December 4, 2001	Tuesday	Ramazan 18, 1422

HAIFA: Yasser Arafat has faced many perilous times in almost half a century of fighting for the Palestinian cause, not least in Beirut two decades ago. But he has seldom been confronted with a dilemma as overwhelming as the one now facing him in the wake of the Al Quds and Haifa suicide bombings. The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, recognized this when he said Arafat now faced his “moment of truth”.

Arafat, who declared a state of emergency on Sunday after a crisis meeting, has to arrest Palestinian fighters from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in order to get a peace process under way.

But if Arafat bows to pressure from the US and Israel to send his security forces to make widespread arrests, he will face internal problems. Previous attempts have ended up with the local neighbourhoods turning out to protect those facing arrest, and have even led to bloodshed. He was able to imprison those alleged to be behind the wave of the suicide bombings that hit Israel between 1994 and 1996. It will be much more fraught now.

These groups have gained huge support and respect among Palestinians over the last 14 months for what their role in resistance against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Support for Hamas is running at 60 per cent: before the Palestinian uprising, it was often in single figures and at best between 10 per cent and 20 per cent.

The US government was almost unanimous on Sunday in putting all the pressure on Arafat. There were no calls on Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to resist retaliating or to chide him for the various infringements into Palestinian territory and the assassinations of Palestinian leaders.

Khalil Shikaki, the Palestinian analyst, said: “Arafat is caught between two fires. If he carries out random arrests, there will be an internal conflict because the public are very frustrated and are against arrests and the fighters’ attacks have support.” One option available to Arafat that might work, Shikaki said, was to make selective arrests. Ironically, Arafat had embarked on just such a policy only hours before the bombings in Al Quds. It was his most serious action so far to hunt down and detain Muslim hardline factions.

In a wave of synchronized arrests, Palestinian security officials detained the most public figure of the Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip - Mohammed al-Hindi - and at least a dozen other activists in the West Bank cities of Al Khalil, Ramallah and Jenin. Palestinian security officials said the arrests - which the US and Israel had been demanding for months - were a direct result of pressure on Arafat from Washington’s envoy to the region, the retired marine corps commander, General Anthony Zinni.

The arrests were also remarkable for the fact that Arafat’s police forces managed to keep their captives in jail. Previous attempts to crack down on hardliners have provoked furious riots in Gaza and the West Bank, with mobs setting fire to or stoning police stations until the suspected bombers were freed.

The larger group Hamas presents the most formidable challenge. A spokesman for the organization in the Gaza Strip said its drive for vengeance for Israeli’s assassination of the West Bank commander Mahmoud Abu Hanoud, was still not assuaged and its bombing campaign would continue.

In fact, Arafat has successfully helped build up the idea of Palestinian nationhood, keeping the idea alive decade after decade. But his success as a revolutionary leader has not been matched by success as a nation-builder. Whether he can achieve that partly depends on what action he takes in the coming days and weeks, and whether he can enforce his will on the Palestinian people one more time.

Hamas has emerged as the parallel administration to Arafat’s Palestinian Authority in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis and the West Bank towns of Rafah and Al Khalil. Punitive Israeli measures have left Arafat’s Palestinian Authority with only enough funds to pay its bloated payroll of 112,000 souls, while Hamas is full of zeal and flush with cash - thanks to a $150 million grant from Saudi Arabia. During Ramazan, the Hamas have tightened their hold on the hearts of ordinary Palestinians, doling out food parcels and money to an impoverished population.

The immediate effects of Arafat’s state of emergency is to a ban of the carrying of arms including ritual gunfire accompanying funerals. Palestinian officials warn the measures have no hope of success if Israel continued its strategy of assassination. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.