If Yasser Arafat really wants to crack down on whoever ordered yesterday's suicide bombing, he won't have to look hard. Marwan Barghouti, head of the military wing of the Palestinian leader's Fatah movement, went on Palestinian TV yesterday to announce the bombing was "in retaliation for the crimes of the Israeli Army."
Barghouti's troops include the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which claimed responsibility for the attack and many others in recent months.
Barghouti went on to say the attacks won't stop as long as the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory continues.
While Israelis insist Arafat could halt the attacks, some Palestinians question whether Barghouti still answers to his old boss — despite Arafat's stated desire for a ceasefire.
"Barghouti is sending a message," said Ehud Yeari, an Israeli expert on Arab affairs. "He has no intention of letting the ceasefire happen."
There is also the question of who would arrest Barghouti and brigade members.
A Palestinian source familiar with the militant groups said the Martyrs' Brigade is made up largely of officers from the Palestinian Authority's security apparatus, including preventive security, intelligence and Arafat's elite Force-17.
"Most of the people who are shooting receive their salaries at the end of every month from the [authority]," the source said.
No one can say for certain whether Arafat still controls Barghouti and the Martyrs' Brigade.
Some Palestinian sources agree with Israeli critics that Arafat gave Barghouti the green light to carry out attacks.
"Barghouti is acting on behalf of Arafat," the Palestinian source said. "Arafat could cut Barghouti short if he disagreed with him."
But Bassem Eid, a Palestinian human rights activist, said the Palestinian leader has lost control of the situation.
"He can't just tell them to stop and go home now," Eid said.
Barghouti's militancy is fed by Palestinian politics, particularly competition for popular support between Arafat's Palestinian Authority and fundamentalist movements like Hamas.
"Fatah is competing with Hamas, seeing who can kill more," the Palestinian source said.
Barghouti, who considers himself a possible successor to the aging Arafat, also may be nursing some resentment that he and others who never left the territories feel toward Arafat's top aides, who spent years in comfortable exile.
"They feel they saved the PLO while the PLO was exiled," said Prof. Hillel Frisch, an Israeli expert on internal Palestinian politics. "Then when the exiled leaders came back, they took the senior positions and people like Barghouti lost out. Now he and the people around him want to make sure they don't get left out in the next round."
