Palestinian President Yasser Arafat appealed to US President George W. Bush for a chance to prove himself, in a letter Norway's prime minister said he delivered to the US president on Wednesday.
"I had a message from Chairman Arafat and the main message was, 'give me a chance,'" Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik told reporters after meeting Bush in the Oval Office.
But the Norwegian leader said he and Bush agreed that Arafat's efforts to crack down on Palestinian militants after last weekend's suicide bombing attacks had been insufficient.
Arafat's message was contained in a letter addressed to Bondevik, a copy of which was given to Bush, a US official said. The letter did not use the phrase 'give me a chance,' but the sense was that "he's looking for some room to act," the official said.
Arafat also called for international pressure on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel to end the attacks against Palestinian targets, which were launched in retaliation for suicide bombings in Israel which killed 25 last weekend, Bondevik said.
But Bush gave no sign of issuing a call for Israeli restraint -- which has been absent from US comment since the retaliation began. The US official said Washington's position was unchanged by the letter.
Bondevik said after meeting Bush, "We also agreed that Arafat so far has not done enough in order to arrest terrorists and the leadership of the terrorist organizations, the extreme organizations on the Palestinian side."
"We want both to give him a chance to show this," he said.
Bush Urges Arafat to Act
Bush insisted at the meeting that Arafat do everything in his power to prevent further "terrorist attacks" in Israel.
"The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) needs to stand up and rout out those killers, those murderers who are preventing us from getting the peace process in place," Bush told reporters at the start.
Suicide bombings killed 25 people and wounded 200 in Haifa and Jerusalem over the weekend. On Wednesday, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Jerusalem hotel, injuring three people.
"Mr. Arafat must show leadership and bring those to justice who would use murder as a weapon to derail peace and destroy innocent life," Bush said. "Now is his time, and other nations of the world that are interested in peace must encourage Mr. Arafat, must insist that Mr. Arafat do everything in his power to prevent further terrorist attacks in Israel."
Israel has retaliated for the suicide bombings with its fiercest attacks since a 14-month conflict with the Palestinians began. Planes and helicopters attacked security targets across the West Bank and Gaza on Tuesday, firing one missile just yards from Arafat's West Bank office when he was there. Arafat was not hurt.
Bondevik said he spoke to Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Wednesday. He urged Sharon to avoid a further escalation of the violence "because I'm afraid that this will bring us into a perilous situation and end up being a war," he said.
Sharon replied "that he had no intention of attacking Palestinian targets more, and for the last 26 hours there has been no attack," Bondevik told reporters.
Israeli officials have given no confirmation they were ending the retaliatory attacks, although Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has said he expects a 12-hour period of quiet in which Arafat would be watched to see whether he rounded up militants.
Bondevik told reporters he urged Arafat to "show leadership, to arrest terrorists." Arafat replied that he had arrested leaders of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- steps Israel has called a sham -- but added that "he was in a difficult situation," Bondevik said.
The Norwegian told reporters he would work to further contact between the Israelis and Palestinians. Norway hosted talks that led to the 1993 Oslo accords, which launched a Middle East peace process now in tatters.
(China Daily December 6, 2001)
