"The Clinton proposals are one of the greatest ruses in history and belong in the same class as the Sykes-Picot Agreement [of 1916]."

Top Palestinian Leader in the Arafat Regime

The whole house of political quicksand built by Bill Clinton at the behest of the Israelis (and popularly known as the "Peace Process") is bubbling, steaming, and swallowing many of its key participants. Now Yasser has been summoned to the Clinton White House one more time -- he has after all been the most frequent foreign guest in recent years, quite possibly in history. And that's because the Americans and the Israelis always had a role they were grooming Arafat to play in history -- "ending the conflict" on their terms, the Palestinians essentially surrendering while being allowed to call their shrunken, surrounded bantustan-arrangement a "State". They've got the goods on Arafat and company -- tremendous corruption, personal "indiscretions", huge sums of money squirrled away, treachery against many of his own. Now the screws will be turned and turned harder and harder.

ARAFAT'S COALITION IS CRUMBLING, TOO
By Danny Rubinstein

[Ha'aretz - January 1, 2001]
Over the weekend, Bill Clinton twice asked Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to provide a clear-cut answer to his proposals. Yet, all the American president received were two evasive replies. Clinton wanted the Palestinians to follow the Israeli example and to give him an unequivocal response. What Arafat supplied him was only a "Yes, but...." In other words, a positive reply with a number of reservations. The Palestinians were simply not prepared to give a clear-cut answer."We are not backing down on our demand that we receive clarifications [from the Americans]," says Nabil Sha'ath, a member of the Palestinian cabinet, while Nabil Abu-Rudeineh, an adviser to Arafat, adds that these clarifications must include crystal-clear details on such issues as Jerusalem, borders, the Palestinian refugees and the Jewish settlements in the territories - in short, all of the questions on the agenda of the Palestinian-Israeli ta! lks. Unless details are provided on these issues, the Palestinians will regard the Clinton proposals merely as a content-free agreement. "In this kind of context, we simply cannot agree to them [i.e., the Clinton proposals]," explains Sha'ath.

All of the above statements constitute, in effect, a negative Palestinian reply to the Americans' proposals.

Arafat does not want to give Clinton an outright "no" for an answer, because the Palestinian leader does not want to appear intransigent. Nonetheless, when all is said and done, Arafat is saying "no." For the past few days, his efforts have been focused on obtaining the approval and support of the Arab states for his position.

The assessment prevalent today in the Palestinian leadership is that the monitoring committee of Arab foreign ministers scheduled to convene on Thursday in Cairo will end up issuing a communique endorsing the Palestinians' position. The committee was established by a resolution passed at the Arab summit conference that was held immediately after the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

Another resolution passed at the conference called on the Arab states to provide substantial support to the Palestinian Authority. So far, however, there is no evidence of any cash flow from the Arab states in the PA's direction. (A caricature appearing in Al-Quds on Saturday shows the Arabs placing their contributions in an empty charity box marked "The Intifada"; the only problem is that the contributions consist of holiday greeting cards, instead of cold, hard cash.) Palestinian leaders are saying that, if they cannot receive money from the Arab states, they should at least be given moral support.

Against this background, it would appear that the present stage in the Palestinian-Israeli talks has come to an end. The Palestinian leadership cannot, or will not, sign a permanent status agreement that is based on the Clinton proposals.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak will apparently have to conduct an election campaign armed with proposals and "understandings," but without the signed draft of a peace treaty.

It is obvious that the Palestinian leadership is rejecting the American proposals because of the heavy pressure that is being exerted upon it by the Palestinian public. The pressure is coming from nearly every political group in the territories, including the higher echelons of the Palestinian political system.

Arafat is aware that his rejection of the Clinton proposals will cause him massive political damage. It is even quite possible that Arafat himself would prefer to sign an agreement while the Clinton administration still calls the shots in Washington. Very likely, he is apprehensive over the prospect of dealing with a government headed by Likud leader Ariel Sharon, should Barak lose the election.

However, all these considerations are only of secondary importance. What really worries Arafat right now is the scene unfolding before his very eyes: namely, the disintegration of his regime. The recent demonstrations organized by Islamic extremists in the leadership of the Hamas organization have been very impressive and have attracted large crowds. In the wake of threats, Arafat was forced last week to release Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, from prison. Similarly, Arafat seems almost totally unable to stop Hamas cells from operating freely.

Arafat's coalition, which consists of small leftist parties like the Fadda Party and the Palestinian People's Party (formerly the Communist Party), appears to have disintegrated. Coalition members are coming out with vitriolic utterances. For example, Yasser Abed Rabbo, who is a member of the Palestinian cabinet and heads the Palestinian negotiating team as a representative of the Fadda Party, has declared, "The Clinton proposals are one of the greatest ruses in history and belong in the same class as the Sykes-Picot Agreement [of 1916]."

Even within Fatah, Arafat's own movement, he has lost much of his authority. Activists in the field are simply ignoring his orders, while young Palestinians like Marwan Barghouti, the leader of the Tanzim group on the West Bank, and Akram Haniyah, the editor of Al-Iyam, are pressuring Arafat to take a more aggressive stance and to toughen his positions vis-a-vis Israel. In the meantime, Arafat is ceding to the pressure.

As the Intifada continues unabated, the Palestinian public is displaying no signs of fatigue. Quite the contrary, the average Palestinian in the street wants the Intifada to just keep going. Arafat and the members of his government seem now to be taking their orders from the Palestinian public, which is enraged because of the closure, because of the assassinations of top Palestinian leaders and because of the other measures of collective punishment that Israel is carrying out.

From the perspective of both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the future appears very dark indeed

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/1/2.htm