RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian President Yasser Arafat yesterday accused Israel and the United States of having seized upon last year’s Sept. 11 attacks to lump his Palestinian people’s uprising in with the "war on terror". But in his hourlong address to the Palestinian Parliament here, he performed a delicate balancing act, extending his condolences to the Americans two days ahead of the first anniversary of the attacks in the US.
In his keynote speech, Arafat said he was willing to join the US-led war on terror, if it stayed within international law. "I’d like to tell the whole world and in particular the United States we are fully prepared to participate in any international effort to eradicate that kind of terrorism within the framework of the United Nations and international legitimacy," he said.
But he said Israel had used the opportunity of the attacks to paint the Palestinian resistance, which has included suicide bombings and shooting sprees in Israeli cities, as "terrorism". "The Israeli government manipulated the changes after Sept. 11 in order to brand our struggle terrorist and to cover the reoccupation of our land, while we are victims of terror," he said. "Israel has been buoyed by the American stand and has received support as a result of these attacks," he said.
Arafat condemned Palestinian attacks against civilians but stopped short of calling a halt to them, complaining they had played into the hands of Israel, which he said had pounced on the opportunity to crush the Palestinian Authority in the name of the "war on terror". In a personal jab at George W. Bush, a staunch Sharon ally, Arafat said the US president would be well-advised to "follow what his father started in Madrid", in reference to the conference that marked the launch of the Middle East peace process in 1991.
Arafat also told the deputies he was ready to relinquish his executive power if the Palestinian Legislative Council wanted him to step down. "If you want, you can bring somebody and replace me in the executive power, I wish you’d do it and give me some rest," Arafat said.
On the very day of the Sept. 11 attacks, the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon jumped on the bandwagon of Washington’s "international war on terror". A few days later, evoking a comparison he had made even before the anti-American attacks, Sharon told US Secretary of State Colin Powell: "Everyone has their Bin Laden ... and ours is called Yasser Arafat."
In January, the hawkish Israeli premier also accused Arafat’s Palestinian Authority of being a "major player" in world terrorism networks headed by Iran, after Israel seized a ship full of arms allegedly bound for the Palestinian territories. Sharon’s extreme right-wing government has consistently blamed Arafat for flare-ups in the 23-month intifada. Since Bush was sworn in in January 2001, Sharon has been received at the White House six times, while Arafat — a frequent visitor under Bill Clinton — has not been invited once. (The Independent)
