Thousands Cheer for Arafat in Gaza

Yasser Arafat said he welcomes a U.S.-backed call for an immediate cease-fire with Israel, but stopped short of committing to steps the Palestinians would be required to take ahead of such a truce -- including declaring an unequivocal end to violence and arresting suspected militants.

In a speech marking the anniversary of the 1965 launching of his Fatah group, Arafat also suggested that growing tensions over Iraq could make the Palestinians more vulnerable to Israeli military offensives because world attention would be focused elsewhere.

In Gaza City, tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered in the main square to mark the anniversary, with participants chanting “Arafat! Arafat!” as his speech was played over loudspeakers.

The Palestinian leader spoke to legislators and supporters at his sandbagged compound in the town of Ramallah, to which he has been confined for a year by Israel. Israel accuses him of doing nothing to rein in Palestinian militias and even encouraging bombings and shootings.

Raanan Gissin, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, dismissed Arafat’s speech as more deception. “Arafat has constructed throughout the years an empire of terror and a kingdom of lies,” Gissin said.

In Jerusalem today, Israel’s election commission voted to bar an Arab party and its leader, an outspoken supporter of Palestinian statehood, from running in the Jan. 28 general election.

The panel, whose decision is subject to Supreme Court approval, acted on the advice of Israel’s attorney general, who had accused lawmaker Azmi Bishara and his Balad party of opposing Israel’s existence and backing “terror” groups.

Bishara, a member of parliament who mounted a bid for prime minister in 1999, was the second Israeli Arab legislator to be banned in as many days. In contrast, an ex-leader of the outlawed Jewish Kach group is being allowed to run.

Ahead of the elections, Sharon on Tuesday fired a deputy minister to contain damage from a party corruption scandal.

Sharon fired Naomi Blumenthal, deputy minister of infrastructure and a longtime member of parliament from Sharon’s Likud Party, for refusing to answer police questions about alleged misdeeds in the selection of Likud candidates for parliament, said Sharon campaign spokesman Lior Chorev.

The list was picked in a Dec. 8 vote by the 2,940-strong Likud Central Committee, and police have been investigating charges of payoffs, bribery and other corruption in the process.