OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 9 November 2003 — Palestinian President Yasser Arafat came out the winner yesterday after weeks of bitter political infighting with his prime minister, keeping his grip on security forces and putting a handpicked confidant in the post of interior minister.
The agreement clears the way for the formation of a government in the coming days and the resumption of high-level talks with Israel.
Arafat and Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei met yesterday with top officials from the ruling Fatah movement to finalize agreement over control of eight security branches and the makeup of a new Cabinet. With the arrangement, an intense power struggle and weeks of political limbo appeared close to an end. “I hope we will finish forming (the Cabinet) in the next couple of days,” Arafat said. “We will announce it as soon as possible.”
Arafat came out the clear winner, maintaining his ultimate hold on security forces by placing them under the command of a 12-member national security council that he chairs. Qorei had demanded that those forces be put under the control of an interior minister.
Arafat, too, rejected the prime minister’s choice for interior minister and placed his own confidant, Hakam Balawi, in that position. Pushing Qorei hard in the deal, Arafat appears set even to reject a last face-saving consolation for his prime minister, who sought to have his rejected pick for the interior minister, Gen. Nasser Yousef, stay in the government as a deputy prime minister. Arafat is resisting.
The compromise is sure to upset US officials, who, along with Israel, have sought to isolate Arafat and whittle away at his authority. The previous prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, walked off the job after just four months, also after failing to wrest security forces from Arafat’s control.
“This is an internal Palestinian matter. What we want to see is a strategic decision to curb terrorism,” an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said, referring to a Palestinian crackdown on militants mandated by the US-backed road map.
Like other Palestinian officials, Qorei has ruled out such action, saying it could spark civil war. But he has sought to loosen Arafat’s exclusive security control, a standoff that held up formation of a permanent Palestinian government after the 30-day mandate of a emergency cabinet expired this week.
With the political standoff nearing resolution, Qorei could announce the makeup of the Cabinet by today, officials said. “They worked out the major issues and the small details will be worked out in the coming hours,” Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rudeinah said. The Palestinian parliament could be called in to confirm the new Cabinet within the next three days, he said.
Meanwhile, about 300 Israelis and Palestinians protested Israel’s construction of a security barrier that dips deep across its frontier with the West Bank. Israel says the series of fences, walls, trenches and razor wire is meant to protect Israeli cities from bombers. The Palestinians condemn it as an attempt to seize wide swaths of land they want for a future state.
Protesters near a section of the barrier under construction east of Jerusalem climbed ladders to spray-paint graffiti on tall concrete slabs near the barrier. A woman wrote, “No Walls,” in black paint.
