ISRAELI GOVERNMENT PLOY: ARAFAT CAN GO TO ARAB SUMMIT MEETING
by DEBKAfile, 23 March 2002
"The wild Middle East reality has produced one of its most bizarre twists: According to DEBKAfiles American and Palestinian sources, the initiative to let Yasser Afafat travel to Beirut for the Arab League summit opening next week comes from Ariel Sharon and a group of Israeli government ministers.
The decision Thursday, March 21, to hold back on an Israeli military response
- even before the blood-spattered wreckage of the latest Palestinian bombing
attack had been cleared from the streets in the heart of Jerusalem
was part and parcel of the same tactic. The Israeli government decision was
a spontaneous one; it was not demanded by overseas governments as usually
happens.
Our sources report, moreover, that Sharon is far from happy about the US State
Departments decision to add the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the militant
arm of Arafats Fatah, to its list of terrorist organizations. Since
Thursday, the prime ministers office has been pumping out leaks presenting
this group as an integral part of the Tanzim militia commanded by Marwan Barghouti.
Senior US sources in Washington and the Middle East told DEBKAfile they were
not part of this campaign which emanated from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
They are perfectly aware of the Brigades true chain of command, topped
by Arafat himself. However, they are watching with interest as the Israeli
prime minister maneuvers to distance the Palestinian leader from direct responsibility
for the latest wave of suicide attacks, so as to release him from his three
months confinement in Ramallah - in time to attend the Arab Summit.
Sharon believes that the Arab rulers he meets there are better placed to coax
the Palestinian leader into reining in his bombers and gunmen, and accepting
a truce, than anyone else. In the meantime, the Israeli prime minister is
willing to hold his military horses to give the ploy a chance to play out.
The truth of the matter, according to DEBKAfile s military and intelligence
sources, is that the Tanzim and the al Aqsa Brigades are entirely separate
organizations. Barghouti heads the Tanzim, while the Brigades, which have
carried out the lions share of suicide attacks in the last few months,
is directly commanded by Arafats most trusted henchman, the general
intelligence chief, Col. Tawfiq Tirawi. Whereas Barghouti is fond of publicity,
Tirawi keeps to the shadows, even encouraging the fire-eating Tanzim chief
to brag about multiple-casualty strikes he had nothing to do with - to conceal
his own role and motives.
Tirawi is by far the senior of the two. While Barghouts access to the
Palestinian leader is indirect - through Jibril Rajoub, head of the West Bank
security service - Tirawi sits at the Palestinian leaders side, closer
even than Rajoubs opposite number in the Gaza Strip, Mohamed Dahlan.
Arafats faithful servant, the quiet Palestinian colonel runs the Brigades
as a tight quasi-military outfit. The command level below him is assigned
regional jurisdictions: Bethlehems criminal Abayat clan is responsible
for keeping Jerusalem and Israeli West Bank traffic under fire; Muhamed Titi
from Nabluss Balata camp runs the terror campaign in the Jordan Rift
Valley and the northern West Bank; Jihad Massini from Nablus and Abdallah
Awis from Jenin orchestrate the bombings and shootings in Israeli border districts
and the Sharon area, north of Tel Aviv.
Orders to hand out the bomb belts, explosive device and assault rifle to the
killer squads come directly from Tirawi at Arafats instigation. The
security chief Arafat is also entrusted with his leaders most sensitive
tasks, such as liaison Iraqi military intelligence agents operating in the
kingdom of Jordan and the West bank.
Sharons actions in throwing Arafat a lifebelt is one of the most crucial
decisions he has taken since taking office. It was influenced by Arafats
success in twisting his confinement in Ramallah round. By dint of terror brutalities
on an unheard-of scale, he has turned the tables on Sharon and is by now holding
Israel to siege.
And not just Israel. This week, the Egyptian and Jordanian capitals saw their
first pro-Palestinian demonstrations featuring lines of volunteer suicides
dressed in white with toy bomb belts tied round their waists just like
the Hamas funeral processions in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah II, like most other Arab leaders,
were appalled at the way Arafats suicide ethos, designed to undermine
Israel, had been transplanted to the Arab world. DEBKAfile s Middle
East sources report that they too see no easy way of stemming the spread of
Palestinian terror against their own regimes.
Therefore, Sharon calculated, the heads of Arab governments have an interest
in getting Arafat to Beirut, where they can reason with him. This interest
they share with Israel and the Americans too, since their ceasefire broker,
Anthony Zinni, is clearly getting nowhere in his trilateral security officers
meetings. The Palestinian price for a truce is so exorbitant by now that it
is recognized as noting but an obstacle. On the other hand, sending vice president
Cheney to the Middle East especially to meet Arafat would be totally inappropriate.
DEBKAfile s Middle East analysts do not rate the chances of Sharon gambit
succeeding any higher than the Zinni mission. In fact he may have risked too
much on a single throw. At the outset of his Intifada 18 months ago, Arafat
cared about standing well with Arab rulers. Now his ambitions have soared
to the point that he believes his strategy of terror is capable of lighting
fires under the regimes in Cairo, Amman, Riyadh and Damascus, just as he has
in Israel. He sees his revolution as a worldwide Islamic upheaval that can
reach as far as Israels patron, the United States.
These ambitions cannot be quenched by letting him off the hook or rewarding
him with fine American gestures, such as the Bush-Chirac statement Friday,
March 22, urging Israel to allow the Palestinian leader to attend the Arab
summit and return. Time has proved that each time he gets away with
horrific acts of terror, Arafat is encouraged to step up the violence. The
Arafat affliction has gone way beyond any reasonable formulae; it demands
root treatment for him and his terror machine, starting with its most effective
instrument, the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
Sharon would do well to learn from his predecessors misreadings of the
Arafat mnifestation. In 1997, Binyamin Netanyahu, after signing the Wye Plantations
interim accord with Arafat, encouraged President Clinton to become the first
US president to address the Palestinian National Assembly in Gaza and voice
support for a Palestinian State. Three years later, Ehud Barak opened
the doors of the White House to the Palestinian leader and his terror chiefs.
Sharons tactic of clearing Arafats path to Beirut will fail in
the same way as did those of the prime ministers before him, both of whose
terms were sharply curtailed." [Emphasis added]