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July 23, 2004/Av 5 5764, Vol. 56, No. 44
P.A. sparks chaos
GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - It is the worst internal crisis for the Palestinian Authority since its birth 10 years ago.
For Yasser Arafat, it's another fight for his political life as the P.A. president faces a direct threat to his longtime, authoritarian rule of the Palestinians.
But this time the stakes are higher, and they go beyond Arafat: At stake is the survival of the Palestinian Authority.
The authority is facing complete anarchy.
The chaos was set off over the weekend when several dozen armed men, members of Arafat's own Fatah faction, committed what clearly was an act of rebellion against their leader: They ambushed the motorcade of the P.A. police chief in Gaza, longtime Arafat ally Ghazi Jabali, and kidnapped him.
The rebels refused to release Jabali until Arafat agreed to fire him for corruption. Arafat eventually agreed, and Jabali was freed.
Kidnappings continued throughout the weekend, as well as a series of other incidents that threatened to deprive Arafat of his hold on the increasingly chaotic Gaza Strip, which Israeli troops and settlers are due to leave in 2005.
Another P.A. official was kidnapped, along with five French volunteers. All were eventually freed following Arafat's intervention.
Two senior officials, Rashid abu Shbak, head of the P.A. preventive security force, and Amin al-Hindi, head of the P.A.'s general intelligence service, handed in their resignations over the weekend, protesting "the absence of reforms and the continuation of a state of anarchy in the Gaza Strip."
But Arafat's dismissal of Jabali - seemingly an agree-ment to institute reforms - turned out to be deceptive.
Over the July 17-18 week-end, Arafat fired reformer Abdel Razek Al-Majaideh from his post as director of general security for the West Bank and Gaza Strip because Majaideh had called for political reform. Arafat replaced him with Mousa Arafat, a nephew who commands the much-reviled Palestinian military intelli-gence service and is widely accused of corruption.
The appointment fueled reformists' anger and riots.
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