Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in remarks published on Friday that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was the only acceptable leader for the Palestinians and efforts to oust him would lead to chaos.
"Palestinians will not accept anyone but Arafat because leaders who are parachuted on to their people are considered traitors," Mubarak said in an interview published in Al Ahram newspaper on Friday.
"Abu Ammar [Arafat] is the father of the Palestinians. He is deeply experienced in the Palestinian cause," he added. "Nobody else can hold a dialogue with Israel or negotiate with it," he said.
Mubarak said violence could not be stopped as long as the Israeli occupation of Palestinian areas continued and the Palestinians did not have any hope that their rights would be restored.
Referring to U.S. President George W. Bush's peace proposal, Mubarak said he had agreed with Bush on many points, but Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's U.S. visit had caused "some change in the American understandings". But, Mubarak said there was still an opportunity for Washington to expand on the political aspects in Bush's statement and forge a mechanism for their implementation.
the Egyptian leader said he had never discussed with Bush the possibility of sidelining Arafat. "What I say in a closed room, I say in public."
Mubarak said he sent intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to Israel for talks on Sunday, but he had found Sharon immovable on key issues. "He (Sharon) wants an end to violence first, and wants to tailor Palestinian reforms to the model he wants," he said.
"Israel's insistence on ousting Arafat will lead to chaos in the Palestinian territories and to more violence at home and abroad." Arafat might step down after a year or more, when a peace agreement has been reached, because at that point he will have achieved his duty, the Egyptian president concluded.
Meanwhile, The Jerusalem Post reported Friday that Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who on several occasions has tried to convince his cabinet to approve the expulsion of Arafat, now accepts the consensus among top diplomatic and security officials in Tel Aviv and Washington that Arafat should remain isolated and irrelevant.
Officials close to Sharon expressed approval of new Israeli army Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon's recommendation not to exile Arafat, but rather to let him "dehydrate."
Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin, Sharon's closest ally in the cabinet, said the prime minister has accepted that exiling Arafat would make him relevant again. "The prime minister wants to be rid of Arafat, but he accepted the security officials' advice before Operation Defensive Shield and again after the most recent bus bombing in Jerusalem," Rivlin said. "We decided on the lesser of two evils, that leaving Arafat isolated is better than exiling him." (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
