December 12, 2003	Friday	Shawwal 17, 1424

TEL AVIV, Dec 11: Leading Israeli security veterans predict in a report to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that Palestinian warlords will take control in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a post-Yasser Arafat era, officials said on Thursday.

Former heads of security services, including the Mossad intelligence agency, who drew up the report for Mr Sharon, believe there is no chance of reaching a peace deal while Mr Arafat is alive or for many years after he leaves the stage.

“I wouldn’t put my money on peace,” Shmuel Bar, chairman of the study team, said of its “day-after scenario” in which it forecast a power vacuum filled by warlords.

“What we will see is a lot of small areas of control and influence. Warlords with their own armed forces... It will be fiefdoms, Afghanisation,” he said.

Mr Arafat, 73, was ill in October and Palestinians said he never looked so frail. Aides said later the president needed gallstone surgery but was otherwise in good health.

Palestinian officials dismissed the panel’s findings.

“If the absence of Arafat will bring chaos, why undermine the democratically elected president?” said senior minister Saeb Erekat, referring to Israel’s refusal to deal with Mr Arafat or allow him to travel freely.

“They are saying no peace with Arafat and no peace without Arafat and this is not logical. This leads to the conclusion that the real issue is that they want to keep expanding settlements (in occupied territory)...,” he said.

‘’FEUDALIZATION’: Mr Bar blamed Mr Arafat’s policies and the Israeli army’s isolation of Palestinian cities for a three-year-long process of “feudalization” in which strongmen backed by local militias were gaining footholds in many areas.

In the post-Arafat era, he said, the Hamas group would be the only coherent power

centre in Palestinian areas as it would remain united under one leadership.

But the security experts did not believe Hamas would succeed in taking power, as militia chiefs, many affiliated with Mr Arafat’s mainstream Fatah faction, would block them. Islamist factions get about 30 percent support in Palestinian polls.

Mr Bar said the former security chiefs, who had private interviews with some Palestinian officials, felt that some of Mr Arafat’s contemporaries such as Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei, a moderate, would rise into the presidency.

But the report predicted they would probably be unable to implement any peace initiatives with Israel as they would lack a power base among the Palestinian people, which would be held by local warlords in West Bank and Gaza cities.

“It’s a Greek tragedy. The person who could deliver doesn’t want to, and the people who want to deliver can’t,” Mr Bar said.

The security veterans’ main recommendation to Mr Sharon was to provide economic incentives and encourage international backing for moderate Palestinian leaders to help them build their popularity for the time when Mr Arafat would leave the stage.

Mr Sharon is expected to unveil in a keynote conference address next week a series of unilateral steps, including annexation of some territory, Israel would take if the US-backed roadmap plan for peace with the Palestinians hits a dead end. —Reuters