Deal Reached on Palestinian Cabinet Picks

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and his appointed prime minister reached agreement Wednesday on a new Cabinet that sets the stage for the release of the anticipated U.S.-backed peace plan that envisions Palestinian statehood by 2005.

The last-minute compromise between Arafat and Prime Minister-designate Mahmoud Abbas put reformers in some key posts but apparently left many Arafat loyalists in place.

Abbas would retain the influential Interior Ministry for himself and install an Arafat critic, Mohammed Dahlan, as head of security services -- a crucial portfolio for curbing Palestinian violence and getting peace talks with Israel back on track.

But Arafat, the grand old man of Palestinian politics, is likely to enjoy continued support from those who are expected to keep their jobs when the complete 24-minister roster is announced. The new lineup could be ratified by Palestinian lawmakers as soon as this weekend.

With the theatricality for which he is known, a beaming Arafat used the meeting room of his nearly demolished headquarters to announce that he and Abbas had ended their standoff.

His hands clutched those of an impassive Abbas and Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who had been dispatched by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to help get Arafat and Abbas talking after several days of hostile silence.

Foreign pressure -- virtually all of it applied to Arafat -- appeared instrumental in bringing the crisis to a timely, if untidy, end just hours before the deadline for the formation of a Cabinet on Wednesday night.

In recent days, phone calls from diplomats and leaders around the globe poured in to Arafat’s compound telling him to compromise with Abbas, who also uses the name Abu Mazen. Abbas is seen as a moderate with the support of the U.S. and the European Union, two of the four sponsors of the peace initiative, known as the “road map.”

The Bush administration insisted that a new Cabinet be named before it would publicize the road map, which calls for concessions from Palestinians and Israelis en route to an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said President Bush was pleased by the reported agreement. When the Cabinet is formally approved, “we will officially provide the road map to the parties soon thereafter,” Fleischer said. “The president has said ‘soon,’ and he means soon.”

The road map, Fleischer said, is a set document, but the parties are expected to contribute to its final form. “In the end, (it) is up to the Israelis and the Palestinians to work together on agreement about the terms of the road map to make meaningful progress.”

The State Department has said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will travel to the region in early May to promote the road map.

Confirmation of the Palestinian Cabinet, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, will be “an important step” toward creating the new Palestinian leadership that Bush called for in a speech in June.

“Our view is that it’s important to create new institutions and new leadership,” Boucher said. “We have throughout this process maintained that the prime minister needs to have control over the Cabinet ... he and his government need to be able to carry out the steps that are required to produce security for Palestinians, to get control and stop the violence, to produce (a) transparent financial system.”

Whether the composition of the new Cabinet will satisfy U.S. and Israeli demands that Arafat be sidelined remains to be seen.

Although Abbas won a few key changes, the current minister of planning, Nabil Shaath, suggested that many of the faces in the Cabinet would be holdovers from Arafat’s old lineup.

“The basic elements remain as they are,” Shaath said in a news briefing with reporters. Shaath will stay on as the new foreign minister.

Ehud Olmert, an Israeli Cabinet minister, was cautious.

“One should judge the deeds and not the declarations,” Olmert told CNN. “We have to wait and see if the new Cabinet will, in fact, be sworn in and how it will act, taking into account Arafat’s staunch resistance to it and his capacity to undermine any process of reform.”

The standoff between Arafat and Abbas was a power struggle between an increasingly isolated but still supreme leader reluctant to cede any standing and a potential rival who threatened to quit as prime minister unless he was vested with meaningful authority.

Abbas was adamant that Dahlan, a onetime security chief in the Gaza Strip, oversee Palestinian security services.

Dahlan earned kudos for cracking down on Palestinian militias in Gaza, and Abbas needs someone he can trust to realize the toughest element of his agenda: ending Palestinian suicide attacks after 2 1/2 years of a bloody uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The radical group Hamas, which has claimed responsibility for many of the suicide bombings, warned Abbas against a crackdown.

Early today, a suspected suicide bomber blew himself up at a train station in the town of Kfar Sava, north of Tel Aviv, as commuters began heading to work. Israeli television reported that a bystander also was killed and 10 people were hurt in the blast, five of them with moderate to serious injuries.

The bomber apparently detonated his explosives when an Israeli security guard stopped him from entering the station, a link between Tel Aviv and its suburbs, during morning rush hour, Israeli media said.

During the Cabinet negotiations, Arafat was adamant in his opposition to Dahlan, whom he booted from the top echelon of Palestinian politics last year.

Analysts said Arafat’s opposition to Dahlan stemmed from more than just bad blood. There was also fear that if Abbas and Dahlan succeeded in resuming peace talks and paving the way to Palestinian statehood, Arafat would lose much of the credit and glory for fulfilling a cause for which he believes himself synonymous.

On Wednesday, Arafat offered up three alternatives to Dahlan, Israeli radio reported. But in the end, he caved in to pressure from Suleiman, the Egyptian intelligence official, whose country’s support is vital to Arafat.

Arafat managed to save some face by preventing Dahlan from being named outright as the new interior minister, a senior post with responsibility for security. Instead, Abbas will hang on to the job himself, with Dahlan as more of a junior minister in charge of security affairs.

Arafat was also reportedly given guarantees for his personal safety as well as assurances that he be consulted in major decisions.

Still, the inclusion of Dahlan in the Cabinet was a major concession. In the Palestinian power constellation, the interior and finance ministries are the two major vehicles for exerting control and dispensing patronage.

Now, Arafat will no longer rule the security roost absolutely, and even though the new finance minister, Salam Fayad, is an Arafat-appointed incumbent, Fayad is seen as a tough-minded official capable of reining in the rampant corruption that has plagued the Palestinian Authority and enriched many of its senior leaders.

Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian lawmaker and respected voice on Palestinian affairs, said that Arafat -- while still the undisputed No. 1 leader to most Palestinians -- suffered a significant loss of standing in the ministerial shakeup and the political tussle preceding it.

“He had to fight, he had to struggle to maintain a few of his men in place. He was under tremendous pressure,” Ashrawi said. “I see him as a classic Greek tragic hero, with all his fatal flaws but also being forced to make decisions that have negative repercussions either way.”

Although Abbas enjoys the support of foreign governments, he did little over the last few weeks to cultivate a popular mandate among his own people that might have enabled him to stand up more firmly to Arafat.

Reform-minded members of parliament blamed Abbas for giving away too much too early, offering from the outset to keep on certain Arafat cronies despite their brushes with corruption scandals.

But he remained unmovable over Dahlan’s appointment. Known for having a short fuse, Abbas stormed out of a meeting with Arafat last Saturday night and had no more contact with the man who picked him for the prime minister’s job until Wednesday.

Aides said he was ready to submit his resignation if he did not get his way, and Arafat was said to be looking for a possible replacement.

The impasse and escalating brinksmanship sparked a flurry of diplomatic calls on Arafat -- from Western and Arab nations -- to climb down from his position.

Among those who telephoned were Mubarak; King Abdullah II of Jordan; Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister; and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Arafat reportedly slammed down the phone on an EU diplomat who told him that Abbas would be the only prime minister the EU could accept.

Originally, Abbas had until midnight Tuesday to name his Cabinet. But when it became evident that more time was needed, Palestinian officials revised their interpretation of the law to allow an extra day before the clock ran out.

On Wednesday, the visit by Suleiman signaled that the endgame had arrived. His hard-line message to Arafat was described as: Work with Abbas or face the withdrawal of the last vestiges of Western and Egyptian support and go it alone.

After dropping in on Arafat early in the afternoon, Suleiman left in his black Mercedes-Benz to fetch Abbas. Workers began bringing in trays of sweets and drinks to Arafat’s compound in anticipation of a reconciliation lunch and an announcement to the assembled news media.

But when Suleiman returned alone, concern rose that negotiations had collapsed. Suleiman then left again for Abbas’ office, but this time, about 5 p.m., he came back with what one onlooker called “the bride.”

In spite of Arafat’s smiles and his hands clasped in Abbas’ and Suleiman’s, many believe that rough times and more power struggles lie ahead.

“It’s not going to be smooth sailing, I can tell you,” said Ashrawi, who compared the compromise to childbirth rather than marriage. “Already this has been a very difficult period of delivery, and I don’t know if the baby will grow up smoothly. It’s going to be tough.”

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Times staff writer Edwin Chen contributed to this report.