Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat angrily rounded on Prime Minister Ehud Barak Tuesday over his accusations that the Palestinians had chosen the path of conflict.
"Palestinian President Yasser Arafat considers these declarations bizarre and reprehensible," his secretary general, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, told AFP.
"Our people are only defending themselves against the Israeli military machine," he added.
Almost 140 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in nearly four weeks of violent confrontations with Israeli troops in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, clashes that have led to Barak's unilateral suspension of the peace process.
"At the moment, the Palestinian Authority and Arafat have chosen the path of conflict in an attempt to make us fold and to get us to surrender our vital interests through force," Barak said earlier Tuesday.
"With violence they will not gain a thing. We will know how to operate and stand united against violence to win," he added.
Arafat's top advisor, Nabil Abu Rudeina, said Barak and the Israeli government "can impose nothing on the Palestinians who know how to defend their rights and their holy places." -- GAZA CITY (AFP)
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