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(02/09/05 6:37am)
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas declared Tuesday that their people would stop all military and violent attacks against each other, pledging to break a four-year cycle of bloodshed and to get peace talks back on track.\nWith their national flags whipping in the wind, Sharon and Abbas met face-to-face at a Mideast summit, smiling broadly as they leaned across a long white table to shake hands. In one sign the talks went well, Egypt and Jordan announced afterward that they would return their ambassadors to Israel after a four-year absence, and the Israeli foreign minister said other Arab countries might follow.\nThe Palestinian militant group Hamas immediately called the deal into question, saying it would not be bound by the cease-fire declarations and was waiting to see what Israel would do next.\nIsrael will hand over control of five West Bank towns to the Palestinians within three weeks and immediately release 500 Palestinian prisoners.\nThose agreements and the sight of Abbas and Sharon shaking hands were the clearest signs yet of momentum in the peace process after Yasser Arafat's death in November and Abbas' election to succeed him in January.\nOne Israeli official, Gideon Meir, said "there was a great atmosphere in the talks ... smiles and joking."\nAn invitation to both sides to meet separately with President Bush at the White House this spring added another round of momentum on the summit's eve.\n"We have agreed on halting all violent actions against Palestinians and Israelis wherever they are," Abbas declared in a statement made after the meetings, as he, Sharon, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II sat around a round table.\nSharon made a similar pledge.\n"Today, in my meeting with chairman Abbas, we agreed that all Palestinians will stop all acts of violence against all Israelis everywhere, and, at the same time, Israel will cease all its military activity against all Palestinians everywhere," he said.\nAbbas said he expected the cease-fire pledges to pave the way for the resumption of talks on so-called "final status" issues such as borders, refugees and Jerusalem's status, all within the context of the Mideast "road map" to peace. Sharon said he also expected Tuesday's deal to set the stage for the implementation of the "road map."\nSharon also invited Abbas to visit him at his ranch in southern Israel, and Abbas accepted, Meir said. Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said the meeting would take place soon.\nSharon said he would like the next meeting between the two leaders to be in the West Bank town of Ramallah, according to an adviser, Raanan Gissin.\nThe White House commended the leaders on their commitment.\n"The cessation of violence and terrorism are important steps on the path to ending terrorism in the region and dismantling the terrorists' infrastructure," spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters on Air Force One as Bush flew to a speech in Detroit. "The United States will continue doing its part to help the parties move forward."\nAs part of the handover of five West Bank towns, Israeli and Palestinian security commanders are to meet Wednesday to prepare the handover of Jericho, the first West Bank town in the list of five, said Palestinian negotiator Hassan Abu Libdeh.\nAfter the immediate release of 500 Palestinian prisoners, another 400 will be released at a later stage, he said.\nAsked whether Hamas would continue its attacks against Israel after the summit, the group's representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, replied, "Our decision depends on the achievement of a substantial change (in Israel's position) to meet Palestinian demands and conditions."
(01/21/05 4:34am)
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli officials on Thursday accepted a Palestinian plan to deploy hundreds of police officers to ensure quiet along the Gaza-Israel frontier, in the first act of security cooperation with Israel under Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.\nIsraeli and Palestinian security officials said negotiations over the deployment were continuing, but the operation was expected to begin on Friday.\nWhile the two sides appeared to be making progress, violence persisted. Two 13-year-old Palestinian boys were killed in separate clashes with Israeli troops in Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian officials said.\nPalestinian generals presented the Gaza deployment plan during a meeting with their Israeli counterparts late Wednesday, convened in a last-ditch effort to avert a threatened Israeli military offensive in Gaza. Israel has demanded the Palestinians take action to stop repeated rocket and mortar fire at Israeli targets.\nAbbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon are succeeding in defusing their first crisis, though the situation remains highly volatile.\nAbbas has been holding talks with leaders of militant groups in Gaza since Tuesday, and his aides said he was edging closer to a truce deal with them. The militants say they are ready to halt attacks, provided Israel stops military operations.\nIn Wednesday's security meeting, Palestinian generals presented a detailed plan for stopping rocket fire and infiltrations of Palestinian militants into Israel.\n"We told them (Israeli generals) that we are arranging a plan to deploy the Palestinian security forces into both the northern and southern parts of Gaza," Maj. Gen. Moussa Arafat, a Palestinian security chief, told The Associated Press. "In the first stage, it will be in the north, and then we will move into the south."\nIsraeli security officials said roughly 1,000 Palestinian officers would be deployed on Friday. "We are facilitating it and coordinating it (the plan), so it will go forward," one official said on condition of anonymity. "We are waiting to see how effective they will be." They said Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz approved the arrangement.\nPalestinian security commanders were meeting Thursday afternoon to finalize preparations.\nIsraeli officials said one of the final sticking points was guaranteeing the safety of the Palestinian officers, fearing they might be targeted by Israeli troops. The officials said they expected a quick resolution. A senior commander in Gaza said any necessary adjustments could be done "in a matter of hours."\nPalestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said that Abbas has been working hard to persuade militants to halt their attacks, but called for Israel's help as well. "A cease-fire by the Palestinians requires a cease-fire by the Israelis," he told a news conference.\nAbbas had requested Wednesday's security meeting as the Israeli Security Cabinet was weighing a military solution to the ongoing rocket and mortar attacks.\nIsrael broke off contacts with Abbas' government last Friday, after an attack killed six Israeli civilians at a Gaza-Israel crossing point. A Palestinian suicide bombing that killed an Israeli security agent at a Gaza checkpoint on Tuesday escalated tensions.
(01/18/05 4:47pm)
RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas ordered his security forces Monday to try to prevent attacks against Israel and to investigate a shooting at a Gaza Strip crossing that killed six Israeli civilians last week.\nPalestinian officials would not provide details of the order, and it was unclear how it would be translated into action, if at all. Abbas insists he will use persuasion, not force, to rein in armed groups.\nA Hamas spokesman said the Islamic militant group will continue carrying out attacks.\nAbbas was under growing pressure to move against militants following last week's attack at the Karni crossing between Gaza and Israel. Israel suspended ties with Abbas in response and ordered its army Sunday to do whatever was needed to stop Palestinian attacks.\nIsrael decided to hold off on a major military offensive in Gaza to give Abbas more time to act against militants, a senior government official said Monday.\nSecretary of State Colin Powell also urged Abbas in a phone call Sunday to rein in the armed groups, officials said.\nAbbas' victory in presidential elections last week had raised hopes for a breakthrough in Mideast peacemaking. However, the Karni attack, two days before Abbas was sworn into office, ended his honeymoon with Israel before it ever started.\nIsraeli troops raided several areas of Gaza over the weekend to halt rocket fire on Israeli settlements and border towns, withdrawing early Monday. Sixteen Palestinians were killed in the raids, among them nine gunmen and seven civilians, including a 10-year-old boy.\nA senior Israeli military official said Monday the army will re-enter areas of the West Bank it is slated to evacuate later this year if Palestinian security forces cannot prevent attacks from the area. The remarks by the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, indicated that Israel's planned withdrawal from the northern West Bank this summer might not be permanent.\nIn a Palestinian Cabinet meeting Monday, Abbas instructed the security forces to try to prevent attacks against Israel.\n"A decision was taken that we will handle our obligation to stop violence against Israelis anywhere," Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said.\nAbbas moved up his planned negotiations with militants. Ministers said he would travel to Gaza for talks with various factions Tuesday, instead of Wednesday, as initially scheduled.\nThe Palestinian Cabinet also asked the Palestinian Preventive Security Service, which controls the crossings into Israel, to investigate the Karni attack. Three militant groups, including Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which has ties to Abbas' ruling Fatah movement, carried out the attack.\nIsraeli officials said they have indications the attackers left from a Palestinian Authority base and passed through a Palestinian checkpoint on the way to the attack.\nIsrael has accused Palestinian security forces of permitting acts of violence and even collaborating with attackers. It wants Abbas to overhaul the myriad security forces and place them under a central authority.\nRaanan Gissin, a Sharon aide, called Monday's Cabinet decision a "small step in the right direction."\n"Now we have to see how it happens on the ground, based on things that were said," he added.\nHamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri said the group would not comply with the new orders.\n"We consider resistance as a red line, and no one is allowed to cross this line," al-Masri said.\nHamas leaders have said they would consider halting attacks if Israel stops military operations.
(11/05/04 4:05am)
CLAMART, France -- Yasser Arafat was reportedly fighting for his life Thursday at a French military hospital after losing consciousness, as anxious Palestinian officials transferred some of their 75-year-old leader's powers to Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia.\nDoctors at Percy Military Training Hospital outside Paris, where Arafat was airlifted last Friday after more than two years of confinement in the West Bank, quashed a swirl of reports that he had died. But the French doctors would not say much else, and confusion ruled as Palestinians issued conflicting reports about Arafat's condition and how close to death he was.\nIn an emergency meeting in the West Bank town of Ramallah, the PLO executive committee empowered Qureia to deal with urgent administrative and financial matters, said committee member Qais Abdel-Karim. Qureia also will meet with security chiefs in the Gaza Strip on Friday to ensure that no internal conflict erupts in the volatile area at a time of uncertainty, a Palestinian official said.\nA prolonged Arafat incapacitation -- or death -- could have profound impact on the Middle East. There are fears of unrest among Palestinian factions, which Arafat, viewed as a national symbol by even some who opposed him, was largely able to prevent. Furthermore, chaos in the West Bank and Gaza could make any cooperation with Israel even more difficult.\nOn the other hand, Israel and the United States have in recent years shunned Arafat as a terrorist and an obstacle to peace, and his replacement by a new leadership could open the door to renewed peace talks. Such a scenario could affect Israel's plans to pull soldiers and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in a move not coordinated with the Palestinians.\nArafat's chief of staff, Ramzi Khoury, called an Associated Press reporter to say the Palestinian leader was alive but that his condition was grave.\n"I am standing next to the president's bed; he is in grave condition," Khoury said.\nA senior Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AP that Arafat was in a coma in the intensive care unit, where he was taken after his condition worsened overnight Wednesday.\nFrench television station LCI quoted an anonymous French medical official as saying Arafat was in an "irreversible coma" and "intubated" -- a process that usually involves threading a tube down the windpipe to the lungs. The tube is often connected to a life support machine to help the patient breathe.\nHowever, three Palestinian officials denied Arafat was in a coma.\n"He is not getting better, but not getting worse either. He is being examined. He is not in a coma," Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said. "There is no explanation for what has happened."\nA Palestinian official in Gaza who is close to Arafat's wife Suha said she told him her husband fell unconscious after receiving a strong anesthetic for a biopsy. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, quoted Suha Arafat as saying her husband was recovering.\nIsrael TV Channel Two reported that Arafat was brain dead and remained on life support.\nHowever, Arafat's personal physician, Dr. Ashraf Kurdi, told Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television that "Arafat has no type of brain death." He also said a brain scan showed that Arafat had not suffered a hemorrhage or stroke.\nAt Arafat's compound in Ramallah, where leaders of the PLO and Arafat's Fatah movement were meeting, Shaath said top officials were in touch with the hospital in Clamart every 30 minutes.\n"The Palestinian leadership is in constant meeting to follow up on the president's health," Shaath said.\nMeanwhile, about 1,500 Palestinians demonstrated in the West Bank town of Qalqiliya and 500 more in the Balata refugee camp in support of Arafat.\nIsraeli military leaders, including Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, met to discuss Arafat's declining health, Israeli security officials said. The military was placed on high alert, fearing riots if Arafat dies.\nThe Israeli military has not moved forces to anticipated problem areas, but commanders were told to be on standby. The army has a contingency plan, called "new leaf," to deal with the fallout from Arafat's death.\nOn Thursday, the military also discussed possible burial options for Arafat. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said he would not permit Arafat to be buried in Jerusalem, which is claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians as their capital. Army chiefs said they also ruled out a burial in the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis in the West Bank.\nThe confusion over Arafat's condition escalated after Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters at a summit of European leaders in Belgium that Arafat had died. He later retracted the statement.\n"It was a misunderstanding," Luxembourg government spokesman Lucien Michels said.\nAfter Juncker's initial statement, a spokesman for the French military hospital said Arafat was alive.\n"Mr. Arafat is not dead," said Christian Estripeau, head of communications for French military health services. "The clinical situation of the first few days following admission has become more complex."\nJuncker's spokesman said the prime minister spoke after receiving a phone call, while driving to the summit, from a journalist, who relayed an Israeli television station report that Arafat had died.\nOnce inside the summit building, Juncker was corrected by French President Jacques Chirac, who had just visited Arafat in the hospital.\n"Chirac spoke to him and told him it was not so," Juncker spokesman Guy Schuller said.\nIn Washington, President George W. Bush was asked by a reporter for his reaction to the report that Arafat had died.\n"My first reaction is God bless his soul," Bush said at a nationally televised news conference. "My second reaction is that we will continue to work for a free Palestinian state that's at peace with Israel"
(07/19/04 1:51am)
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.
(04/19/04 4:09am)
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Hamas threatened "100 unique reprisals" against Israel for killing its leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, as hundreds of thousands of mourners flooded the streets Sunday in a show of strength and fury.\nIt wasn't clear if the Islamic militant group was strong enough to carry out large-scale attacks after a sustained two-year Israeli campaign against it. Despite promises of revenge, Hamas still has not struck in the three weeks since Israel assassinated Rantisi's predecessor, Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin.\nHamas chose a replacement for Rantisi Sunday but did not disclose his name -- a clear sign at least that the group is on the defensive in the face of Israeli attacks ahead of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.\nSharon Sunday picked up the support of key Cabinet ministers for his unilateral disengagement plan, including the Gaza withdrawal, assuring him of a Cabinet majority ahead of a hard-fought referendum among the 200,000 members of his Likud Party.\nSharon told the Cabinet Sunday he would forge ahead with his plan and continue to "hit the terror organizations and their leaders."\nCabinet minister Gideon Ezra said the overall Hamas leader, Damascus-based Khaled Mashaal, was also a target. Rantisi was in charge of the Palestinian areas and reported to Mashaal.\nThe killing of Rantisi set off demonstrations -- some of them violent -- across Gaza and the West Bank, as well as in Arab countries.\nIn the West Bank, Israeli troops shot and critically wounded a 14-year-old Palestinian boy in a clash between stone throwers and soldiers.\nIsrael rebuffed international criticism, including several European countries. It said Rantisi -- like Yassin -- was targeted because he directed bloody Hamas attacks against Israelis and was planning more.\nHowever, many Palestinians held the United States responsible for Rantisi's death, saying it is giving Israel free rein.\n"The Palestinian government considers this Israeli terrorist campaign to be a direct result of American encouragement and the total American bias in favor of the Israeli government," said Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, echoing a widely held sentiment in the West Bank and Gaza.\nPalestinian officials are furious with President Bush for sidelining them, endorsing Sharon's unilateral plan and backing Israel's demand to hang on to parts of the West Bank.\nBush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, denied Bush gave Sharon the go-ahead for the Rantisi killing during their White House meeting last week. She told ABC TV Israel has the right to defend itself but that it is "extremely important that Israel take into consideration the consequences of anything that it does."\nMashaal said Sunday the killing of Rantisi only strengthened his group and boosted support for it. However, a local leader in Gaza, Ismail Hanieh, acknowledged Hamas suffered a momentary setback.\nPalestinian officials said they are worried the next target for assassination will be Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whom Israel accuses of encouraging terror. The Israeli Cabinet voted last year to "remove" Arafat.\nIn Sunday's funeral, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians thronged the streets of Gaza City. In addition to Rantisi, two bodyguards were killed when two missiles struck the car in which they were traveling.\nHamas supporters chanted "God is great" and "revenge, revenge" and threw flowers at the three bodies as they passed in a procession. They touched Rantisi's exposed face, which was covered with shrapnel wounds.\nAbout 200 armed Hamas militants lined the sides of the road and saluted the bodies as they approached a large blue and green mourning tent set up outside Rantisi's house. Armed men fired into the air and many in the gathered crowd raised their fists in anger.
(03/25/04 4:17am)
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- The new Hamas leader in Gaza said Wednesday the militant group had no plans to attack U.S. targets, while another top official in the organization said it has targeted Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for death.\nThe Islamic group had made veiled threats it would retaliate against the United States for Israel's assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin, Monday, but it has rarely attacked American targets during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.\nFearing retaliation, Israel has gone on high alert since Yassin's death, and troops south of the West Bank city of Nablus stopped a 16-year-old Palestinian boy wearing a suicide bomb vest from crossing through a checkpoint. Soldiers forced the boy, Hussam Abdo, to remove the explosives-packed vest and strip to his underwear.\nThe army said its experts later detonated the bomb.\nIt was unclear whether he was sent as a suicide bomber or as a courier trying to smuggle the bomb through the checkpoint. His neighbors in Nablus identified him as a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militant group.\nIsraeli troops also entered a village near the northern West Bank town of Jenin, witnesses said, and gunfire was heard in the area. The village was put under curfew and tanks were outside it, the witnesses said.\nIsraeli military officials confirmed forces entered the village of Yamoun after being shot at. The soldiers returned fire and chased the gunmen into the village, the officials said on condition of anonymity.\nArmy tanks later surrounded the village, which was put under curfew, witnesses said. Residents reportedly threw stones at the soldiers.\nAbdel Aziz Rantisi, a hard-liner named Tuesday as Hamas' new Gaza chief, said the group's militant activities were aimed solely at Israel, which it has pledged to destroy and replace with an Islamic state.\n"We are inside Palestinian land and acting only inside Palestinian land. We are resisting the occupation, nothing else," Rantisi told reporters in Gaza. "Our resistance will continue just inside our border, here inside our country."\nRantisi denied reports Hamas would join with al Qaeda, calling the claims "Zionist propaganda."\nPalestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Wednesday he opposed "any attack on civilians, whether they were Israeli or Palestinian."\nTuesday, The State Department repeated a long-standing warning urging Americans not to travel to the Gaza Strip.\nWednesday, meanwhile, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who is based in Damascus, Syria, said the group's military wing would assess its abilities to kill Sharon.\n"I hope that the holy warriors can retaliate against this awful crime by targeting the most prominent Zionist leaders ... including Sharon," Mashaal said in an interview posted on a Hamas Web site. "I hope they can succeed."\nFor its part, Israel has decided to target the entire Hamas leadership. Israel says Hamas has killed 377 Israelis in hundreds of attacks, including 52 suicide bombings, over the past three and a half years.\nRantisi, who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in June, said Wednesday he was not concerned.\n"It's death by killing or cancer," said Rantisi, a trained physician. "If it's cardiac arrest or an Apache (helicopter), I prefer to be killed by an Apache."\nRantisi, 54, has appeared in public frequently since Yassin's death, but always in large crowds that deter an Israeli attack.\nTens of thousands of Palestinians at a Gaza City soccer stadium cheered the announcement Tuesday night that Rantisi had been chosen leader. One by one, senior Hamas officials got up and swore loyalty to him.\nRantisi rejects even a temporary suspension of attacks against Israel.\nHe led about 1,000 people in noon prayers Wednesday at the stadium, where Hamas has organized mourning for Yassin. As he spoke to reporters afterward, he was surrounded by about 25 youths wearing green Hamas bandannas.\nSeveral hundred women, many wearing Hamas headbands, gathered in a mourning tent near Yassin's home in a run-down Gaza City neighborhood and chanted: "Rantisi, give weapons to the women."\nSecurity has been stepped up throughout Israel, and malls, restaurants and buses have been empty as people remain close to home.\nThe Israeli military went on the offensive in Gaza and along the Lebanese border to prevent Palestinian attacks. A total of four Palestinian militants were killed in the fighting.
(09/08/03 6:25am)
RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Yasser Arafat tapped the Palestinian parliament speaker to take over as prime minister Sunday and lead the Palestinians' next government after the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas.\nSeveral leaders of Arafat's ruling Fatah party confirmed the nomination by consensus of parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia, though it remained unclear if he would accept. Qureia attended the meeting Sunday night but did not comment, Fatah officials said. The parliament speaker "is our only nominee," said Abbas Zaki, a member of the Fatah central committee.\nThe developments came during a day of intensive backroom politics set off by Saturday's resignation of Abbas. Arafat had refused to grant him more power over the Palestinian security services, capping four months of wrangling between the two since Abbas took office.\nQureia -- a moderate who helped cobble together the 1993 Oslo accord between Israel and the PLO -- was considered a top candidate to replace Abbas because he has led past negotiations and has credibility with the Israelis. Israeli officials didn't immediately respond to the development.\nEarlier in the day, there were conflicting signals about whether Abbas might be pressured to stay on.\nA source close to Abbas, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he would serve again only if he could work out a firm deal with Arafat beforehand on what his powers would be and who would serve in his government. Abbas himself sent mixed signals when asked about heading a new government. "It's something premature to talk about. My resignation is final," he said.\nThe resignation dealt a serious blow to the U.S.-backed "road map" plan for establishing a Palestinian state by 2005; Israel and the United States have refused to deal with Arafat, whom they accuse of fomenting terrorism, and made Abbas, a critic of terror attacks against Israelis, their partner in peace efforts.\nU.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said any Palestinian prime minister must have clear control over security forces and use them to crack down on militant groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. "That person has to have political authority and the determination to go after terrorism," Powell said on ABC's "This Week."\nThe "road map" plan requires the Palestinians to dismantle militant groups. Abbas, despite his strong support for the road map in principle, has refused to do this forcefully, appealing in vain to the militants to disarm.\nThe Palestinians' leadership crisis came as Israel edged toward all-out war with the militant group Hamas.\nOne day after a botched strike Saturday against the group's top leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that all of the Islamic militant group's members are now "marked for death."\nAt the same time, a debate brewed over the morality of such "targeted killings" and over whether the militants can be deterred.\nThe decision to ratchet up the war on Hamas -- after the group claimed a suicide bombing that last month that killed 22 Israelis, including six children -- has considerable public support.\nA power vacuum on the Palestinian side might invite an escalation in violence, with Palestinian militants possibly stepping up attacks and Israel taking more dramatic measures, including the potential expulsion of Arafat from Palestinian areas.\nMomentum appeared to grow in Israel for expelling Arafat, with Cabinet ministers arguing that Abbas' resignation proved the 74-year-old Palestinian leader is the main impediment to efforts to end three years of violence.\n"As long as Arafat is in the region, he won't let any other leader develop," Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told Army Radio.\nAmos Gilad, a top adviser to Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, said there was a growing understanding in the United States and Europe that Arafat's departure is a precondition for progress toward peace.\nThe United States has blocked Arafat's expulsion in the past, and security advisers to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have warned that Arafat could do more harm to Israel abroad than by remaining trapped at his West Bank headquarters in the town of Ramallah.\nPowell restated U.S. opposition to deporting the Palestinian leader, which would "put him on the world stage as opposed to the stage he is currently occupying."\nIsrael's recent policy has been to sideline Arafat -- but that goal seemed far from reach Sunday as he seized center stage in the search for a new prime minister.\nAbbas' resignation must be accepted in writing by Arafat to take effect; while Arafat has not taken this step, he told lawmakers he considered Abbas' Cabinet a caretaker government, implying recognition of the resignation.\nIn a closed-door meeting that lasted into Sunday evening, Arafat and leaders of his Fatah movement discussed options, and several sources present at the meeting said Arafat made clear his preference for tapping Qureia, also known as Abu Alla.\nAccording to legislator Abdul Fatah Amyail, Arafat told those present that Abbas "has left us in difficult circumstances." He then turned to Qureia, put his hand on his shoulder, and said, "God help you, Abu Alla, with the coming burden."\nEarlier Sunday, Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said Arafat hoped to persuade Abbas -- also known as Abu Mazen -- to remain and form a new government. "Abu Mazen remains Arafat's first choice. But if he insists on maintaining his resignation, there will be a new appointment, and that will be discussed now and tomorrow," Abu Rdeneh said. "Within 48 hours, we will reach a conclusion."\nQureia has long been the No. 3 leader in Fatah, after Arafat and Abbas. Seen as a moderate and a pragmatist, he was a key player in the secret talks that led to the 1993 Oslo accords, which led to Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza. He also led the Palestinians in negotiations with Israel during the years that followed.\nThe 65-year-old politician would be one of the few Palestinians who have credibility with Israel but could also count -- at least for the moment -- on the important support of Arafat. Although Qureia -- like Abbas -- has little independent support on the Palestinian street, he is a more savvy political operator who enjoys considerable clout after seven years as parliament speaker.
(08/04/03 12:42am)
RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Israeli musician Daniel Barenboim received a rapturous reception when he brought a program of Beethoven and Brahms -- and a message of Israel-Palestinian reconciliation -- to this West Bank town Saturday.\nThe renowned pianist and conductor, a longtime critic of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, played a packed and sweltering auditorium at a Ramallah school, the scene of a visit last year that angered some Israelis.\n"I realize this isn't a normal concert for you. It isn't a normal concert for me either," Barenboim told the audience.\nBarenboim, 60, an Argentine, born a Jew and raised in Israel, received three standing ovations from an audience of about 350 Palestinians and a smattering of international diplomats.\nHe played a program of Beethoven sonatas, including a duet of the "Moonlight Sonata" with 26-year-old Palestinian pianist Salim Abboud, and performed some Brahms with his son Michael, 17.\nPalestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi, who was in the audience, said the concert was "a gift to the Palestinian people."\n"He's making a statement in the most expressive way he can," Ashrawi said. "He's reaching out to the Palestinian people with the utmost solidarity in a very creative and human way. He touches the soul."\nBarenboim has long campaigned for Arab-Israeli reconciliation and has annoyed some Israelis with his forthright criticism of government policy toward the Palestinians.\nAt a press conference before the concert, Barenboim said Israel's future depended on the creation of a viable Palestinian state.\n"I firmly believe that for the continuation for the development of the Jewish people and the state of Israel, it is imperative that a just solution is found for Palestinian independence," Barenboim told reporters.\n"The future of Israel, in whatever form or shape it develops, it is totally dependent on that," he added.\nIn March 2002 Barenboim canceled a planned master class for Palestinian students in Ramallah after the Israeli army refused to grant him permission for a visit. He eventually traveled to Ramallah with a German diplomatic escort and played the concert last September.\n"I am sure that there are people in the Israeli government that are not happy about my being here," he said Saturday. "But then, I am not happy about many things that they do, so it's all right."\nBarenboim also angered many of his countrymen in 2001 when he included music by Richard Wagner, Adolf Hitler's favorite composer, in a program for Israel's premier cultural event, the Israel Festival.\nSince the early 1990s, he and Palestinian academic Edward Said have run a summer workshop for young musicians from Israel and Arab countries in places like Germany, the United States and Spain.\nBarenboim said the workshop's goal "is simply to fight ignorance and allow contact so that they learn to know the other. Whether they like the other or not is their own private business.\n"The time has come now not to build walls but to build bridges," he added.\nDuring Saturday's visit, which came at the invitation of the National Conservatory of Music at Birzeit University, Barenboim announced plans for a Palestinian youth orchestra and a new music program for two Palestinian schools.