Word: arafats
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...Bush Administration doesn't want to play along. A Jordanian official told TIME that Arafat asked Jordan's King Abdullah to implore the U.S. to reopen the lines of communication that it severed last year in response to Arafat's failure to crack down on militant Palestinian groups. But at a press conference with the King last Thursday, Bush dismissed Arafat as a potential partner and blamed him for sabotaging peace efforts by undermining Abbas. "That's why we're now stalled," Bush said...
...Arafat's aides acknowledge that he did indeed subvert Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, who was once Arafat's first lieutenant. "He felt that Abu Mazen was going to take his crown," says a senior Arafat aide. Arafat exploited Palestinian anger at Israeli military operations in the occupied territories to cast Abbas as a tool of Israel. For Abbas, the final straw came in early September when Fatah militants confronted him as he entered the offices of the Palestinian Legislative Council and accused him of treason. A shaken Abbas resigned the next day. An aide says he plans...
Actually, it's both. The show of public support for Arafat has clearly fueled his vigor. When a group of top security officials began squabbling at a recent meeting at the Muqata'a, Arafat exploded. According to one participant, he barked, "Get out! I don't need you. The masses are outside, and I need only the masses." At another meeting attended by Qurei and other party leaders last week, an insider relates, Arafat angrily rebuked critics of his proposal to create a 23-person national-security council that would control all Palestinian security forces and answer...
Many top Palestinian officials believe Arafat's strategy is to eviscerate all credible alternatives to his leadership, leaving the U.S. no choice but to prod Israel to resume peace talks with him. U.S. and Israeli officials say they have no interest in giving Arafat another chance. Palestinian insiders think it is unlikely that Qurei, a former peace negotiator and longtime ally of Arafat's, will try to emerge as an alternative to him. "Qurei is no one's man," says Abdul Jawad Saleh, an independent member of the Legislative Council, "but as long as Arafat is in power...
...recalls a conversation with Qurei earlier this year. "Imagine we were to walk out of this room and announce to the Palestinian people that we had concluded an agreement but that there would be concessions on the Palestinian side," Qurei told Beilin. "The people would stone us. But if Arafat were to go out and say the same thing, people would applaud him." For now, however, Arafat seems too enthralled with the plaudits he's getting for obstinacy to even contemplate compromise. --With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Ramallah