Arafat rejects prime minister's resignation

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Militants sacked and burned Palestinian government offices Sunday, the latest sign of growing anger over Yasser Arafat's decision to reach into his old guard and choose a loyalist relative as new security chief.\nA confrontation was brewing among Arafat,reluctant to yield significant power, and Palestinian militants and even some of Arafat's own officers. They are demanding deep reforms and new faces, Palestinian analysts said.\nThe divide between the two sides grew with the appointment of Moussa Arafat, Arafat's cousin, as the new head of Palestinian security. Many Palestinians rejected Moussa as a symbol of corruption and cronyism, propelling long-held dissatisfaction into the open.\nThe internal Palestinian unrest was the most serious in more than a year. In 2003, protests against corruption forced Arafat to promise reforms and appoint a new government, led by Mahmoud Abbas. He resigned after only four months.\nThe turmoil came as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon planned to withdraw from Gaza next year, intensifying a struggle for power and influence among the various Palestinian factions.\nSharon said the trouble reinforced his contention that Israel cannot negotiate with the present Palestinian leadership.\nDefense Minister Shaul Mofaz called Arafat's reforms "an illusion" and said the Palestinian leader had retained his grip on power. "They are playing musical chairs," he told Israel Radio.\nSharon began coalition talks Sunday with moderate Labor Party opposition leader Shimon Peres. Sharon wants to rebuild his coalition government with parties that will support the Gaza pullout.\nThe unrest began after Arafat decreed a consolidation of about a dozen disparate security branches into three services -- a key element of reform that the United States and Egypt have said would be necessary to revive deadlocked peace efforts.\nBut the Palestinian leader defied international peacemakers by declining to put the security forces under the control of the Cabinet, and by naming his cousin and longtime lieutenant, Moussa Arafat, as security chief.\nProtesting the appointment, militants broke into a building of the Palestinian Authority in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis early Sunday and burned two offices. A security guard was wounded in a gunfight.\nHundreds of Palestinians, many of them carrying assault rifles, demonstrated in Gaza's streets against Moussa Arafat.\nThe appointment deepened the rift between Arafat's generation, which led the Palestinian struggle from exile for decades, and young Palestinians who lived under Israeli occupation and now accuse the old guard of corruption and monopolizing power.\nDissent, however, went beyond the generational divide and spread to the security forces.\nNavy chief Gomma Ghali, an Arafat loyalist, handed in his resignation to protest Moussa Arafat's appointment, joining the head of intelligence and the head of the preventative security, who resigned Friday. However, Arafat has not accepted the resignations.\nA statement from the office of Maj. Gen. Amin Al-Hindi, the intelligence chief, said Arafat's recent appointments "cannot help solve the internal situation and the internal reforms."\n"The new appointees are a part of the problem and therefore cannot be part of the solution," Issa Abu Aram, the head of operations for preventive security in the West Bank told The Associated Press.\nIn a rare news conference, Moussa Arafat brushed aside protests over his appointment.\n"I take my orders from His Excellency President Arafat," he said, seated below a huge portrait of his mentor. "He is the only one who can ask me to quit my job."\nThe crisis began after the kidnappings on Friday of two senior Palestinian security officials and four French volunteer workers in three separate incidents.