TIME MAGAZINE: ARAFAT SAYS CLINTON 'THREATENED' HIM

NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE: CLINTON THEATERS PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATORS

The coming issue of TIME magazine reports that Arafat hung up the phone receiver on Clinton a few days ago, turning to an aide and saying: "He's threatening me!"

When Yasser Arafat refused to negotiate with Israel last week on points laid out by the United States, President Bill Clinton called the Palestinian leader. "If you don't take this golden opportunity," the President told Arafat, "you will have no mention in history and coming generations of Palestinians will curse you."

Other Arab leaders Clinton phoned are said to have told the American President they support what the U.S. is proposing, but senior Arafat advisers are said to have told TIME reporters that many of these same leaders have been privately urging Arafat not to negotiate with Barak on the U.S. peace plan for among other reasons fear of street protests and maybe more in their countries.

Not to be upstaged Newsweek Magazine in its upcoming issue says it has obtained information that reveals that Clinton imposed expiration dates on his proposals. "If [these ideas] are not accepted, they are not just off the table; they go with the president as he leaves office". Clinton -- as we have said for some time essentially fronting for the Israelis but pretending otherwise -- has been twisting and cajoling the Palestinians to accept that there is no specific and overall right of return to Israel for the millions of Palestinian refugees supposedly in return for Israeli concessions regarding Jerusalem, including some kind of fudged "Palestinian Sovereignty" over the area known as "The Temple Mount".

Clinton is said to have proposed several options supposedly to help the Palestinian refugees but in reality designed to minimize their rights and overlook two generations of suffering and numerous U.N. resolutions. They could remain where they are and receive compensation (except that the countries where they are don't want them, nor do they want to stay in exile, nor is the compensation so far discussed anywhere close to being serious), move to the new state of Palestine (though the fact there there is little room and no jobs in the arrangement being pushed seems to be undiscussed), emigrate elsewhere (only a few countries have even offered to take only a small percentage of them), or file for Israeli citizenship.

On this last point, Clinton insists, again fronting for the Israelis, that only Israel would decide which Palestinians it will allow to return, if at all -- which of course means next to non. ``The Israeli side could not accept any reference to the "right of return" that would imply a right to immigrate to Israel in defiance of Israel's sovereign policy,'' Clinton's proposal is said to have spelled out.

Ehud Barak too, coordinating with Clinton no doubt, continues to work with the Americans to try to blame everything on Arafat, when most of the blame is actually the direct result of both Barak and Clinton in recent years, and long-standing Israeli and American policies going back decades now. Asked what it tells him about Arafat if the Palestinian leader chooses not to pursue Clinton's deal, Barak said "He will be responsible in the eyes of his people and for history.''

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/1/1.htm