Arafat is not immune if terror continues
There are no plans to kill Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat "tomorrow," but if his support for terror continues, he is not immune, a senior diplomatic official said. He was responding to criticism of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's threat that – following the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin – Arafat may be next.
Sharon, in interviews with the Hebrew press that will be published in full on Monday and are part of his campaign to garner support in the Likud for his disengagement plan, hinted that both Arafat and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah should be concerned about their safety.
Asked by Ha'aretz whether Arafat and Nasrallah are targets for assassination, Sharon said: "I wouldn't suggest that either of them feel immune... Anyone who kills a Jew or harms an Israeli citizen or sends people to kill Jews is a marked man. Period."
To Ma'ariv, he said that Arafat does not have an "insurance policy... today, everyone knows Arafat is the obstacle [blocking] any progress. As long as he is around and making trouble, Abu Ala [PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei] cannot move one Palestinian policeman from one side of the street to the other."
Arafat shrugged off the threats, telling reporters in Ramallah: "I don't care about it. I am caring for my people, for our children, for our women, for our students."
Sharon s statement evoked responses from Washington to Moscow to Amman.
US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told reporters that, "Our position on such questions – the exile or assassination of Yasser Arafat – is very well known. We are opposed and we have made that very clear to the government of Israel."
In Moscow,, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told Russian journalists that threats against Arafat are "inadmissible."
"Blood is being shed in sacred places for both the Muslims and the Jews, first of all in Jerusalem, which is arousing great regret," Yakovenko said in a statement. Against this background, Israel's statements conveying direct threats to Arafat, the legitimately elected and recognized leader of the Palestinian people, are inadmissible." "Russia is consistently campaigning against the practice of out-of- court punishment, which goes against the norms of international law and is undermining efforts to break the vicious circle of violence and to start a constructive dialogue between the conflicting parties," said Yakovenko.
Jordanian officials, meanwhile, also warned against targeting Arafat. "These persistent threats only increase tension and escalate violence in the Palestinian territories and do not serve peace," government spokesman Asma Khodr told AFP.
The cabinet, following two attacks on September 10 that killed 15 people, one at Caf Hillel in Jerusalem and another at a bus stop outside of Tzrifin,, decided in vague language to "remove" Arafat, but left the timing open.
"The best thing for Israel right now," according to a senior diplomatic official, "is for Arafat to continue to be isolated and penned up in his headquarters in Ramallah."
Sharon's threat, as well as others issued earlier last week by Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya alon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, are part of the psychological warfare against Palestinian terrorist leaders.
These threats have a "psychological effect," the official said, ensuring that the leadership devotes much of its energy to personal security concerns – making it all the more difficult to plan and execute attacks against Israelis.
Regarding the international criticism, heard every time Israel publicly discusses Arafat s fate, the officials said everyone is paying lip service, but no one will be sorry one day if by an invisible hand Arafat disappears."
The official said that with the Likud referendum on the disengagement plan looming large, everything must be seen within the prism of domestic politics.
Sharon is slated to leave for the US on April 12, immediately after Pessah, meet in Washington with President George W. Bush on April 14, and return on April 16.
Work is still taking place on the expected letter the US will give Sharon backing the disengagement plan. The letter is also widely expected to include language making it clear that the US does not expect Israel to eventually retreat to the pre 1967 lines, and calling on Palestinian refugees to be re-settled in a future Palestinian state, and not in Israel.
During negotiations over the letter, mention has been made of a letter by former president Gerald Ford to then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1975. In that letter the US gave certain assurances to Israel regarding the Golan when the first Rabin administration executed a controversial withdrawal from the Sinai mountain passes during the second Egyptian-Israeli disengagement accord.
Ford wrote: The US will support the position that an overall settlement with Syria in the framework of a peace agreement must assure Israel's security from attack from the Golan Heights. The US further supports the position that a just and lasting peace, which remains our objective, must be acceptable to both sides. The US has not developed a final position on the borders. Should it do so it will give great weight to Israel's position that any peace agreement with Syria must be predicated on Israel remaining on the Golan Heights. Sharon, during his string of interviews, said that by next Pessah Israel will be in the height of our disengagement from the Gaza Strip. He also said that in parallel Israel would evacuate four settlements in northern Samaria – Homesh, Sa-Nur, Ganim, and Kadim.
Sharon said he has ordered an immediate halt to all construction and development in Gaza settlements in anticipation of a unilateral pullout. He told Yediot Ahronot that after the withdrawal Israel would consider cutting off water and electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip if attacks against Israelis continue.
Sharon also told Haaretz that once Israel completes its West Bank security fence, Palestinians living illegally in Israel would be expelled. He said there are tens of thousands of them in Israeli Arab villages.
AP contributed to this report
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