Arafat Vows to Combat Terrorism

While Israelis debated how to dispose of him, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, desperate to stave off another round of military punishment, said Wednesday that he was ordering his forces to put a halt to terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.

Arafat announced the new orders in a brief, somber television address even as a furious Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon planned retaliation for a suicide bombing Tuesday night that killed 15 Israelis at a pool hall. Arafat called on the U.S. government for protection.

Sharon cut short a trip to the United States after news of the latest Palestinian attack reached him, and rushed home to a late-night emergency meeting of his security Cabinet. Early today, the group gave Sharon and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer power to execute reprisals on “terrorist targets.” No further details were offered, but the two officials will have broad latitude to decide what actions to take.

In Washington, President Bush declared that “whatever response Israel decides to take, my hope, of course, is that the prime minister keeps his vision of peace in mind.”

Among options discussed by the security Cabinet were expelling Arafat and unleashing a massive assault on the Gaza Strip, which remained relatively unscathed during Israel’s recent invasion of Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank.

The densely populated Gaza is the home base of Hamas, the radical Islamic organization that claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack as well as dozens of others, including the Passover bombing in March that was the deadliest yet. A Hamas leader vowed to continue the carnage and, ominously, to defy Arafat.

“Hamas will continue to resist occupation everywhere, any time, regardless of the condemnation even from the Palestinian Authority,” said Abdulaziz Rantisi.

But in a hopeful sign, there were reports in Bethlehem that a 5-week-long siege of the Church of the Nativity was set to end today. As outlined, a deal reached by negotiators would allow more than 100 Palestinians and international activists to leave the church immediately, with safe passage abroad for 13 Palestinian fighters wanted by Israel.

Tuesday’s bombing in Rishon Le Zion, a sprawling bedroom community just south of Tel Aviv, shattered newly revived U.S. efforts to push Israel and the Palestinians into negotiations and signaled another escalation in bloodshed that has claimed more than 2,000 lives since September 2000. The suicide bombing came as Israelis were beginning to believe with relief that the army’s offensive had succeeded in impairing the Palestinian capacity to attack, and as Palestinians were beginning to believe--also with relief--that perhaps the devastating operation was over.

On Wednesday, another potential suicide bomber detonated his explosives prematurely near an intersection in northern Israel, injuring himself. Fearing that the man was still lethal, Israeli sappers used a robot to drag him, writhing, across a road for inspection.

Aides to the Israeli prime minister said Sharon would not order Arafat’s removal from the region just yet. Unable to bring the Bush administration on board in a plan to expel Arafat, Sharon is instead indicating that he would favor pushing the Palestinian leader out of power and away from influence without necessarily removing him physically.

Sharon has made the elimination of Arafat a condition to his pursuit of a political settlement to the conflict and the negotiation of an eventual Palestinian state.

The Bush administration continues to view Arafat as the chosen leader of the Palestinian people and does not want to see him harmed physically, a likely outcome if Israeli forces try to seize him. At the same time, Bush supports broad reforms to convert the Palestinian Authority into a more democratic and transparent government. The reforms, in theory, would eventually limit Arafat’s power and usher in a new generation of leaders.

But pressure on Sharon to take fierce action was intense.

“It is very possible that in the end, there will be no choice and it will be necessary to expel Arafat,” Education Minister Limor Livnat, a conservative who was traveling with Sharon, told reporters.

Cabinet Minister Shlomo Benizri of the Shas Party agreed. “Arafat smells his end,” he said.

But the more moderate foreign minister, Shimon Peres, cautioned against rash action that would bring more trouble. He said the idea was foolish. Fellow Labor Party politician Yossi Beilin, a former justice minister, said the plan would backfire by delivering Islamic fundamentalists into power.

“If Arafat is exiled, he will turn into a Dalai Lama,” Beilin told Israeli radio. “If he is killed, he will turn into a Che Guevara.”

At Arafat’s compound in Ramallah on Wednesday, the mood was tense and glum. Workers were still repairing the ruins after Israel’s 34-day siege on the facility, which ended last week. They were adding more sandbags to the windows in an attempt to fend off any invading forces.

“They [the Israelis] can do anything to us,” Maj. Gen. Ribhi Arafat, a top security official, said with a shrug. “All the doors are open to them. Anything is possible.”

A group of Israeli and foreign political activists that arrived said its members were there to “shield” the Palestinian leader from attack.

“We are doing what we can to protect him,” said Uri Avnery, a veteran left-wing Israeli activist who visited Arafat when the Palestinian leader was under siege in Beirut in 1982. “We don’t know how effective” the action will be, Avnery said.

Arafat’s televised statement was directed at least in part to U.S. and European officials, who have repeatedly demanded that he take a tougher stand against militants who kill civilians. He is also under growing pressure from Palestinians to streamline, rebuild and reform his administration. Corruption, inefficiency and other long-standing ills were only exacerbated in the current conflict.

Speaking in Arabic, Arafat asserted his position as leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the president of the Palestinian Authority, and reiterated his “full commitment” to join the “U.S. administration and the international community in their war against terrorism.”

He said he had ordered all Palestinian security forces to “confront and prevent all terror attacks against Israeli civilians from any Palestinian side or parties.” At the same time, he ordered the security forces to “confront any aggression or attack on Palestinian civilians” by Israeli soldiers or Jewish settlers.

The words likely rang hollow for most Israelis because they don’t believe that Arafat has acted adequately to combat terrorism. Bush labeled the statement “incredibly positive.”

Still, it is unclear how effective Arafat’s security services will be at this stage. Many have been hit hard by Israeli attacks that often target police or their stations. Israel has accused the police of participating or fostering terrorist acts.

“I call on the U.S. government, President Bush and the international community to provide the support and needed protection for the Palestinian security forces, whose infrastructure has been destroyed by the Israeli occupation,” Arafat said, “so that they can carry out and implement their orders and their missions and duties to completely stop any terror attempt targeting Israeli civilians or Palestinian civilians and to prevent using terror as a political way to achieve their goals.”

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Washington contributed to this report.