition Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, including its secretary-general, Jamil Majdalawi, were arrested, the party said in a statement.

The leftist Popular Front, which opposes Arafat’s rapprochement with the United States and his willingness to negotiate with Israel, has been a principal organizer of the demonstrations.

In a recent interview with The Times, Majdalawi condemned Arafat’s penchant for silencing critics and predicted that it will worsen as Arafat curries favor with the U.S.

Later Friday, police shut down the offices of the Associated Press and other news agencies in Gaza, journalists said.

At AP, police sealed the office with tape. No explanations were given, but the move effectively made it impossible to independently broadcast television images out of Gaza.

Palestinian authorities also closed five Palestinian television stations and one radio station after they broadcast pro-Iraqi sentiment.

In Bethlehem’s Manger Square, where three days earlier a warmly welcomed Clinton had sung Christmas carols with Arafat, young Palestinians on Friday shouted “death to Clinton” as they washed pavement stones that they said had been defiled by the U.S. president’s presence. They tied plastic American flags to their shoes in a show of contempt.

Palestinian security briefly detained an Associated Press reporter for photographing the burning of an American flag and released him on condition that he not take pictures of other anti-U.S. actions, the AP said.

Arresting critics is not new for Arafat. Several leaders of the militant Islamic Hamas organization were rounded up after he signed a U.S.-brokered peace accord in October that obliges him to fight terrorism.