JENIN, West Bank, 17 November 2004 — Palestinian group Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said yesterday it is opposed to Mahmoud Abbas being elected president of the Palestinian Authority to replace Yasser Arafat and would instead back jailed West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti.
“We do not support Abu Mazen for the election and we have decided to vote for Marwan Barghouti to be our candidate for president,” a spokesman told AFP using Abbas’ nom-de-guerre.
Abbas, the new PLO leader, is expected to be formally named as the candidate for the Jan. 9 election for the mainstream Fatah party that he co-founded with Arafat, of which Al-Aqsa is an armed offshoot.
Sources within the organization said that the decision had been made during a phone conference on Monday night with leaders of different cells throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
However one of the most prominent members of the organization, Zakaria Zubeidi, stopped short of formally endorsing Barghouti. “Since the (September 2000) start of the intifada we have not made any political statements,” he told AFP. “Whoever is the president we will respect that.”
A poll conducted last month said Barghouti was the second most popular choice for Palestinian Authority president behind Arafat.
Fadwa Barghouti has said her husband — widely regarded as the inspiration behind the Palestinian intifada — was the “strongest candidate” for the presidency, but that his bid would depend on Fatah.
Zubeidi also said the movement would not turn in their weapons unless the leadership that replaces Arafat guaranteed it would continue pursuing Palestinian demands.
Zubeidi said theses demands included the establishment of a Palestinian state and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes abandoned in the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war.
In another development, Palestinian lawmakers said yesterday they would propose amending election law in one of the first signs of reform since the death of President Arafat, often accused of blocking change.
Legislators said the proposal would alter the way lawmakers are elected.
The changes aim to reduce clan loyalties, boost the importance of political parties and draw in opposition groups that boycotted the 1996 general election, including Islamists.
“We will want to change our system,” lawmaker Hassan Khreishah told Reuters. “We want to make ourselves dependent on political parties and not on persons.”
Lawmakers said the Palestinian Parliament would discuss the proposal starting next week, possibly on Sunday, and added it was part of long demanded political reforms. No decision was expected for several months, but some lawmakers expected the pace of reforms to speed up.
Israel Threatens Military Reprisals
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom hinted yesterday at military reprisals in Lebanon after rockets were fired across the border in an attack claimed by a group named after a slain Hezbollah militant.
“Israel cannot keep its arms folded as if nothing has happened. That is why we must seriously study our political response. On the military front, we will react in a time and manner that seems appropriate to us,” he told army radio.
A little-known group that Israeli military sources says is apparently made up of Palestinians with ties to Lebanese Hezbollah claimed Monday’s attack, in which one Katyusha rocket hit an Israeli town and another landed at sea.
Israeli officials said the attack may have been an attempt to cause a “provocation” on Israel’s northern border after the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, the symbol of his people’s fight for statehood, at a French hospital last week.
Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim said: “We must not have an excessive reaction ... We have to be measured.”
Israel has often retaliated with airstrikes against Hezbollah, responsible for most of the sporadic cross-border rocket and artillery fire since Israeli forces ended a 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.
Following Monday’s attack, which caused no damage or casualties, Israel lodged a formal protest with the United Nations and demanded that the Lebanese government take control of its border to prevent further rocket fire.
A group calling itself the Martyr Ghaleb Awali Group said it carried out the attack and a similar one last month and vowed to keep up its rocket fire into Israel.
The group is named for a Hezbollah official killed in a Beirut bombing in July that Hezbollah blamed on Israel. Lebanese security sources insisted, however, the group was not itself linked to Hezbollah. A Hezbollah spokesman declined comment.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz cited Israeli security sources suggesting that Palestinians from refugee camps in Lebanon, backed by Hezbollah, could have been behind the rocket attack. But a Palestine Liberation Organization official denied this.
