Israel Insists a Sidelined Arafat Is Still in the Way

Amid a flaring crisis in Palestinian leadership, Israel renewed its demands Saturday for a diplomatic freeze -- and the possible removal -- of Yasser Arafat.

Traveling to Britain to meet with Prime Minister Tony Blair, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon described himself as a backer of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas -- and renewed his familiar calls for Arafat’s isolation.

Back in Jerusalem, a senior Israeli administration source said Israel has complained to the United States that Arafat had tampered with the peace negotiations and has asked that the Palestinian Authority president’s “role and status” be reexamined.

“Arafat still controls the larger part of their armed forces and part of the money, and he has got all those telephone calls from leaders, mostly from Europe,” Sharon told London’s Daily Telegraph in an interview published Saturday. “Every act of this nature only postpones progress. Most European countries are doing that. They are undermining” Abbas.

But in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where Arafat has been stuck for months in the bombed-out remnants of his sprawling compound, a Palestinian spokesman dismissed Israel’s campaign against Arafat as “provocative and inciteful.”

Palestinian Authority Information Minister Nabil Amr said that if Sharon is keen to nurture Abbas, the Israeli leader should set some of thousands of Palestinian prisoners loose. “He can help by action on the ground, not by telling the world to boycott Arafat,” Amr said.

Israeli calls to oust Arafat are not new -- but Abbas’ political woes give them a new rationale. Sharon used to say that Arafat had to be isolated because he was in charge of terrorist attacks against Israelis. These days, Sharon says Arafat must be abandoned because he’s hindering Abbas.

The threat of deportation has long laced Israel’s anger with Arafat, who it believes has financed and ordered attacks on Israelis. But officials have stopped short of deportation, reasoning that exile would only strengthen Arafat by boosting his freedom of movement and public sympathy.

While Israel blamed Arafat’s interference, the U.S.-backed “road map” to peace remained stalled. Gunfights flared in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, wounding two Palestinians, and an Israeli cabdriver was feared kidnapped when his taxi turned up empty, engine on, in a village near Jerusalem.

Negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians have spun off into wrangling over which side must make the next sacrifice -- and Palestinian infighting, personified by visible tensions between Abbas and Arafat, threatens to undo a fragile truce. Egyptian mediators were headed for Ramallah on Saturday in hopes of mending the deepening splits in Arafat’s Fatah faction.

Pushed into power by the United States and Israel, the reclusive Abbas started out with scant street support, and his status soon sank even lower. Analysts say that he carries the taint of foreign meddling and that his failure to force stiffer concessions from Israel has frustrated his followers.

While enthusiasm for Abbas erodes, Arafat still sits firmly at the head of the Palestinian Authority. Last year, in the thickest fighting of the 33-month-old intifada, Israeli officials habitually wrote Arafat off as “the no-longer-relevant chairman.”

Ironically, it is the crowning of Abbas that has thrown Arafat’s enduring clout into sharp relief. Framed images of Arafat still loom everywhere, from government offices to the roadside tents of Gaza policemen.

When Palestinian Authority leaders tell the tales of their negotiations, it is clear that Arafat is still in charge of the government, including Abbas. Arafat gives permission for meetings, approves Abbas’ stances on key issues and ratifies internal agreements.

Last year, the United States joined Israel in its Arafat boycott. But most European leaders have bristled against cutting out the man who remains the elected leader of the Palestinian people. To Israel’s vexation, European leaders still make their way to Ramallah to see Arafat.

“Abu Mazen needs help, and that doesn’t just mean releasing prisoners,” Sharon advisor Raanan Gissin said Saturday, using Abbas’ nom de guerre. “It’s releasing Abu Mazen from the grip of Arafat.”

In fact, analysts say, any damage to Arafat would probably only sink Abbas deeper into ineffectiveness. Sharon is using the Palestinian political rift to wound Arafat, his longtime nemesis, said George Giacaman, director of the Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy.

Like many Palestinians, Giacaman believes that Abbas is hobbled by Israel’s reluctance to free prisoners and withdraw more soldiers from the West Bank.

The call to release Palestinian prisoners has proved a sticking point. Protesters took to the streets of Gaza this weekend, demanding freedom for thousands of people they consider political prisoners. Militant Palestinian factions have said they will abandon their cease-fire if the prisoners aren’t freed.

“Abu Mazen can fail simply because Sharon isn’t letting him succeed,” Giacaman said.