Author: Serge Schmemann
Publication: The New York Times
Date: August 31, 2002
The senior Palestinian security
official who has been negotiating with Israel on a cease-fire denounced
suicide attacks in an interview published today in an Israeli newspaper
as "murders for no reason," and said he was demanding that militant organizations
abandon them.
The official, Abdel Razak Yehiyeh,
who was appointed Palestinian interior minister in June, said he had told
all Palestinian factions: "Stop the suicide bombings, stop the murders
for no reason. Return to the legitimate struggle against the occupation,
without violence and following international norms and legitimacy."
Suicide attacks, he said, harmed
the Palestinian cause. "Children were exploited for these attacks," he
said, "when they could have made a much more positive contribution to future
Palestinian society."
While officials of the Palestinian
Authority have assailed suicide bombings in the past and have claimed to
oppose them, Mr. Yehiyeh has emerged as the primary Palestinian contact
with Israelis in talks on easing violence. He has also been holding meetings
with all Palestinian factions, including the radical Hamas and Islamic
Jihad, in an effort to forge a common front.
It was also noteworthy that his
comments appeared in an interview with Israel's largest daily newspaper,
Yediot Ahronot. Mr. Yehiyeh and another ranking Palestinian, Muhammad Dahlan,
who is Yasir Arafat's top security adviser, have been seeking in recent
weeks to project a conciliatory, moderate image to Israelis.
Mr. Dahlan, a 42-year-old former
chief of security in the Gaza Strip, has given several interviews to Israeli
newspapers, including one today on the front page of Yediot Ahronot with
Nahum Barnea, the paper's influential columnist.
In the interview, Mr. Dahlan declared
that he thought that the current violence would end in peace.
"I am optimistic," he said. "Peace
is on the way. A year, or two, something like that. Really. This is the
last round."
Mr. Yehiyeh, in his interview, acknowledged
that neither Hamas and Islamic Jihad, nor the radical wing of Mr. Arafat's
movement, Fatah, have agreed to forswear terror. The extreme organizations
have publicly rejected Mr. Yehiyeh's proposals, though talks among the
factions continue. The next meeting was set for Sunday.
Mr. Yehiyeh was also the Palestinian
official who negotiated with the Israeli defense minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer,
on an agreement to pull Israeli troops back from Bethlehem and Gaza, and
eventually other towns, if the Palestinians kept the peace. Though the
process stalled after an initial pullback in Bethlehem, Mr. Yehiyeh said
Palestinians had "full control" in Bethlehem, which has remained peaceful
since the Israelis allowed the Palestinian police to return on Aug. 19.
Both Mr. Yehiyeh and Mr. Dahlan
have insisted that they are acting under the authority of Mr. Arafat, the
Palestinian leader, who remains secluded in his headquarters in Ramallah.
But Mr. Dahlan, at least, urged Israelis not to focus so much attention
on the Palestinian leadership.
"Don't waste time on dreams over
who will come after Arafat," he said. "For better or for worse, Arafat
represents the consensus. Everything else is nonsense."
So far, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
and the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, have made no public
signs of changing their harsh policies. General Yaalon made headlines over
the past week when he declared that if Israel did not defeat the Palestinian
Authority, Israelis would face a "cancerous threat." Mr. Sharon declared
that General Yaalon's comments were "true and correct."
Israeli military operations in the
West Bank and Gaza have also continued undiminished, with daily reports
of raids to nab militants, often leading to Palestinian casualties.
Yet after a period of relative quiet,
the Israeli public indicated at least an interest in the tentative steps
made by Mr. Ben-Eliezer, who is also head of the moderate Labor Party.
The weekly opinion poll in the daily newspaper Maariv showed Mr. Ben-Eliezer
rebounding in popularity within his party, though he continued to trail
Mr. Sharon by a wide margin.
In another development, Reuters
reported that an 18-year-old Palestinian woman was executed by the radical
wing of the Fatah movement, Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, apparently for collaborating
with Israel, citing people close to the group as sources. The woman, Rajah
Ibrahim, was the second woman to be killed by Al Aksa in a week.
Palestinians with ties to Al Aksa
told Reuters that Ms. Ibrahim was seized in Tulkarm, one of the West Bank
towns under siege by Israel, and was accused of providing the information
that the Israelis used to track down and kill the Aksa commander in Tulkarm,
Raed al-Karmi, in January.
Dozens of men have been killed by
Palestinians after accusations that the men helped Israelis in their hunt
for militants. But last week, Ikhlas Yassin, a 35- year-old mother, also
from Tulkarem, became the first woman killed for that reason in the 23-month
uprising. The Palestinians produced a videotape in which she said she had
passed information to the Israelis through her brother about a man who
was wanted, and later killed, by the Israelis.
