Arafat Picks New Premier

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat on Sunday picked Ahmed Korei, the speaker of the Palestinian parliament and a key architect of the Oslo peace accords, as the new prime minister, replacing Mahmoud Abbas, who had quit the day before after a drawn-out power struggle.

In moving swiftly to settle the succession question, Arafat may be seeking to lessen the likelihood of Israeli reprisal for his role in ousting Abbas. Several senior Israeli politicians, including Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, renewed calls Sunday for Arafat to be expelled from the Palestinian territories, citing what they described as his destructive effect on peace efforts.

If he agrees to accept the post, Korei would have up to five weeks to form a Cabinet, and would then need to present his government to lawmakers for their approval.

Abbas’ resignation was a blow to the Bush administration and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and it was not yet known whether the rapid installation of a figure like Korei, a well-respected moderate whose views on the peace process are very similar to those of Abbas, would serve to mollify them.

Both the United States and Israel had regarded Abbas as a crucial party in the U.S.-backed peace initiative known as the “road map,” and both have refused to have anything to do with Arafat. Israel already has said it would not negotiate with a new government dominated directly or indirectly by the Palestinian Authority president.

The State Department had no immediate comment, but earlier Sunday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that whoever takes over as Palestinian Authority prime minister “has to have political authority and the determination to go after terrorism.

“If that person does not make a solid commitment to follow the road map, go after terrorism and stop these terrorist attacks, then it’s not clear that we’ll be able to move forward,” Powell said on ABC’s “This Week.”

An Israeli government spokesman refused to address the question of whether Israel would agree to have dealings with Korei, saying it would be premature to comment until the terms under which he was to serve became clear.

*

The choice of Korei was first announced by Arafat to a general gathering of his Fatah faction early Sunday evening, then endorsed hours later by the policymaking bodies of both Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization, meeting in closed-door sessions.

Arafat “has designated Ahmed Korei as prime minister and received the unanimous approval” of the ruling bodies, his aide Nabil abu Rudaineh told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah -- in effect making the nomination official.

Korei, who is also known as Abu Alaa, did not immediately say whether he would be willing to take the job but raised no objections when Arafat proposed him as the nominee, according to accounts by several Palestinian officials who were present at the Fatah meeting.

“He has no choice,” said Abbas Zaki, a member of Fatah’s policymaking Central Committee. “It’s his duty.”

At 65, Korei has a long history of cordial relations with Israeli officials. He was a participant in the secret, back-channel talks between Israel and the Palestinians in the early 1990s that culminated in the landmark Oslo interim peace accords. He has participated in almost all major Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations that have taken place since then.

“He’s a very capable person, very astute,” said Ron Pundak, who served as an Israeli negotiator for the 1993 Oslo pact and became well acquainted with Korei. “And his temperament is different than Abbas’ -- he is a bit more of a fighter, more able to stand up for himself.”

Even so, there was no guarantee that Korei would not face the same pitfalls that drove Abbas from office after a tenure of only four months -- most of those obstacles stemming from the lack of a power base separate from Arafat.

In contrast to Arafat, who is respected among Palestinians as a symbol of their struggle for statehood, Abbas had almost no popular following. Neither does Korei, who has kept a relatively low public profile despite serving as parliament speaker since 1996.

And Arafat has given no sign of relenting on the issue that finally drove Abbas to break with him in frustration -- his continuing control over much of the Palestinian security apparatus.

Still, Korei has shown himself to be more politically adept than the uncharismatic Abbas.

As the squabbling between Arafat and Abbas intensified and the two stopped talking altogether, Korei served as a go-between. But several Palestinian officials said that, even as he tried to paper over the rift, he sent signals to Arafat that he would be willing to step in as prime minister if the two could not come to terms.

*

As Palestinians focused on their political drama, Sharon’s government was weathering fallout from a failed attempt to wipe out the entire top leadership of the Islamic militant group Hamas, including its founder and spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, by dropping a quarter-ton bomb on the Gaza City building where they were meeting.

In the face of criticism at home and abroad, Sharon was unrepentant. He told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot in an interview published Sunday that all Hamas leaders -- including Yassin, who is half-blind, ailing and almost completely paralyzed -- are “dead men.”

“It’s them or us,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “We won’t give them a moment’s rest. We will continue to pursue them because they have only one goal: the destruction of Israel.”

Over the past three weeks, Israel has killed more than a dozen Hamas leaders and operatives, following the group’s claim of responsibility for a bus bombing in Jerusalem on Aug. 19 that killed 22 people along with the bomber.

In the wake of the failed strike, Israel was on extremely high alert against suicide bombings and other attacks. Amid dozens of intelligence warnings of attempted attacks, the Palestinian territories were closed off, and Israel’s police and army were placed on a state of readiness next to that of wartime.

Israeli policymakers and commentators were divided over whether going after Yassin had taken Israel’s campaign against Hamas a step too far. Although the aging cleric escaped with only minor wounds, the reaction in the Gaza Strip was one of unabated fury.

Thousands of chanting young Palestinian men turned out for fiery rallies denouncing Sharon. And Hamas warned that “the gates of hell have been opened” for all Israelis.

“Failures of the air force are usually criticized, but perhaps this time failure should be welcomed,” military and political commentator Hemi Shalev wrote in the Maariv newspaper. “Even dyed-in-the-wool advocates of eliminating the leadership of Hamas -- and it is fair to assume that that includes most of the public in Israel -- are incapable of estimating the magnitude of the earthquake that would have ensued had Sheik Ahmed Yassin been blown to pieces in Gaza.”

The Bush administration too criticized the Israeli airstrike, though not as forcefully as it has condemned similar operations that resulted in civilian deaths. No one was killed in Saturday’s strike.

“We are always saying to our Israeli colleagues, ‘You have to consider the consequences of such actions, and are you creating more Hamas killers in the future by actions such as this?’ ” Powell said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

In Israel, though, even some of Sharon’s political opponents defended him for taking the opportunity to strike at Yassin. “This was an attempt to assassinate the man who makes the decisions,” said former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a leader of the opposition Labor Party. “This man gathered all the Hamas leaders to continue the suicide attacks.”

Israeli military sources said Sharon, a lifelong military man, had personally made the decision to employ a relatively small bomb rather than using a larger weapon to pulverize the building. Israel came under heavy criticism when it dropped a one-ton bomb on the apartment of a Hamas leader last summer, killing him and 14 others, including a number of children.

There was no sign of any letup in the Israeli offensive against Hamas. Late Sunday, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at the home of a Hamas operative in the town of Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza Strip, but he was not home at the time. At least 15 bystanders were reported injured.

Hours before Arafat named Korei to succeed Abbas, the former prime minister had ruled out rescinding his decision to quit. “My resignation is final,” he told reporters in Ramallah on Sunday afternoon.

Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, had complained bitterly about being undercut not only by Israel but by fellow Palestinians, including partisans of Arafat and the Palestinian militant groups. Once his departure was finalized, many lawmakers conceded that he had in fact been handed an impossible task.

“It’s as though Abu Mazen was sent into the desert,” said Palestinian lawmaker Kadoura Fares, “and everybody was angry at him because he didn’t return with fish.”

*

Special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah contributed to this report.

*

(Begin Text of Infobox)

Profile

Ahmed Korei, 65, popularly known as Abu Alaa, was picked Sunday to replace Mahmoud Abbas as the Palestinian Authority prime minister.

* Korei has been speaker of the Palestinian legislature since 1996.

* He comes from a wealthy family and joined the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

* He was a key negotiator in secret talks with Israelis in Oslo that led to 1993 interim peace deals, which set the stage for the creation of the Palestinian Authority.

Source: Reuters