By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
Jul 19, 2004
Israeli officials are calling on the Sharon government to use the current wave of anarchy in the PA-controlled areas of the Gaza Strip as an opportunity to implement its decision to remove PLO mass murderer Yasser Arafat.
And there may not be a minute to lose.
Arafat has traditionally thrived on chaos, and should he manage to successfully navigate the present crisis, the unrepentant terror boss could come out the other side having regained the dominance he exercised prior to Israeli and US efforts to sideline him.
The widespread strife was sparked by Arafat’s weekend appointments of “new” top security chiefs – all men fiercely loyal to the “Palestinian” leader and seen by the general population as symbols of PA corruption.
According to Defense Minister Sha’ul Mofaz, Arafat is responding to Egyptian and Western demands for reform by playing a game of “musical chairs” aimed at “keeping his authority and the [PA] security organizations under his thumb.”
Public strife
Civil strife has gripped much of the Gaza Strip since last Friday, following the kidnapping of several senior PA security officials and four foreign aid workers.
The hostages were all releases shortly after their capture, but the tension boiled over into open conflict at the weekend.
As of Monday, the discord had remained an internal matter between armed rival factions of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization – the ruling party in the Palestinian Authority.
Israel Channel One News reported that on Sunday night, more than 150 armed Palestinian Arabs were joined by hundreds more unarmed civilians in attacking the PA intelligence headquarters in the southern Gaza border town of Rafiah.
The siege lasted two hours, until the officers inside the compound sued for a ceasefire.
A day earlier, “Palestinian” gunmen overran a PA police station in the Gaza town of Khan Yunis and burned it to the ground.
Fatah’s Al Aqsa Brigades terror wing, as well as several smaller Fatah militias, have claimed credit for the acts of violence, saying they were launched in response to Arafat’s ongoing refusal to implement real reform and his appointment of corrupt officials to head the security organs many of the gunmen themselves belong to.
Fomenting chaos
The one thing all armed factions involved in the current conflict agree on is the preeminence of Arafat, making the PLO chief the only person who stands to gain anything from the chaos.
Long-time observers of the Israeli-Arab conflict were little surprised by that fact.
Arafat has for more than four decades thrived on public turmoil, using it as a tool to retain his dictatorial authority.
Every instance of Western pressure for reform and every possible breakthrough in the Oslo “peace” process over the past ten years have been met immediately by outbreaks of violence and mayhem.
And according to Defense Minister Sha’ul Mofaz, that is precisely what is happening now in Gaza.
Egyptian and Western officials have for more than a month been applying heavy pressure on the aging arch-terrorist to implement security reforms and bring his Palestinian Authority in line with its Oslo Accord commitments.
At the weekend, Arafat implemented reforms, but not in the manner he was expected to.
Rather than consolidate the “security” forces under the command of his Western-imposed prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, Arafat remolded them into three new branches, all falling under the control of his National Security Council.
Most infuriating to members of his Fatah organization was the appointment of Arafat’s close relative, Moussa Arafat, to head up the new General Security branch. The lesser-known Arafat is seen by most “Palestinians” as a symbol of the incompetence and corruption that have plagued the PA for years.
Mofaz told the cabinet on Sunday that Arafat was “trying to create the illusion of reform, but in actuality there is no intent to reform and no reform has been carried out.”
“We are spectators in a game of musical chairs,” which Arafat is orchestrating in order to “keep his authority and the security organizations under his thumb,” Mofaz said.
‘Arafat must go’
The tumultuous situation may present Israel with a unique chance to finally do away with the man responsible for the deaths of more Jews than anyone since Adolf Hitler.
"I think this is the opportunity to get rid of Arafat," Health Minister Danny Naveh told Army Radio Sunday.
Naveh noted the general Palestinian Arab public was so fed up with Arafat’s ways that if Israel were to do away with him, “even in the ‘Palestinian’ street they won't cry too much.”
In the past, right-wing politicians have called for Arafat’s arrest and public trial for his crimes against the Jewish people.