Arafat Walking a Fraying Tightrope

There is no mourning tent at the Akel family home.

Days after Yusuf Akel, an Islamic militant, was shot dead by Palestinian police during student riots, his family refuses the traditional rituals of receiving condolences until those responsible for his death are brought to justice.

“The killer must be killed,” cousin Iyad Akel said as he sat with other members of the family in plastic chairs lined up along the dirt road outside their home here.

Akel was one of three people killed by Palestinian police in the most serious internal Palestinian strife in years, raising fears of civil war. The violence last week shook this society to its core, laid bare deep anger and handed Yasser Arafat one of his most vexing challenges since establishing the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip and West Bank seven years ago.

Arafat moved quickly to restore order, arresting student leaders, banning or jailing reporters and shutting down troublesome campuses. For the moment, he has managed to paper over the differences--much the way freshly painted graffiti in Gaza City proclaim “Long live Abu Ammar [Arafat], President of Palestine”--and shift the focus of Palestinian wrath back to Israel.

But simmering underneath the calls for national unity is rage that can easily explode again. And it probably will, either because the police shootings go unpunished or because Arafat presses ahead with cracking down on dissent while trying to enforce a cease-fire in the fight with Israel that ultimately undermines the year-old intifada.

Arafat finds himself, once again, trying to maintain a delicate balance. He is under pressure from the U.S. and Israel to rein in Islamic militants responsible for most of the suicide bombings that have killed dozens of Jews in the last year--and he has his own reasons to want to silence them.

But each step he takes inflames a people already in revolt and, as anyone here in the Gaza Strip will tell you, with very little left to lose.

Arafat has faced this dilemma for some time, but the squeeze on him became tighter after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. He has sought to distance himself from Osama bin Laden and global terrorism--especially after the Saudi-born militant publicly embraced the Palestinian cause--as a way to avoid the displeasure of the United States.

No one is predicting that the challenge to Arafat’s authority will translate into a coup. His most potent rivals, the leaders of the extremist movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad, are not interested in ruling--for now. The more probable fallout as Arafat’s authority wanes is generalized chaos and more violence directed against Israel.

Ismail abu Shanab, a leader of Hamas, warned of hazardous long-term political consequences for Arafat and the Palestinian Authority if his people are pushed too far.

“At a time we are asking Palestinians to cease fire, we are opening fire on our own people?” he said incredulously. “It’s ironic.”

Abu Shanab said Hamas is willing to consider a cease-fire as a temporary, tactical move. But the smaller and arguably more radical Islamic Jihad maintains that Arafat is making one mistake on top of another. He made the mistake of siding with Iraq in the Persian Gulf War a decade ago, it says, and now he compounds an error he hoped to rectify by siding with the United States.

“Arafat wants to look credible to the Americans, so he asks us to respect a cease-fire,” Khalel Battsh, a leader of Islamic Jihad, said in an interview near Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp. But Arafat cannot, and should not, ask Palestinians to halt the intifada, he said.

“It’s not in his interest to do so,” Battsh said. “He would lose the most valuable cards in his hands, and people would simply not support him. He would be a big loser. He would lose all Palestinian support, America would not give him anything, and the people will tell him he can no longer govern.”

Not just the Islamists but many Palestinians, as they demand to know why last week’s riots turned deadly, are convinced that Arafat was acting at the behest of the United States in trying to keep a lid on anti-American and pro-Bin Laden demonstrations.

Arafat is behaving “more American than the Americans,” human rights lawyer Raji Sourani said. Sourani said the shootings were “a totally illegal, totally irresponsible, excessive use of force.” Although ordinary Palestinians want to avoid a wider civil war, he said, they are extremely impatient in wanting to hear explanations and see justice.

In the Akel household, there is little hope that justice will be served by the investigative committee that Arafat ordered to be formed.

Mohammed Akel, the father of the dead man, recalled the loss of another son, 14-year-old Issam, in 1989 when he was shot dead by Israeli troops during the first intifada. The killing of a second son by Palestinians, brother killing brother, as he put it, is an incomprehensible and far more painful blow.

Justice for the Akels, most of whom are Hamas supporters, would reach high into Arafat’s inner circle: The Akels and many other families of the demonstrators blame Palestinian Police Chief Ghazi Jabali for the shootings, and they want to see him fired and prosecuted, at the very least.

Jabali is one of Arafat’s closest lieutenants, often charged with doing some of the more dirty work, such as past arrests of Islamic militants. It would be difficult for Arafat to get rid of him.

The Akels were also shocked that Arafat didn’t return to Gaza from abroad when the riots and subsequent violence erupted.

“They want to satisfy America with our blood,” said cousin Iyad, a 27-year-old high school English teacher.

“The more [Arafat] does things against the will of the people, the more [his authority] will go down,” Iyad said. “He chooses America and Israel and the unfair policies against us, or he chooses to support his people. It’s clear enough.”

Imad Faluji, a former Hamas official who now serves in Arafat’s Cabinet as communications minister, said he understands and shares the outrage of the population over the shootings. But he said he and other government officials are trying to make the argument to Palestinians that it is better to put aside internal divisions because Israel will only exploit them.

Faluji also said that the Palestinian Authority has little incentive to maintain a cease-fire if Israel continues with deadly incursions into Palestinian territory and similar tactics.

“We can control our people. We know who everyone is,” he said. “But a cease-fire, while Israel is killing our people, is impossible.”

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s forces have invaded and held on to large Palestinian-ruled parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Hebron in the last two weeks. The Israelis say they are responding to continued Palestinian gunfire. Both President Bush and the State Department in recent days praised Arafat’s attempts at enforcing a cease-fire.

Arafat appears to be banking on new diplomatic initiatives from the United States that would force Israel into negotiations and reward the Palestinians with the independence they are fighting for. Aides to Arafat acknowledge that this is a long shot but say they have few other ways to ameliorate Palestinian discontent.

“We are hoping for some kind of movement; we need something to sell,” said Marwan Kanafani, an advisor to Arafat. “Otherwise, it is very difficult to convince a desperate people.”