Arafat Yields, Pares Cabinet

Under tremendous pressure from the international community--not to mention from his own people--to make some gesture of reform, beleaguered Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Sunday announced a leaner, slightly redesigned Cabinet.

The announcement in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority president is based, came as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrived in Washington for his sixth meeting with President Bush on the intractable Mideast conflict. Bush has yet to invite Arafat to the White House.

Hours after the Palestinian leader shuffled his government, his headquarters compound was ringed by Israeli soldiers, tanks and bulldozers. The army stormed into Ramallah a few hours before sunrise today, clapped the city, suburbs and refugee camps under a tight curfew and rounded up suspected militants. Army spokesmen said the blockade around Arafat’s compound was meant to keep fleeing radicals from hiding within.

One Palestinian, 31-year-old Yasser Sawalha, was reported killed. Arafat remained unharmed within the remaining walls of his compound, most of which was demolished by Israeli dynamite and bulldozers last week.

Amid growing complaints of corruption and autocracy, the Palestinian leader Sunday cut the number of ministers from 31 to 21. He also placed a pair of relative political outsiders in charge of finance and security, two of the most important--and scrutinized--limbs of the Palestinian Authority.

Otherwise, the changes were light-handed. In a season when the cry for deep, systematic Palestinian reform has sounded from international meetings to the markets of the West Bank, Arafat’s moves were roundly dismissed as superficial tweaks.

“I don’t think it’s the change people are asking for,” acknowledged Jihad Wazir, a deputy minister and the son of an assassinated Palestinian military leader. “It’s not so much a reform as a readjustment. But it’s one step.”

In the most striking move, economist Salam Fayyad was named finance minister. The choice of the former International Monetary Fund representative appeared to be an attempt to counter the accusations of corruption and financial mismanagement that have dogged the Palestinian government. Israeli officials have long accused it of funneling cash and guns to radical groups.

Arafat also named the Palestinian Authority’s first interior minister, retired military commander Abdel Razak Yehiyeh. The expected appointment of the 73-year-old Yehiyeh had been raising eyebrows since word of his likely new job title leaked out last week. He trained in Syria, worked most of his career with an exiled army in Jordan and still spends much of his time outside the Palestinian territories, tending to his ailing wife.

In theory, Yehiyeh will be charged with reforming the Palestinian security forces--a change that the United States and Israel have urgently sought. But the choice of the aging soldier was generally understood as an indication that Arafat has no intention of relinquishing control.

Yehiyeh “comes from the outside, but he knows how to take orders,” Palestinian political scientist Khalil Shikaki said.

The new Cabinet will steer the government until January, when Palestinians will have the first chance in seven years to vote in presidential and parliamentary elections, Arafat spokesman Yasser Abed-Rabbo noted.

Abed-Rabbo’s remarks came at a moment of intense Israeli indignation: Last week, 17 Israeli bus passengers burned to death in a suicide bombing engineered by Palestinian militants. Before sunrise the next day, Israeli troops had stormed to Arafat’s headquarters, demolished almost all of the buildings and shelled his bathroom.

On Sunday, Palestinian police in Gaza City arrested Sheik Abdullah Shami, a leader of the radical Islamic Jihad organization, which claimed responsibility for the bombing. But it was unclear whether his arrest signaled the start of a crackdown on militants.

Moreover, Shami has been arrested by Palestinian police--and released--on several occasions. He has spoken out recently against Arafat’s authority.

All told, this is a low moment for the Palestinian leader. According to polls, his approval rating among Palestinians stood at about 35% three weeks ago. Two years ago, before the peace process gave way to renegade attacks and Israeli army occupation, he was backed by nearly half of his people. And in 1996, his popularity hit 75%.

“Palestinians want clean government. They want somebody to clarify what the intifada is all about, bring back the negotiations with Israel and put an end to the occupation,” Shikaki said. “Arafat lacks leadership at a time of extreme need, and people are angry with him. Even when forced to move, he tries as much as possible to make cosmetic changes.”

It’s been 20 months since the peace process fell apart, and the violence has been escalating, with bombings, sieges and funerals succeeding one another at a brutal pace.

Inflamed by a continuing spate of attacks on Jewish civilians, Israel has insisted that the Palestinian government tame its radical groups and reinvent itself through profound reforms--preferably without Arafat. Otherwise, Israel says, there will be no peace talks.

Sharon reiterated that position Sunday in an article on the op-ed page of the New York Times, asserting that an “elementary commitment to permanently renouncing violence in the resolution of political differences has un- fortunately not been kept by the present Palestinian leadership.”

In the meantime, Palestinians have watched their villages and towns endure weeks of harsh curfews, house-to-house searches and interrogations. The Israeli army has clamped down so hard on the West Bank that its economy has all but ground to a halt, and moving from one town to the next is often impossible for Palestinians.

On Sunday, Israeli television commentators smirked and rolled their eyes when they spoke of Arafat’s changes. Politicians were openly scornful.

“We’re skeptical. We’ve seen so-called reforms before,” said Arie Mekel, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry. “At the end, it’s the same thing: Arafat running things in the most totalitarian way.”

If the Israelis were unimpressed, they weren’t alone. Mahmoud Zahar, a leader of the radical Islamic movement Hamas, scoffed at Arafat’s Cabinet reshuffle.

Along with Islamic Jihad, the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas refused invitations to join the Cabinet.

“Nothing will happen” with the new Cabinet, Zahar said. “Even a minor change won’t happen.”

The Palestinian people are grappling desperately--and without guidance--to come up with a workable political philosophy, Zahar said. International complaints about Palestinian security, he said, do not address the issue of whether the military police ought to protect Israelis from militant attacks, protect Palestinians from Israeli sieges or strive for the former in hopes of achieving the latter.

Zahar ticked off his complaints about the Palestinian government: corruption, the forfeiture of land, a flawed justice system.

“We were hoping for a real reform. We’ve been waiting for it,” he said. “The people are not looking to be controlled by one idea or one man. It’s not enough to appoint this minister or that.”

Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report.