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June 28, 2002/Tamuz 18 5762, Vol. 54, No. 41
Speech could aid Palestinian calls for change
GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - Even before President Bush called for replacing the Palestinian Authority leadership, there were growing indications that Palestinians were doing some soul-searching.
One indication was a June 19 petition against suicide bombings, signed by the PLO's top official for Jeru-salem, Sari Nusseibeh; Pal-estinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi; and 55 other Pale-stinian intellectuals.
The petition, published twice as an advertisement in eastern Jerusalem's Arab press, was the most impressive public move against the current wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks in recent months.
"We would like to believe that those who stand behind the military operations, whose targets are civilians in Israel, will reconsider their acts because we do not see that they lead to any results, except for more hatred and animosity between the two peoples," the petition read.
The petition was followed by another advertisement a few days later with even more signatures.
To be sure, the writers of the petition carefully chose their words to stay within the Palestinian consensus.
They did not call suicide bombings "terrorist attacks," for example, but "military operations." In addition, they did not say that the attacks against civilians were im-moral per se, simply that they weren't useful to the Pales-tinian cause.
The petition coincided with a rally in the Gaza Strip in which hundreds protested deteriorating economic con-ditions, demanding work and food rather than armed struggle.
Some demonstrators told reporters that they wanted to know what had happened to relief money from overseas, little of which had made its way from the Palestinian Authority to the people.
Some analysts, like Zuheir Hamdan, think both the petition and the demon-stration were the work of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.
Hamdan told JTA that Ara-fat encouraged the petition - indeed, he went on record praising it - to strengthen the appearance of moderation.
Now, with Bush having come out strongly against the Pale-stinian leader, Arafat is likely to intensify his efforts to hang on to his image as the only leader able to rally the Palestinian people behind him.
Curiously, in his initial reac-tion, Arafat described Bush's speech as "a serious effort to push the peace process."
The next day, however, he joined other Palestinian offi-cials in saying that only the Palestinians would choose their own leaders.
Indeed, the present P.A. leadership is well aware that Arafat's removal may also mean the end of their poli-tical careers.
Arafat will try to drive a wedge among the United States, the European Union and the Arab world by adopt-ing a seemingly "peaceful" strategy and warning against "renewed Israeli occupation" of the territories, analysts said.
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