OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 30 May — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat hastened reforms yesterday as Israel decided to press ahead with daily incursions into Palestinian areas.
Arafat finally signed a Basic Law, five years after his Parliament adopted the de facto constitution defining his powers. He signed the law into effect late Tuesday, the head of the Palestinian Legal Committee, Abdul Karim Abu Salah, said.
The Basic Law, the constitution defining the powers of Arafat’s executive authority and the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), or Parliament, was passed almost unanimously by the PLC’s 88 members in October 1997. In mid-May Arafat also signed a new law to create an independent judiciary, as part of his promised policy of change. The Palestinians are due to announce a new Cabinet line-up in the coming days, with the number of ministers reduced to around 20 from the current 32.
A senior Israeli official close to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said “there will be frequent raids to stop attackers and shooters,” after a Cabinet session discussed a Palestinian attack on a West Bank settlement on Tuesday that left three Israelis dead. He said the incursions and brief re-occupations of towns had increased since Israel’s massive West Bank campaign last month and were based largely on intelligence extracted from Palestinians caught in that operation.
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post immediately after the attack, the US ambassador to Israel labeled Arafat’s performance in preventing attacks on Israelis as “abysmal”. “Disappointing sounds like too weak a word,” Ambassador Dan Kurtzer told the English-language daily.
A major forum in Arafat’s Fatah movement echoed his calls for an end to attacks inside Israel, saying the bombings harmed the Palestinian struggle for a state.
Meanwhile, the White House said US President George W. Bush will host Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on June 7-8 at Camp David, scene of past efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
