The struggle between Arafat, Abbas drew Palestinians’ resentment

Additional Reporting By Abdul Raheem Ali, IOL Staff

RAMALLAH, West Bank, September 2 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Leading Palestinian figures Tuesday, September 2, urged veteran leader Yasser Arafat and his Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas to end their power struggle ahead of a crunch parliamentary meeting later this week.

A draft of a reconciliation agreement between the two men proposed by 15 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) is to be completed for defusing the tension, Palestinian sources told IslamOnline.net

The draft calls for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) to have the upper hand as to negotiations with Israel, and for its executive committee to set up a negotiations committee to be chaired by Arafat and include Abbas as a member, said the sources.

They said the agreement is to call for setting up a three-member committee including Arafat, Abbas and head of PLC Ahmed Qure’a to probe re-defining responsibilities of security services to the benefit of beefing up national unity and heading off foreign pressures.

A large number of the legislature had adopted the draft, and now try to get more supporters to allow it be discussed in the next session on Thursday, September 4.

Abbas is set to appear before the session to present a defense of his government's record in its first 100 days in office.

He may try to seek a formal vote confidence from MPs. Victory would greatly strengthen his hand against Arafat. Defeat would likely herald the downfall of his government.

 ‘Internal Differences’

In the meanwhile, more than 200 politicians, academics and other public figures have signed a petition calling on the one-time allies to unite and focus their concentration against Israel.

"We call on you to put an end to all kinds of internal differences and work to resolve the current crisis inside the Palestinian institutions," said the letter, published in newspapers Tuesday and carried by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

It was vital for the Palestinian leadership "to head off all attempts being taken by the enemy of our people, mainly the government of the Israeli occupation, to sabotage our national unity."

Both sides should "resort to dialogue in order to resolve all differences," the petition added.

Governmental affairs minister Yasser Abed Rabbo and the leading MPs Hanan Ashrawi and Hatim Abdul Qadar were among the signatories.

So far, all attempts to mediate a resolution have failed.

Palestinians ‘Resentful’

There is growing unease among Palestinians about the impact of the struggle between Arafat and Abbas, ostensibly over control of the security apparatus, which will decide the fate of both men.

“Feelings of resentment are running high among Palestinians, as this internal struggle coincides with Israeli military escalations,” PLO’s higher committee member Qayes Abdel-Karim told IOL.

Abdel-karim said the Arafat-Abbas struggle put all efforts for national unity in earlier years on the line, lamenting that the disagreement even spilled over in Fatah to divide it between pro-Arafat and pro-Abbas.

He blamed the struggle on foreign interventions and pressures to unify security bodies under one command.

The unease between Arafat and Abbas came with Arafat under heavy U.S. pressure to hand over complete control of the security apparatus to Abbas and his security chief Mohammed Dahlan so they can crack down on Palestinian resistance groups.

Arafat rejected this, according to observers, as he feel that Abbas might order the government to disarm Palestinian factions, a step that Arafat fears may trigger a civil war between factions and leadership and jeopardize his won political survival.

As interior minister as well as prime minister, Abbas controls three of the many Palestinian security branches: the civil police, civil defense and preventative security force.

The 35,000-40,000 strong national security force and other branches such as intelligence, the navy and border police, are still under Arafat's command.

Well-informed Palestinian sources had also told IOL there was a major difference between Arafat and Abbas with respect to dealing with the resistance factions.

The Palestinian Premier favors disarming factions and preventing them from carrying any retaliatory attacks against Israel.

He fears any attacks by the factions would nip in the bud political solutions that have been put forward to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, including U.S.-backed roadmap, said the sources.

Arafat, on the other hand, takes into consideration Palestinians’ fury over the Israeli aggressions.