Lawmakers Press Arafat to Let Premier Resign

The Palestinian parliament Wednesday urged President Yasser Arafat to accept his prime minister’s resignation and make way for a new government at a moment of considerable political turmoil.

The parliament approved a resolution pressing the Palestinian Authority leader to end the standoff over Prime Minister Ahmed Korei’s attempt to step down. Korei quit last weekend, citing frustration over rising lawlessness and his government’s lack of control over security forces. But Arafat rejected his resignation, leaving the government mired in uncertainty for days.

The parliament, known as the Palestinian Legislative Council, does not have the power to force a Cabinet changeover in the face of the stalemate. Lawmakers were to meet today to consider steps, including going on strike, aimed at getting Arafat to grant them -- and a new Cabinet -- more clout.

Meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the parliament also called on the president to bring calm to the Gaza Strip, where violence erupted last weekend over Arafat’s choice of his cousin to head the security forces there.

Arafat, meanwhile, ordered police to investigate a shooting that wounded a West Bank legislator Tuesday night.

The lawmaker, Nabil Amr, a member of the dominant Fatah movement who has urged Arafat to reform the Palestinian Authority government, was hit twice in the leg by shots fired from outside his home in Ramallah, Palestinian authorities said.

Police said three masked gunmen were involved. There were no arrests, and authorities gave no motive for the shooting.

Amr called for calm shortly before being taken by ambulance to Jordan for more medical treatment. “I don’t accuse anyone,” he said.

Amr served as information minister under Korei’s predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas, who served as prime minister for four months but quit after failing to get Arafat to make changes. Previously, Amr was a Cabinet minister under Arafat, but resigned in 2002 after joining demands for reform that went nowhere.

Amr suggested that the shooting might have been an attempt to muzzle him. He was attacked after returning from a television interview in which he called for changes.

The incident came amid rare challenges to Arafat, including the Gaza Strip unrest ignited when the president named his cousin, Moussa Arafat, as the local security chief.

To critics, the cousin embodied a pattern of cronyism and corruption among Yasser Arafat’s longtime associates that has spurred younger Fatah members to urge reform of the decade-old Palestinian Authority. During the protests, armed militants stormed two facilities under Moussa Arafat’s command, leaving at least 18 people injured.

The Palestinian Authority president sought to quiet dissent by naming a military general Monday to oversee the security forces in the Gaza Strip and West Bank -- a post outranking that of Moussa Arafat. Since then, there have been no more clashes.

In a separate incident Wednesday, an official in the governor’s office in the West Bank city of Nablus was abducted by gunmen but released unharmed a few hours later. Fadal Shouli was neither a senior official nor well known, and the motive for his abduction remained unclear.

In another development, Israel brushed aside a United Nations resolution condemning the separation barrier it is building in the West Bank, saying it would push ahead with construction.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry denounced the nonbinding resolution, passed Tuesday by the General Assembly, that demanded Israel tear down the barrier to comply with a world court ruling that found it illegal. Voting in favor were 150 nations; the U.S. and five other countries voted against the measure. Ten nations abstained.

“The real action must be taken not in New York, but in Gaza and Ramallah -- meaning fighting against terrorism,” said Lior Ben-Dor, a ministry spokesman.

Israel maintains that the barrier is needed to keep out suicide bombers and credits completed portions with helping to reduce attacks originating in the West Bank.

The government had already rejected the July 9 nonbinding ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague that said the barrier, which extends deeply into the West Bank in places, inhibited Palestinians’ freedom of movement and amounted to an annexation of land.

The 437-mile project, consisting of wire fences, concrete walls, trenches and watchtowers, is about one-third completed.

Israeli officials have said they will abide by a decision of Israel’s Supreme Court last month that concluded a portion of the divider violated the rights of Palestinians. In response, the Defense Ministry has begun drawing up possible alternative routes for unbuilt sections.

Special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah contributed to this report.