AL QUDS, June 17: Israel’s military operations in the West Bank are aimed at sidelining Yasser Arafat to allow the emergence of a new Palestinian leadership, a defence ministry adviser said on Monday.

“The bottom line of the operations is to put Arafat aside, to let emerge new young leaders from the Palestinian side, like Mohammed Dahlan, Abu Mazen Mahmud Abbas, but Dahlan is the most important figure,” said David Hasham.

“We don’t see a partner on the Palestinian side right now. Arafat is no longer a partner when you’re talking about peace,” Hasham told a press conference, dismissing the veteran leader as a “dictator”.

Dahlan, 41, stepped down at the start of June as head of Palestinian preventive security for the Gaza Strip and no longer has a function in Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.

Arafat has offered him the post of adviser on security matters, but Dahlan has yet to give a response, while Abbas — also known as Abu Mazen — is Arafat’s number two in the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Hasham, the defence ministry’s adviser on Arab affairs, also said the Palestinians had failed to win any concrete Arab support during the Israeli army’s assault on West Bank towns between March 29 and May 10.

“The Palestinians’ expectations of the Arab world did not materialise, except for declarations and rhetoric,” he said.—AFP