AL QUDS: Israel’s government has not officially decided to topple Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, but it apparently no longer fears it would be worse off without him.

The government says it hopes that by attacking his symbols of power, it will force Arafat to dismantle Islamic organizations that have carried out a series of deadly bombings inside Israel. But politicians and analysts here now openly speculate about who might succeed Arafat. One minister said that even a government run by Palestinian hardliners would be preferable to Arafat’s continued leadership.

At least if Hamas were in control of the Palestinian Authority, the world would understand what Israel is up against, Finance Minister Silvan Shalom told Israel Television as Israeli airstrikes against Palestinian targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were under way Monday night.

Shalom belongs to what is now a minority within Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government that openly favours driving Arafat from power. Although the Cabinet decided on Tuesday morning to declare Arafat’s regime a supporter of terrorism, it stopped short of labelling him an enemy. The centre-left Labour Party threatened to quit the coalition government if such a step is taken.

But Arafat can no longer rely on the concern - most frequently voiced by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres during the past 14 months of fighting - that chaos and extremism would reign in Palestinian-controlled territories if the 72-year-old Palestinian leader lost his grip on power.

For weeks now, Israeli media have reported on who the intelligence services believe is most likely to succeed Arafat, should he fall from power, die or be forced into exile by Israel. Despite the surging popularity of hardliners with the Palestinian public, intelligence sources calculate that the mainstream, secular Fatah movement that Arafat founded decades ago would most likely maintain its grip on power, possibly through some sort of collective leadership of senior political and security figures.

Arafat has never named a successor or established a mechanism for replacing him. Among Palestinians, he remains the unquestioned leader of both the Palestinian people and the political-security establishment he has constructed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Legislative Council passed a law of succession in 1995 that would elevate the speaker of the parliament, Ahmed Korei, better known as Abu Ala, to the presidency for 40 days in the event of Arafat’s death, until elections for a new president could be held. But Israeli security sources point out that Arafat never ratified the law. Should Arafat somehow disappear from the scene, Israel’s political-military establishment regards the likelihood of a peaceful, orderly transition as unlikely, given the growing power of armed groups and the weakening of Palestinian legal institutions and political parties as the fight with Israel continues. “One can only assume that the upcoming succession battle will be a violent affair,” said one senior defence source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There will be some kind of a struggle between personalities, between factions.”

The Palestinian leader’s presumed heir apparent is Mahmoud Abbas, 66, known as Abu Mazen, one of the last founders of Fatah still alive. Abbas lives in Gaza and is one of the few men close to Arafat who is thought to have the political stature to bring the myriad security forces under his authority.

Korei, 63, the Palestinian architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accords with Israel, is considered to be a potential rival to Abbas, as is Farouk Kaddoumi, the hard-line foreign minister of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Kaddoumi opposes a negotiated settlement with Israel and did not return to the West Bank and Gaza Strip with Arafat.

For any of the three Fatah leaders to rise the position of president, will require the backing of the heads of the security services, Mohammad Dahlan, Jibril Rajoub and Amin Hindi. The three security strongmen control thousands of armed men in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and are considered by Israel to be both fed up with Arafat’s leadership and more willing to reach a negotiated settlement with Israel. —Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) Los Angeles Times.