Arafat admits mistakes

Author: 
By Phil Reeves
Publication Date: 
Thu, 2002-05-16 03:00

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 16 May — Yasser Arafat moved to improve his badly tarnished position on the world stage yesterday by announcing his intention to reform the Palestinian Authority and to hold elections, although without saying when.

In a move also intended to bolster his diminishing popularity among his own people, he admitted making mistakes during the intifada, and reiterated his commitment to the one goal that unifies his people — the creation of a Palestinian state.

His comments came in a televised speech made before the Palestinian Legislative Council, the quasi-parliament, in Ramallah. The timing is a measure of the mood of popular dissatisfaction among the Palestinians, including his mainstream Fatah movement, deepened greatly by his handling of Israel’s recent military offensive.

His performance — which coincided with the annual Nakba day, when Palestinians mourn the creation of Israel in 1948 — was received by Palestinian legislators in silence, interrupted only by mild applause.

“Matters have been going in the wrong direction as a result of the Israeli government’s attitude,’’ the bespectacled Arafat said. “Our internal situation after the recent Israeli attacks needs a comprehensive review of all aspects of our life.’’

He called for “speedy preparations’’ to hold elections and restructure the Palestinian Authority to “fulfill the principle of a separation of powers,” and made a fresh appeal for an end to attacks on Israeli civilians.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana told the European Parliament that Arafat had told him he planned to hold legislative and local council polls by the autumn. Palestinian parliamentary Speaker Ahmed Korei said he expected the municipal elections before the end of this year and elections to the legislature at the start of next year.

Arafat also took personal responsibility for highly unpopular deals that ended the sieges at his offices and Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity by the Israeli Army. “I am fully responsible — do not blame anyone but myself. But whatever happened, happened based on international guarantees,” he told the assembled deputies.

His words were welcomed abroad. The White House said US President George W. Bush was looking for deeds from Arafat to follow his pledges. “Yasser Arafat’s words are positive. What is important, and what the president will wait to see, is whether there is any action,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters. A European Commission spokesman said Palestinian elections “would be a very welcome development” if they were held reasonably quickly and were fully democratic.

At home Palestinians called for action. Lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi said pledges were not enough. “What he (Arafat) did was present a statement of intent about the need to address these issues,” she told CNN. “But instead of taking actual concrete steps or presenting us with a work plan, he said ‘why don’t you discuss these issues and see what can be done’,” said Ashrawi.

“The Palestinian people need to see immediate effective concrete steps that would translate this statement of intent into seriousness and implementation,” she said.

The two main Islamic movements — Hamas and Islamic Jihad — called for a drastic reform of the system. “We are in favor of radical reforms, not simply of form, and of the creation of an enlarged national leadership that will take all Palestinian decisions” the Hamas leader in Gaza City, Ismail Abu Shanab, said. Islamic Jihad’s Nafed Azzam also said the authority needed “fundamental reforms at all levels”.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian civilian was killed by Israeli tank fire last night in the town of Deir El-Balah in the Gaza Strip. Mohsen Al-Atrash, 23, was unarmed when he was killed by a tank shell near the central Gaza Strip Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom, a Palestinian source said.

In the morning, Israeli troops backed by four tanks and an armored bulldozer, pushed 200 meters into a Palestinian controlled sector of the Gaza Strip and destroyed three houses, Palestinian security sources said.

At the Mawasi checkpoint near Rafah, three Palestinian women were injured by Israelis who fired live rounds at them.

(The Independent & Agencies)

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