Anger at Arafat agreeing to attend summit

MEMBERS of the Palestinian legislative Council, the Palestinian Authority and the general populace were critical yesterday of the authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, for agreeing to attend the Washington summit.

Palestinians were particularly angered because the decision was taken in the wake of two confrontational statements made by the Israeli government on Saturday night and yesterday morning.

On Saturday night the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, said he would "never" close the tunnel near the mosque compound in Jerusalem.

And, yesterday morning, Mr Natanyahu's media adviser, Mr David Bar-Illan, said the violence could force the government to "rethink" the plan for Israeli army redeployment in the West Bank town of Hebron - and, perhaps, even to consider disarming the Palestinian police who turned their arms on the Israeli army during the clashes.

These pronouncements, one commentator said, amounted to "a declaration of war" against the Palestinian people and the peace process.

Mr Arafat's acceptance of the summit invitation undermined his own credibility because the authority had made talks conditional on the closure of the tunnel and early implementation of the accord for redeployment in Hebron.

According to a public opinion poll taken in the territories just before the confrontations, 59 per cent of Palestinians said the PLO should freeze negotiations with Israel until it implemented agreements already signed.

Mrs Rawiya Shawa, an independent member of the Palestinian Council and a columnist for alQuds daily, said she did not expect Mr Arafat to go to Washington unless he received assurances that implementation (rather than renegotiation) of the Hebron withdrawal was on the agenda. "The Palestinian leadership and the street are afraid Arafat will go and be put in a corner to proceed under (Israel's) terms." He "will be trapped into signing another agreement" disadvantageous to the people of Hebron.

Dr Mahdi Abdel Hadi, of the Palestine Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, a highly regarded Jerusalem think tank, said Palestinians feared Mr Arafat was not going to lead in the present situation and that it was going to lead him. On the one hand, "Washington has influence on Arafat", but, on the other, "the people are demanding the immediate closure of the tunnel which has become a symbol of the Judaisation of Jerusalem and the crippling of the Palestine Authority's efforts to preserve the status quo in Jerusalem until final status talks are concluded."

Both Mrs Shawa and Dr Abel Hadi warned that Mr Arafat could lose control of the situation if he secured nothing concrete from the summit. Mrs Shawa, a councillor from Gaza City, said he could control Gaza but not the West Bank because the Palestinian towns "are isolated enclaves in Israeli occupied territory". Dr Hadi said many elements were against Mr Arafat for his corruption and inefficiency. The clashes were against Mr Arafat himself as well as the Israelis. "People will not be told what to do and the police (in the West Bank) will not follow instructions" if there was no early change for the better in the Palestinians' desperate situation.