Arafat's Last Stand?

By Simon Robinson/Ramallah

Trapped between the imminent threat of an Israeli army bulldozer crashing through a ground-floor wall or catching a bullet on an upper floor, Yasser Arafat spent much of last Friday and Saturday on the second floor of his Ramallah refuge telephoning Arab and European leaders to ask for support and fuming at the latest Israeli incursion into his West Bank compound. With his oldest enemies once again closing in around him and allies questioning whether they should continue to support him, Arafat was assailed from above and below.

The Israeli military operation, dubbed Matter of Time, was launched in response to two new Palestinian suicide bombings. By late Saturday night, the Israelis had ripped down all but a small section of Arafat's office building and planted Israel's flag after removing that of Palestine. Over loudspeakers, the Israelis demanded that a small group of what they claimed were terrorists vacate the building, even as their army continued to demolish what was left of the compound and hundreds of Palestinians began massing in the streets of Ramallah to protest Israel's tightening siege.

The first suicide bombing, last Wednesday, claimed the life of a policeman near Umm al-Fahm junction in northern Israel. The following day, just after 1p.m., a man boarded a crowded No. 4 bus in the heart of Tel Aviv. Before the driver could sell him a ticket, the man detonated his deadly payload, killing six and wounding more than 60. The double blows came just hours after the Israel Defense Forces lifted its three-month-long curfew in some West Bank cities and towns, following six weeks of relative calm in Israel. "As soon as we ease the pressure, they're getting ready for another attack," complained a senior Israeli intelligence official.

Four hours after the Tel Aviv attack, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and senior military and intelligence officials. Sharon argued, as he has before, that Arafat should be forced into exile. But Ben-Eliezer and most of the other officials spoke against exile, believing it would give Arafat new life and a ready excuse for his inability--or refusal, as Israelis see it--to rein in militants. At 6:30 p.m. Sharon convened a meeting of his Cabinet and announced a plan to isolate his old enemy but not exile or kill him. As the meeting broke up, Israel Defense Forces tanks were already moving on Arafat's compound.

The latest operation draws on lessons learned from an earlier attempt to isolate Arafat during Operation Defensive Shield in March and from the May siege of Palestinian militants holed up in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. During both assaults, peace activists managed to get into the besieged compounds, limiting the Israeli army's ability to operate "and creating a show," as Israeli Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin puts it. This time around, some 500 soldiers from two infantry battalions--under orders not to harm Arafat deliberately, according to the Israeli army--surrounded the compound with tanks while members of the Diamond unit from the engineering corps, which specializes in controlled explosions, systematically destroyed every building except for the one housing Arafat's sleeping quarters and office. The Palestinian Ministry of the Interior was dynamited. A bridge between Arafat's office and the four-story headquarters of Palestinian military intelligence was pushed over by a bulldozer. Tractors dug a trench around Arafat's building, which soldiers then filled with razor wire. And Israeli snipers killed at least two Palestinians. "We want to control anyone going in or out," says Rivlin. "We have time, we have patience, and we are taking it step by step. Yesterday he had 100 rooms. Now he has only 50. And it is getting fewer by the hour."

Israel also demanded the surrender of some 20 Palestinians it says are hiding inside Arafat's office building--men who are wanted for organizing attacks in Israel, including suicide bombings. Among them are senior West Bank intelligence officer Tawfiq Tirawi and Mahmud Damra, the local leader of Arafat's Force 17 security unit. Some 40 Palestinians gave themselves up on Thursday and Friday nights, although most of them were civilians.

Sharon hopes that isolating Arafat will speed the Palestinian leader's ouster. The 17-member Fatah central council, the most powerful group in the Palestinian Authority, was scheduled to meet Friday to discuss an overhaul of Palestine's leadership structure. Reformists want to create a position of Prime Minister to run day-to-day affairs, while the role of President would be reduced to a ceremonial one. Arafat opposes the move but is facing amutiny, according to a senior Fatah committee member. "The majority of the central committee thinks the time has come for a real change," he says. Observes a senior Palestinian Authority official: "The political picture has not changed. You still have Arafat refusing to accept that we need reforms."

With their boss and their meeting place surrounded by Israeli soldiers, Palestinian leaders avoided an internecine showdown on Friday. Arafat is expected to name a new Cabinet later this week, and he argued that he should be given an extension to do so. But as a sign of how much Arafat's grip on power has slipped, Fatah members not pinned down in the compound met anyway on Saturday to condemn the Israeli operation and, more important, to thrash out a new way ahead. "We are in the last chapter," a senior Fatah member told Time. "Now is not the time to hide behind slogans. We need decisions and action."

Arafat, who said he would die a martyr before surrendering, has escaped desperate situations before, and he relies on such David-vs.-Goliath moments to boost his popularity with ordinary Palestinians. But last week, penned in by his enemy and with even his own followers questioning his position, he looked more like a frail man surrounded by rubble than the builder of a future state. --With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Jerusalem and Aharon Klein/Ramallah

With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Jerusalem and Aharon Klein/Ramallah