In the course of his political campaign to become the next
head of the Palestinian authority in the elections to be held
on January 9, the front-runner Palestinian Liberation
Organization leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) said in an
interview with the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq al-
Awsat that the use of weapons in the four-year-long
intifadah was a mistake and should stop. He said that
Palestinians should continue resist what he called the
Israeli occupation, but without violence.
"The use of arms has caused damage and must be stopped in
order to calm the atmosphere on the Palestinian street," Abu
Mazen said. It is "a legitimate right of the people to
express their rejection of the occupation by popular and
social means," Abbas said, but "using the weapons was harmful
and has got to stop."
Abbas is the leading candidate to replace Yasser Arafat in
January 9 elections for Palestinian Authority chairman. Abbas
has the support of Israel and of the international
community.
Even while Arafat was still alive, Abbas reportedly told
associates privately that he felt the armed uprising was a
mistake, but he did not express his ideas often in public.
After Arafat's death, Abbas has been more candid about his
views.
In his speech at a summit on June 4, 2003 in the Jordanian
city of Akaba, Abbas said: "There will be no military
solution for this conflict, so we repeat our renunciation and
the renunciation of terrorism against the Israelis wherever
they might be. Such methods are inconsistent with our
religious and moral traditions and are a dangerous obstacle
to the achievement of an independent sovereign state we seek.
These methods also conflict with the kinds of state we wish
to build based on human rights and the rule of law." He was
criticized by Palestinians for the remarks.
Israel has said violence and terror must end before peace
talks can resume.
On Monday, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said that if the
Palestinians work to quell the violence, Israel could
coordinate its planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and
four West Banks settlements with the new Palestinian
leadership. Mofaz also said that if the Palestinians
reorganize their security services Israel would be willing to
give them control over large areas of Gaza and parts of the
West Bank before the pullout.
Abbas said that currently Palestinian security is in a state
of chaos. He told the London newspaper that he is seeking to
unify the various security organizations, a move that was
often demanded of Arafat but that the latter never carried
out.
Abbas also said he was in talks with the militant Islamic
groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, to bring them into the
framework of the PLO, the umbrella group for Palestinian
organizations.
Efforts to calm the situation suffered a setback on Sunday
when Hamas and a Fatah offshoot dug a 600 meter tunnel under
an Israeli post at Rafah on the Gaza-Egypt border, blowing it
up with some 3,000 pounds of explosives, killing five Israeli
soldiers and wounding six. Militants in Gaza have also fired
repeated barrages of rockets and mortars at settlements in
the last week. The Rafah post is very important to all the
Arab residents of Gaza since it is the main gateway in and
out. Its destruction will certainly cause hardship to Gazan
residents. Three soldiers were killed by the explosion and
two by gunmen who opened fire immediately after the blast.
All the soldiers were from a Bedouin reconnaissance
battalion.
Israel's response has been low key but determined. Fears are
that a large-scale operation could jeopardize the Palestinian
elections, with the blame laid at Israel's door.
Prime Minister Sharon approved a number of "localized"
actions in response to Sunday's attack. The army will launch
a series of "rolling operations" not only in the Rafah area
but elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, against weapons smuggling
tunnels as well as Kassam rocket and mortar attacks.
The Israeli leadership is concerned to maintain a balance
between the military operations necessary to clamp down on
arms smuggling tunnels — which, as Sunday's attack
showed, are turning into weapons — and the need to
refrain from massive military action that would jeopardize
the PA election.
Sharon told a visiting group of US congressmen that Israel
has not seen any change in the level of terrorism, or any
indication that the Palestinians are trying to fight it. No
Palestinians condemned the Rafah attack.
Israel has continued targeting militants with smaller raids
and military officials said Tuesday that Mofaz ordered the
army to step up its targeted attacks against Palestinians
responsible for digging the tunnels, which are also used to
smuggle weapons into Gaza.
IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon visited the
site of Sunday's attack on Monday morning. Speaking to
reporters, Ya'alon said that there had been no prior
intelligence regarding the booby-trapped tunnel. Officials
said they are examining new methods and technology, both
locally and abroad, that can be used to track and map tunnels
and minimize casualties.
