Sharon Calls Arafat ‘Bitter Enemy’ After Major Arms Seizure

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon held Yasser Arafat personally responsible Sunday for a massive cache of weapons intercepted in the Red Sea, declaring the Palestinian Authority president “a bitter enemy.”

At a news conference in the Red Sea port of Eilat, where the Israelis put the weapons on show, Sharon accused Arafat of attempting to thrust the region into a wider war. He said the arms seizure exposed “the true face” of the Palestinian Authority.

Sharon’s government, at a Cabinet meeting earlier in the day, threatened to take even tougher action against the Palestinian Authority. Formally declaring it an enemy would open up a catalog of potential diplomatic and military reprisals and essentially end all possibility for negotiation in the foreseeable future.

The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, continued to strongly deny any involvement in the 50-ton shipment, and it offered to cooperate in a probe into the weapons’ provenance. Palestinian officials accused Israel of a propaganda trick intended to undermine the mission of U.S. special envoy Anthony C. Zinni--who, despite the arms controversy, ended a four-day visit Sunday on a relatively optimistic note.

“After four days of intensive discussions with Israelis and Palestinians, it is clear that, while serious challenges remain, there are real opportunities for progress,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Sunday in Washington.

Israeli commandos, in an operation dubbed Noah’s Ark, boarded the Karine-A vessel in the Red Sea 300 miles south of Israeli shores Thursday. Israel says the ship belongs to the Palestinian Authority, and the captain and several members of the crew are officers in the Palestinian naval police.

News agency reports from London, however, quoted the Lloyd’s List shipping registry as saying the vessel was owned by an Iraqi.

Israel says most of the weapons, worth millions of dollars, came from Iran, and it has accused the Palestinians of dealing with a state sponsor of terrorism. Iranian officials also have denied involvement in the smuggling operation.

If the cache--which included long-range Katyusha rockets, armor-piercing antitank missiles and C4 explosives--had reached the Palestinians, it would have substantially increased Palestinian firepower. Sharon said Israeli citizens throughout the country would have been exposed to new danger.

“Which is why he [Arafat] made himself irrelevant and into a bitter enemy of Israel,” Sharon said.

Israeli army officials, releasing what they said was a detailed description of how the weapons were procured, said the Iranian-backed Lebanese guerrilla organization Hezbollah helped broker the deal three months ago between Palestinian officials and contacts in Iran. The Israelis were dismissive of reports from Washington that quoted U.S. officials saying the weapons were more likely destined for Hezbollah, not the Palestinian Authority.

The army’s report said the entire purchase was overseen by Arafat’s close aide Fuad Shubaki, who controls numerous Palestinian Authority enterprises in the Gaza Strip. The army officials said the ship’s itinerary included stops in Sudan, Yemen and the Iranian-owned island of Qeys and that it was headed for waters off Gaza, where the materiel was to have been floated ashore in waterproof containers or picked up by smaller boats.

None of this could be independently verified.

“We don’t have any links or relationship with this ship, and this big show Sharon has put on proves that Sharon doesn’t have any real solutions for the problems and big crisis that we are experiencing,” Palestinian Parliamentary Affairs Minister Nabil Amr said.

Israel was clearly interested in using the interception to boost its campaign to discredit and punish Arafat. Israeli authorities flew foreign journalists and diplomats to Eilat for Sharon’s news conference.

Under international pressure, Arafat ordered his people on Dec. 16 to halt attacks on Israelis, and violence has dropped off significantly since. In addition, the Palestinian Authority says it has arrested scores of militants and shut some of the offices used by Islamic radicals.

Early Sunday, Palestinian police swept into a refugee camp near the Palestinian-ruled West Bank town of Jenin and arrested seven members of the Islamic Jihad organization, including one member reportedly on Israel’s most-wanted list. Ali Safouri is accused of responsibility in a shooting attack in the Jordan Valley that killed two Israelis.