Palestinian President Yasser Arafat met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday for talks on ways to firm up the fragile truce with Israel and instill calm in the Occupied Territories, the Egyptian presidency said, quoted by AFP. Meanwhile, the Israeli security cabinet met to review the ceasefire with the Palestinians.
Arafat and Mubarak met behind closed doors at the Borg El Arab resort on Egypt's Mediterranean coast before being joined by ministers and other advisers, an official spokesman said.
Arafat arrived in Cairo Tuesday evening from Madrid, where he restated a commitment to ending nearly nine months of Palestinian uprising against Israel's military occupation, and respecting a ceasefire which officially came into effect on June 13.
He was accompanied by Minister for Local Government Saeb Erakat and the head of preventative security for the Gaza Strip, Mohammed Dahlan.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned Arafat in Madrid on Tuesday, press reports were quoted by AFP as saying, discussing the implementation of the ceasefire and other recommendations by the international Mitchell Comission into the “violence” which erupted in September.
Powell also called Mubarak Tuesday night for discussions on "efforts to restore contacts between Israelis and Palestinians," Egypt's state-owned MENA news agency said.
In Madrid, Arafat called yet again for the urgent dispatch of international observers to monitor a shaky seven-day Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire that has failed to stop bloodshed.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon convened his security cabinet on Wednesday to reassess the ceasefire following two deadly attacks on Jewish settlers in the West Bank on Monday.
According to Radio Israel, the cabinet said it would continue to implement the Tenet plan “despite the fact that the PNA does not do this.” They said that “Israel maintains the right to operate in order to foil future terror acts.”
Israel's press predicted that new assassinations would be carried out targeting key Intifada activists.
At a meeting of the inner security cabinet Tuesday, there was no agreement on whether to announce that Israel would give another extension to attempts to consolidate the ceasefire. However, those present seemed to feel that their "policy of restraint" was failing, said Haaretz.
Senior Israeli political and military officials are worried that a "creeping erosion" of the ceasefire provisions hammered out by CIA Director George Tenet could develop into a total collapse of the truce.
Haaretz sources said the Palestinians were not sticking to any of the agreements and were "making a mockery of us and the Americans."
But Arafat in Spain pointed to the killing of an elderly Palestinian and a young boy, asking whether the two had been combatants engaged in attacking Israel.
Palestinian media Wednesday blamed settlers for the killing of a 70-year-old woman struck by an Israeli car near the West Bank town of Qalqilya on Tuesday.
Palestinian officials had said Tuesday that the death of the woman, hit while riding a donkey, was accidental and not intentional. But Palestinian newspapers wrote on Wednesday that the woman was killed deliberately.
In Amman, top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Wednesday that sending international monitors to the Palestinian lands was inevitable. In a statement to Palestinian radio, quoted by Kuwait's official news agency (KUNA), Erekat pointed out that his demand for international monitors came in response to escalating Israeli attacks against the Palestinian people. Erekat said Israeli premier Ariel Sharon’s government had no clear political agenda to end the current crisis, and wanted only to "ruin the peace process."
Sharon threatened Tuesday to unilaterally cancel the ceasefire agreement if Palestinians continued attacks on Israelis.
Regarding Arafat’s current tour, Erekat pointed out that the president had explained Palestine’s "clear and honest" stance on the importance of implementing the Mitchell Comission's recommendations.
The recommendations also included halting construction of Jewish settlements in Palestinian lands, executing all interim agreements, and starting final negotiations within a year in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338.
Arafat's tour included, in addition to Egypt, Jordan and Spain.
Since the outbreak of the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict last September, CNN reports that Palestinians have killed approximately 112 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to CNN, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 458 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s.
According to Amnesty International, nearly 100 of the Palestinians killed were children.
In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded, as well as over 500 killed.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.” – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
