Facing a Severe Test of Power, Arafat Cracks Down on Dissent

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, his authority under serious attack, clamped down on dissent Tuesday by shutting schools, banning reporters and deploying well-armed police throughout the towns and refugee camps of the Gaza Strip.

Demonstrations were held nonetheless, with students throwing stones, ransacking police posts and burning tires to protest U.S. strikes against Afghanistan as well as the new Palestinian repression.

But the gun battles and angry arsons of Monday were not repeated. Instead, nervous Palestinian Authority officials attempted to negotiate with the Islamic factions that had whipped up opposition to Arafat’s attempts to side with the West against Osama bin Laden. Several student activists were arrested, Palestinian media reported, and authorities declared a state of emergency throughout the Palestinian-controlled portion of the Gaza Strip.

Islamic militants, students, Palestinian human rights groups and ordinary citizens were furious at what they called the excessive force used Monday by Palestinian police, which led to the slaying of two Palestinians and left one other clinically dead. Dozens more were wounded.

“We are shocked at the way Palestinian police reacted to the demonstration,” said Husam el Nounou, who works for a community mental health clinic in Gaza City. “If in the United States in front of the White House you can protest against war, why not in Gaza?”

Nounou and others employed the language normally reserved for criticizing Israeli tactics. After a year of heavy Palestinian casualties inflicted by Israeli forces, it is exceedingly bitter for Palestinians to face killings of their own by their own.

The family of one of the dead, Haitham abu Shammala, denounced the police shootings as “a crime against the Palestinian community” and demanded that Arafat fire and prosecute Police Chief Ghazi Jabali--or the family would exact revenge.

Monday’s violence began when a march by Islamic students in support of Bin Laden--and against the U.S.-led airstrikes on Afghanistan--turned nasty. Palestinian police opened fire on the demonstrators in an attempt to break up the protest. Street skirmishes lasted throughout the day, ending in rampages through refugee camps and the torching of several Palestinian police stations.

As some Palestinians warned of civil war, others worried that the infighting would, at a minimum, detract from the battle against Israeli occupation and might in effect quash the year-old Palestinian uprising. The clashes vividly illustrated the deepening rift between Arafat’s Palestinian Authority and the increasingly powerful Islamic movement Hamas and other radical factions. The militant groups have fiercely resisted Arafat’s attempts to rein them in and get them to obey various cease-fire orders in the fight with Israel.

But foremost on Arafat’s mind must be how he can curry favor with the United States and keep his seething people at bay. He faces an elusive rival: Bin Laden, a new hero for many on the Palestinian streets.

“Osama bin Laden is fighting for the freedom of nations and peoples, and we the Palestinians are in bad need of freedom,” said Jawad, a bespectacled 35-year-old Gazan fisherman. “For us, he’s a good man.”

With the new clashes--the most violent internal strife in seven years--Arafat faces a dangerous dilemma. He is under pressure from Israel and the U.S. to arrest Islamic militants who have been responsible for most of the suicide bombings targeting Israelis in recent months. And increasingly, he has his own reasons to arrest the militants. But that puts him on a collision course with Hamas and its allies.

Support among many Palestinians for Bin Laden grew after the exiled Saudi militant issued a videotaped message Sunday in which he attempted to link his cause with that of the Palestinian people.

That placed Arafat--who is traveling abroad this week--in a deeper bind, with the Palestinian leadership quickly rejecting Bin Laden’s attempt at association. Arafat is eager to avoid his mistake during the Persian Gulf War, when he sided with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and suffered the consequences of international isolation and loss of financial support from Gulf nations.

The fatalities from Monday’s riots included a 14-year-old boy and Yusuf Akel, a 21-year-old carpenter and veteran of Hamas’ military wing. A 21-year-old law student was left brain dead. Police said masked gunmen were responsible for the killings, a claim contradicted by numerous witness accounts collected by human rights organizations. The Palestinian Authority said it was appointing a commission to investigate how the riots turned deadly.

The Akel family, like the families of the other two victims, had its own thoughts. Family patriarch Mohammed, seated Tuesday outside his home in Gaza’s Nusseirat refugee camp and surrounded by cousins and neighbors, recounted how one of his sons, then 16, was killed by Israelis in the first intifada 10 years ago. Another is wanted by Israelis and Palestinians as a terrorist.

“I am used to bad news,” he said. The family is giving the Palestinian Authority 10 days to execute the killers of Yusuf or the family will kill them, Akel said. As he spoke, several hundred Hamas supporters marched outside his home, demanding blood for blood.

Reporters in Gaza said that Palestinian authorities had warned them not to interview residents about their opinions of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan or support for Bin Laden. Foreign reporters were banned from the Gaza Strip altogether, a first.

Palestinian officials also barred foreign reporters from Nablus, in the West Bank, where Islamic students protested Tuesday.