TEL AVIV: Ariel Sharon arrived for his fifth meeting with George Bush on Tuesday armed with a thick dossier he hopes will at last persuade the US administration to accept his ruling article of faith: there can be no no peace with Yasser Arafat.
The dossier is entitled The Involvement of Arafat, Palestinian Authority Senior Officials and Apparatuses in Terrorism Against Israel, Corruption and Crime. It is a compilation of memos and invoices that the Israeli army seized from Palestinian offices during its reoccupation of the West Bank last month.
Israel says it has sifted through 500,000 documents - paper files as well as computer discs and hard drives - carted away during the Israeli army raids.
Israeli officials say the dossier proves Arafat’s complicity in attacks on Israelis. Sharon hopes it will accomplish what his 34-day siege on Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters failed to do: recruit the Bush administration to his goal of deporting Arafat and negotiating a settlement with a more pliant Palestinian leadership.
The key memos are those showing Arafat approving requests for funding on behalf of fighters. Last September, Arafat was asked to give $2,500 to Raed Karmi, commander of a military offshoot of Arafat’s Fatah movement, who was assassinated by Israel last January, and two other men. According to a scrawl on the letter, which Israel identifies as Arafat’s signature, the Palestinian leader sanctioned $600 apiece.
Other papers claim to show Arafat’s signature approving the release of $350 apiece to 12 Fatah activists in Tulkaram, and the same sum to 24 Fatah activists in Bethlehem.
But despite the fanfare with which the dossier was released on Sunday, there is no smoking gun linking Arafat to a specific suicide attack or shooting, and the requests do not say what the funds are for. Israel admits that although Arafat paid money to hundreds of Fatah members, not all were involved in attacks on Israelis.
Israel also failed to provide documents for many of its claims, including the accusation that the EU, which covers part of the salaries in Arafat’s PA, has inadvertently funded terrorists. A spokesman in Brussels said the EU had not seen the report, but that its funds for the PA were rigorously vetted.
Palestinian officials have condemned the dossier as a forgery. However, it does contain damning information against Arafat’s key aides, including his West Bank intelligence chief, Tawfiq Tirawi, who remained by his side during the siege of the Ramallah headquarters.
A memo from a Palestinian intelligence official in Tulkaram, discussing a deadly shooting attack on a bat mitzvah party last January, informs Tirawi that the fighters “are close to us and maintain ongoing coordination and contacts with us”.
However, it remains uncertain whether Sharon’s strategy will work. Although Bush has little time for Arafat, US officials maintain that he remains the chosen leader of the Palestinians.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.