RAMALLAH, West Bank, 21 November 2002 — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said yesterday he was ready to work with the newly elected head of Israel’s Labour Party, Amram Mitzna, to finalize the peace process launched with the late Yitzhak Rabin. "We are ready to work with anybody who is heading the (Labour) party and we stretch our hand for the peace of the brave," Arafat told journalists outside his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah. "I hope Mitzna will follow in the footsteps of Rabin and finish off his work. I am sure he will do it," he said.
"The day after I am elected prime minister, I will begin negotiations with the Palestinians and simultaneously Israel will withdraw from Gaza. There is nothing for us there," Mitzna promised after beating hawkish incumbent Binyamin Ben Eliezer to Labour’s top job. "We will conduct negotiations to come to an agreement with the Palestinians and if not, within a year we will implement a unilateral separation," pledged the Haifa mayor.
Mitzna will challenge either Prime Minister Ariel Sharon or his Likud rival, former premier and current foreign minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the January general elections.
Mitzna has tried to stake out territory as the heir to former Prime Minister Rabin, who signed the 1993 Oslo accords on partial Palestinian self-rule but was assassinated by a right-wing Jewish extremist in 1995.
"We need an Israeli leader who implements the peace process and UN resolutions. This is an internal issue but we are asking Israeli leaders in Likud and Labour to believe in the peace process and push it forward," said Arafat’s top aide Nabil Abu Rudeina. "We are ready to do this with them," he added.
Both the Palestinian Islamic opposition and Netanyahu dismissed Mitzna’s election win. "The real election is not between Labour and Likud, but inside Likud between those who support a Palestinian state and those who don’t," Netanyahu told public radio, downplaying Mitzna’s election. "The members of Likud have to decide if they want to support a Palestinian state that will threaten their security," Netanyahu said. The right-wing foreign minister warned that if he became prime minister he would not form a national unity government "because of Mitzna’s extremist positions".
Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad insisted Mitzna’s ascension to Labor leadership and his prime ministerial challenge made no difference to them. "There is no difference between Mitzna or anyone else, whether it be Sharon or (defeated Labour chief Binyamin) Ben Eliezer," Mohammed Al-Hindi, an Islamic Jihad leader, told AFP.
"We are surprised that the official Palestinian Authority statement welcomed Mitzna’s election. They are forgetting his party’s policies against our people," he added. "Mitzna’s views do not depart from the original Zionist position."
Senior Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantissi expressed similar views. "There is no difference between Mitzna and Sharon. They all carried out massacres against the Palestinians," he said.
The Israeli media questioned whether Mitzna has the mettle to succeed where so many of his predecessors have failed. But most also acknowledge that he truly embodies the Labour alternative that Ben Eliezer did not. (AFP)
