RAMALLAH, 22 July 2004 — Deputies added to the chaos and turmoil in the Palestinian leadership yesterday by endorsing calls for a new government to tackle the spiraling security chaos as another official was briefly kidnapped.
A resolution calling on veteran leader Yasser Arafat to accept the resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei was passed 43-4 in the Ramallah-based Parliament.
The vote added another twist to a week of political turmoil, the most serious challenge yet to Arafat’s hold on power, and overshadowed a diplomatic victory for the Palestinians at the UN over Israel’s West Bank wall.
The White House yesterday dismissed the overwhelming UN General Assembly vote to condemn the wall, saying it was not “the appropriate way” to forge Mideast peace.
The assembly voted 150 to six late Tuesday, with 10 abstentions, to endorse a recent nonbinding world court ruling that said the wall was illegal and that parts already built on Palestinian land should be torn down.
“We don’t believe that the UN resolution is the appropriate way to go. The appropriate solution is to follow the road map to get to the political solution,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.
The Palestinian Parliament resolution, based on a report by a specially formed committee of MPs, called for Arafat “to accept the resignation of the current government and the formation of a new government.”
Qorei has already submitted his resignation to Arafat, but the veteran leader, who is overall head of the Palestinian Authority, has refused to accept it.
The state of chaos was rammed home late Tuesday when one of the report’s authors, former Information Minister Nabil Amr, was shot by gunmen in Ramallah.
Amr, who was recovering in hospital yesterday, said he would not be silenced by opponents after what he called an “assassination” attempt.
Qorei condemned the “cowardly attack”, adding in a statement that it was “a direct manifestation of the deep security crisis that rages among our people and leadership.”
A local official was also briefly kidnapped by masked gunmen yesterday in the northern West Bank town of Nablus.
Fadel Asshuli, who is in charge of village affairs in the Nablus area, was freed several hours after being abducted by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
In an almost unprecedented intervention, Damascus-based Khaled Meshaal, the overall leader of Hamas, phoned Arafat yesterday and called for an end to the chaos.
