Posted on 06/25/2002 9:52:50 AM PDT by kattracks
RAMALLAH, West Bank, June 25 (AFP) - With his political survival hanging in the balance, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Tuesday rejected US President George W. Bush's call for his ouster, saying only his people can decide his fate.
"It will be decided by my people and no one else," Arafat told reporters who asked him about the conditions Bush harshly laid down on Monday as a necessary step for US support for a Palestinian state.
Speaking at a news conference with visiting French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, Arafat denied that the eagerly-awaited speech Bush gave was a personal attack on himself.
"Absolutely not," said Arafat, a fighter-turned-politician, in a clear signal that he was not ready to give up his 33-year grip as the supreme chief of the Palestinian people.
"This speech was very important," he said outside his battered headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, with Israeli tanks deployed around the compound.
"Speaking of a Palestinian state is something important," he said in his first public comment on the Bush speech, which made US support for Palestinian statehood conditional on the ouster of Arafat.
Bush said on Monday that "peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born.
"I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror," he said.
"My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security. There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror," the US president added.
Arafat, who has come under repeated US pressure to reform his Palestinian Authority, confirmed he would call presidential and legislative elections in January and local polls two months later.
These elections will be "democratic, democratic, democratic", he pledged.
Israel, who has branded Arafat "irrelevant" as a peace partner and moved tanks around his headquarters, hailed Bush's conditions for peace as matching its very own demands for a return to the negotiating table.
De Villepin, meanwhile, said it was up to the Palestinian people alone to choose "freely" their own leader. He stressed that no one should interfere with the Palestinians.
"The Palestinian Authority should not be prevented from making reforms," de Villepin said.
"The (reforms) must go hand in hand with a political process and introduce more transparency and efficiency in the functioning of the institutions," he said.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat earlier told AFP that Arafat had "approved" the principle of holding presidential and legislative elections next January, and local elections in March 2003 throughout the West Bank.
"We still have to meet to make this official, but because of the present situation on the ground, we are not able to do so," he said.
Erakat was referring to the current reoccupation of most of the towns in the West Bank by the Israeli army, which has imposed curfews.
Palestinian officials and observers said the statement by Arafat and his aides on Monday that "welcomed" the Bush ideas had been issued to save his political life.
"The blockaded leadership had no other choice because there is no benefit in any other option," Palestinian political science professor Ali Jarbawi told AFP.
I agree, but he doesn't have the stones. He takes the cowards' way, by having children kill themselves. Would he ever do himself in? Of course not!
If they want to commit Palinicide let's not throw them a life raft. They want to drown, let em. They've given us their answer.
Either you are with or against us. You can choose life or Palincide!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.