December 23, 2002	Monday	Shawwal 18, 1423

RAMALLAH (West Bank), Dec 22: Palestinians decided on Sunday to postpone indefinitely a general election scheduled for January, saying it was difficult to hold a vote while Israeli forces continued to occupy West Bank cities.

“Due to the Israeli reoccupation, obstruction and closures, it is impossible to convene the election on January 20,” cabinet minister Saeb Erekat told Reuters after a Palestinian government meeting on the vote.

A Palestinian cabinet statement on Sunday said elections “would be held immediately after occupation forces pull back” to positions held before the uprising began in September 2000. Ordinary Palestinians welcomed the postponement of the vote.

“This is the right decision because how can people move while tanks are in towns? How can candidates move freely,” asked Nael Arar, a teacher from the West Bank city of Ramallah.

“The Palestinian leadership decided to hold the elections after the Israelis withdraw from the (reoccupied) Palestinian territories and according to the electoral law,” the leadership statement said.

The polls had been scheduled for January 20 but the electoral committee last week recommended delaying them, saying Israel’s reoccupation of the West Bank and the closures imposed made them impossible.

“There is no way the elections can be held on January 20,” Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP, adding that under the electoral law, 100 days were needed from the announcement of polls for the preparation of the ballot.

Erakat said the Israeli curfews, occupation and blockades of Palestinian cities, towns and villages in almost the entire West Bank made the holding of elections unfeasible.

Israel is demanding the PA undertake sweeping democratic and security reforms, but wanted the presidential elections delayed for fear Arafat, whom it wants dumped, could win a new term as leader.

Washington also wishes to see Arafat dropped, viewing him as an obstacle to the peace process.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman denied the charges, accusing Arafat of seeking excuses to avoid democratising his regime.

“The elections in the Palestinian Authority are in the interest of the Palestinian people. Arafat is trying to find excuses to avoid these elections and avoid the democratisation of his regime,” spokesman David Saranga told AFP.

“Israel does not want to remain in Palestinian Authority territory and is willing to withdraw, but cannot because the moment we leave terrorist attacks and suicide bombings will resume,” he said.

Before the reoccupation last summer, Israeli forces smashed the Palestinians’ security infrastructure in a series of air and land strikes in retaliation for attacks by Palestinian militant groups.

Shin Beth chief Avi Dichter, whose agents operate in the territories, told the weekly cabinet meeting that the Palestinian leadership still maintained control in the Gaza Strip, which has been heavily hit in 26 months of fighting but which has not been reoccupied.

In response to the rising crime rate in the Palestinian cities whose infrastructure has crumbled, the Al Khalil branch of Arafat’s Fatah movement issued leaflets threatening to cut off the hands and feet of people found committing thefts.

The leaflets, seen by an AFP correspondent and signed by Fatah, were handed out in mosques on Friday in the southern West Bank city.

Early Sunday, Israeli armour staged a fresh raid into Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, destroying the home of an Islamic Jihad man blamed for a shooting attack on Friday in which a rabbi from a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip was killed. The army also destroyed the house of his brother, who was slain in an anti-Israeli attack in April 2000.

Meanwhile Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to arrive in Moscow in the latest leg of his European tour in which he has tried to persuade European countries to cut all ties with Arafat.—Reuters/ AFP