In a move apparently timed to curry favor with the United States ahead of a meeting between US President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat announced long-awaited Cabinet reforms on Sunday.
Even so, in talks at the White House Monday, Sharon was expected to reject any resumption of peace negotiations with the Palestinians until Palestinian militant attacks on Israel have halted.
In the most important of Arafat's reforms, the Palestinian leader stepped down as Interior Minister, appointing Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, 73, to the position that effectively puts him in charge of the security forces.
Arafat had kept the interior ministry position for himself since the Palestinian Authority was established eight years ago.
The Palestinian leader also pared his cabinet from 31 ministers to 21 in what his aides said would be a "more effective" cabinet.
In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian police made a high profile arrest of Islamic Jihad leader Sheikh Abdallah Shami on Sunday along with 14 other members of the militant group behind last week's suicide bombing of a bus which killed 17 Israelis. Shami, who has been arrested and released by Palestinian security several times, was detained in Gaza City.
Arafat has come under intense pressure from the United States and Israel to revamp the security forces with the intention of preventing violence against Israel. He plans to announce further restructuring of the security forces, and plans to hold presidential, parliamentary and local elections, probably in January, Palestinian officials said.
US and Israeli leaders want the Palestinian Authority reformed to help stop suicide attacks in the 20-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation and pave the way for a resumption of peace talks.
Israel received the news coolly. "If we see fundamental change in the behavior of the Palestinian security forces in which they intercept the attacks against Israel and not collaborate with them, we'll know that something big has occurred," said Dore Gold, an adviser to Sharon.
SHARON LAYS OUT CONDITIONS
Some Israeli analysts suspect that Arafat will still be wielding power behind the scenes, while appearing to hand over security to someone else. Arafat has been the dominant Palestinian political figure for decades and the power of Cabinet ministers is limited.
The meeting between Sharon and Bush, to take place on Monday, will be the sixth since the right-wing Israeli leader took office in March 2001.
Sharon is expected to tell Bush that peace talks with the Palestinians should not be relaunched until the violence ends.
In an opinion piece in The New York Times on Sunday, Sharon reiterated there were two other conditions for successful negotiations.
In addition to ending suicide bombings, Sharon said that the most difficult issues - like the future status of Jerusalem - must be negotiated last and that Israel must talk peace with the Arab world as a whole, rather than with the Palestinians alone.
Citing Israel's security concerns, Sharon also said that Israel would not pull out of all the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which it captured in the 1967 Mideast War, or redivide Jerusalem.
In his article, Sharon accused the Palestinian leadership of lacking an "elementary commitment to permanently renouncing violence in the resolution of political differences."
BUSH GIVES NO TIMETABLE
After talks with Egyptian Prime Minister Hosni Mubarak on Saturday, Bush said he is not prepared to offer a political timetable for the creation of a Palestinian state, despite pleas from the Arab world.
"We're not ready to lay down any specific calendar, except to say that we have to get started quickly - soon - so we can seize the moment," Bush said after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at Camp David, Md.
Despite Bush's frustration with Palestinian leader Arafat, Mubarak said, "We should give this man a chance. Such a chance will prove that he is going to deliver or not. If he's going to deliver, I think everybody will support him. If he's not going to deliver, his people will tell him that."
With an exasperated edge to his voice, Bush said he was disappointed in Arafat's leadership and called once more on Arafat to "do everything in his power to stop the violence, to stop the attacks on Israel - I mean everything."
Sharon has received strong backing from the Bush administration. The talks are not expected to produce any major developments, and are seen as the latest installment of close U.S.-Israeli consultations on the Mideast conflict.
Bush hopes to assemble a peace plan - concrete suggestions for Israel-Palestinian negotiations and perhaps some sort of timetable for creation of a Palestinian state - for unveiling in a national address before a Mideast peace conference in Turkey this summer.
Among the most contentious issues of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are the 100 or so Jewish settlements that dot the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The settlements have been frequent target of Palestinian militants. The international community regards the settlements as illegal, which Israel disputes.
Palestinians want the settlements dismantled as part of a Mideast peace agreement. Sharon, a longtime champion of Jewish settlements, says he is not prepared to consider removing them.
ATTACKS ON SETTLEMENTS
Israeli forces raided a Palestinian-ruled area of the West Bank city of Hebron late on Sunday and carried out a brief incursion in Palestinian-ruled Tulkarm in what military officials called a sweep for militants.
In Gaza, Palestinian security sources said Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian laborer as he returned home from work at an industrial zone on the Israel-Gaza border on Sunday. The Israeli army denied its forces were involved in the incident.
Two Palestinian gunmen killed a pregnant Israeli woman, her husband and a soldier in a West Bank Jewish settlement on Saturday. The militant Hamas group claimed responsibility. One of the Palestinian gunmen were killed.
Late on Saturday, a Palestinian gunman attacked Yizhar settlement south of Palestinian-ruled Nablus, wounding four soldiers before being killed by return fire.
In Gaza, five Palestinians were killed in two separate attempted strikes on Israelis, the Israeli army said. It said one attack was thwarted when a naval patrol killed two armed Palestinians trying to swim ashore to the Dugit settlement. Islamic Jihad said the gunmen were from its military wing.
(China Daily June 10, 2002)
