Washington, June 15: Two leading US lawmakers said on Sunday the world needed to further marginalize Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to boost the latest international peace effort in the Middle East.

“I think we have to sideline Arafat right now,” California Representative Jane Harman told Fox News Sunday.

Ms Harman said senior US officials must persuade leaders in the Middle East to shun Mr Arafat, who despite having been marginalized by the United States in its current peace initiatives, remains the head of the Palestinian Authority.

“When (US Secretary of State) Colin Powell goes to Jordan next weekend, he should be spending time with Arab governments making sure they remove Arafat from all political power in the Palestinian Authority,” said Jane Harman, a senior Democrat on the US House Intelligence Committee.

The best outcome, she said, would be for Arafat to go into exile.

“If he wants to live in the south of France ... that would be fine for me,” Harman told Fox News.

Senator Diane Feinstein, another Democrat from California, said Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’s efforts to build peace would be undermined as long Arafat held sway in the region.

“The only way Prime Minister Abbas is ever going to have the strength that he needs is if he is actually helped to build his security forces, and if Yasser Arafat — and I’m sorry to say this, but I deeply believe it — is really marginalized. And that’s not the case right now,” she told CNN.

Feinstein said the peace plan was in danger of collapse.

“I think that this latest roadmap process is going down the tubes right now,” she said.

“The administration has to really think about sending Colin Powell and (national security adviser) Condoleezza Rice over there and getting high-level allied Arab leaders highly involved in this,” she added.—AFP