Arafat Allies Pack Korei’s New Cabinet

Palestinian lawmakers approved a new Cabinet crowded with loyalists of Yasser Arafat on Wednesday, amid cautious hopes that Prime Minister Ahmed Korei might revive peace talks with Israel.

Korei struggled for two months to put together a lineup that would be acceptable to Palestinian Authority President Arafat and members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Although several lawmakers criticized the list as weighed down by holdovers from the old guard, the Cabinet was approved by a 48-13 vote, with five abstentions.

Outlining his agenda, Korei pledged to end the “chaos” plaguing Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where armed factions compete for supremacy and basic services rarely work because of corruption, Israeli military actions and other problems. Korei also declared himself ready to resume negotiations with Israel to get the Mideast peace plan known as the road map back on track.

“I extend my hand to you sincerely to begin serious and immediate action for a mutual cease-fire to halt the bloodshed and stop violence,” Korei said in a speech before the Palestinian parliament -- not in its own headquarters but in the half-destroyed Ramallah compound where Arafat has been confined for nearly two years.

The location was a subtle reminder of who remains the ultimate arbiter of Palestinian politics, in spite of Israeli and American attempts to marginalize him.

Before Korei spoke, Arafat delivered an address to the lawmakers, mixing conciliatory statements on Israel’s right to exist with angry denunciations of its restrictions on Palestinians and its threats to “remove” him.

“My life has been threatened daily, day and night, by the government of Israel,” Arafat said, looking fitter than he has in recent weeks, when a serious illness prompted speculation that he was near death.

“The government of Israel is spreading rumors, lies, that we do not want peace with the state of Israel,” he continued. “I would like to tell the Israeli people ... we will not go back on this recognition of the right of the Israeli people to live in security, peace and stability side by side with the Palestinian people in a free and independent Palestinian state.”

He added that “the time has come for us to get out of this spiral, this destructive war, that will not bring security to you or to us.”

Arafat then swore in the new Cabinet.

Israel was cautious in its response to the new government but promised to judge Korei according to his actions.

Although the Israeli government originally dismissed Korei as an Arafat yes man when he was appointed two months ago, it has lately issued more moderate statements.

“We would like to open and have a positive dialogue with the Abu Alaa government,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled said, referring to another name used by Korei. “We are waiting to see the action plan of the government, and if we see that Abu Alaa is serious about his intentions to fight terrorism and to curb the violence, then he will find in Israel a serious and forthcoming partner.”

The Bush administration, too, has said it would give Korei a chance regardless of his close ties to Arafat, who in effect orchestrated the Cabinet lineup Korei presented Wednesday. Nineteen of the 24 ministers belong to Arafat’s Fatah faction.

Several lawmakers complained that too many of the inner circle were holdovers from previous governments who were unwilling to reform the Palestinian Authority. Yet some critics said they would vote to approve the Cabinet in view of the Palestinians’ dire situation.

Although officials expressed relief at finally having a government, there was none of the fanfare that surrounded the installation of the previous Cabinet, which was headed by Mahmoud Abbas. He resigned in September after four months in office, complaining of contemptuous treatment by both Arafat and Israel.

Abbas’ government had swept in amid giddy expectations that it would implement the peace plan, leading to a provisional Palestinian state by the end of this year.

But the collapse of a truce originally called by militant groups, Israel’s tough response to suicide bombings and the failure by either side to meet basic obligations of the peace plan left talks a shambles by midsummer.

Korei’s turn in office has been far more muted. He is pushing a relatively modest agenda focused on bringing feuding factions to some kind of consensus, opposing a security barrier Israel is building in the West Bank, and proposing a new cease-fire. But the prime minister has ruled out confronting and disarming militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, even though the peace plan requires him to do so.

Korei also has shown little stomach for openly challenging his boss, instead giving in after some hand-wringing to nearly all of Arafat’s demands, including keeping security forces directly under the Palestinian president’s control. The U.S. and Israel have insisted that someone else take the reins.

Nevertheless, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Wednesday that the Jewish state was still planning to make limited gestures of goodwill toward Korei’s government by easing harsh restrictions on the movement of people and goods in the economically devastated West Bank.

Whether Israel will address one of the Palestinians’ biggest grievances, the proliferation of Jewish settlements on occupied land, remains to be seen.

Under the peace plan, Israel is obligated to dismantle all settlement outposts erected since March 2001 and freeze expansion of older ones. But new outposts continue to spring up and are even given a degree of support by the state, which establishes schools and provides other public services.

A secret Israeli government memorandum acknowledged the failure to live up to commitments to dismantle the outposts, the Reuters news agency reported Wednesday.

“Our claim that Israel has fulfilled its side of the road map is seen as lacking credibility, because not only have we not evacuated the illegal outposts, we are working in every way to whitewash their existence and build more,” the memo reportedly says.

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Maher Abukhater in The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau contributed to this report.