Word: arafats
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Taking on terror suspects directly, the Israeli government issued an arrest warrant for Palestinian police chief Ghazi Jabali, whom the Israelis accuse of inciting an attack on a Jewish settlement in the West Bank last month. Most ominously, Netanyahu's government warned that if Arafat didn't neutralize activists, Israel would send its forces back into areas now under Palestinian self-rule to do the job. That would be a blatant violation of the Israeli-Palestinian accords. "You're not going to see tanks or columns of soldiers going inside," says a senior Israeli officer in the West Bank...
...pressures on Arafat from outside were not enough, they coincide with the worst domestic scandal of his tenure as Palestinian Authority chief. Last Friday his entire Cabinet resigned after the elected Legislative Council voted to demand that he dissolve his government and appoint a new one within a month. In the past, Arafat has capriciously ignored the council's resolutions, but the charges of abuse of power are badly undercutting his credibility. Says an Arafat aide: "The resolution left Arafat armless. He can't confront the Israeli measures and policies with a corrupt administration and with no public support...
While the resignation of the Cabinet gave Arafat breathing room, there are no easy choices for him when it comes to handling the Islamic militants. Palestinian officials show no great appetite for complying with Israeli and American demands to swoop down on them. Last week in Jericho a senior official counseled Arafat, "We speak and act as if we are puppets manipulated by the Israelis, and the time has come to stop this apologetic policy." Yet Arafat, according to one of his associates, is terrified that the Islamists will carry out more bombings, prompting a dramatic response by Israel that...
...result may be a middle course. The Palestinian Authority made a handful of arrests last week, but Israeli intelligence is not convinced it means business. Says an Israeli official: "Our assessment is that Arafat will cooperate on a small scale, but he has no intention of confronting Hamas right...
...Arafat may not see much to gain by bowing to Israel's demands, since he does not trust Netanyahu to proceed with expanding self-rule in return. Says an Arafat confidant: "He basically thinks nothing is possible with Netanyahu." The feeling, of course, is mutual. Even under the Labor Party, which reached the Oslo accords with Arafat, mutual violations of the provisions were common. But then the two leaderships had a solid relationship, providing a base more valuable than the written documents for peace to grow. Now it's gone...