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"Palestine is ours, ours, ours!": Arafat |
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June 26, 2000
JERUSALEM, (AP) - Turning up the heat on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told thousands of cheering supporters in the West Bank on Sunday that Palestinian statehood could be proclaimed within weeks. "Palestine is ours, ours, ours!" he declared.
Barak, meanwhile, accused Palestinians of deliberately placing obstacles in the path of a Camp David-style summit. A U.S. mediator was working to assess prospects for a three-way gathering of Arafat, Barak and U.S. President Bill Clinton in order to try to meet a Sept. 13 deadline for a final peace treaty.
Arafat's speech to a conference of his Fatah faction in the West Bank town of Nablus was full of the type of fiery rhetoric he customarily rolls out for such occasions - but even so, the timing was sensitive, as the two sides move into what a senior Palestinian official called "the last half-hour" of a push to reach a sweeping accord. |
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Israeli right wing protester demonstrates in Jerusalem Sunday, June 25, 2000. U.S. President Bill Clinton's Mideast envoy Dennis Ross, arrived in the region Thursday to assess prospects for a Mideast summit in Washington during which Barak and Arafat would try to formulate the outlines of the peace treaty. (AP Photo/Eyal Warshavsky) AP / UNB |
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"We have a few weeks left ahead of us, but they are the most important and critical, because at the end of it we will declare statehood," Arafat told a crowd of about 5,000 supporters. Aides said, however, that the timing of a statehood declaration was still being decided.
In a show of defiance that was cheered wildly by the crowd, Arafat scoffed at an assertion earlier this month by Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, Israel's army chief of staff, that Israel would use tanks and helicopter gunships if necessary to quell any outbreak of rioting in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"We don't get threatened by tanks and planes - no one can threaten us," said the 70-year-old Palestinian leader, his voice strong although his hand holding the microphone trembled violently. "Whoever has forgotten, I want to remind him of ... seven years of intefadeh (uprising) and I say we are willing to start again."
Arafat also reasserted Palestinian claims to a capital in Jerusalem, over which Israel insists it will retain sovereignty.
"The state will be established with its capital, Jerusalem, and whoever does not like it can go and drink from the Dead Sea," he said, stabbing a finger for emphasis. "Palestine is ours, ours, ours!"
Arafat's comments drew quick criticism from Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy.
"A peace process can't exist with threats," he told reporters in Jerusalem. "If he chooses to go (declare statehood) ... in a unilateral way, then he directly allows Israel to choose the same method."
Israel has indicated in the past that if Arafat declares statehood unilaterally, it in turn will annex chunks of the West Bank.
Barak, meanwhile, conferred with his Cabinet in Jerusalem about the upcoming visit of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who is expected to arrive Tuesday evening.
In advance of her visit, the third to the region in a month, U.S. envoy Dennis Ross has been meeting with both sides to try to determine whether a summit should be held under U.S. auspices. Israel badly wants a summit, but the Palestinians say the two sides are too far apart for it to be productive now.
Barak complained to his ministers that the Palestinians were trying to "present conditions and demands before allowing a summit to be held," according to the prime minister's office.
Palestinians, though, insisted conditions were not yet ripe. "We want real progress before such asummit because ... you cannot build bridges on oceans," Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian planning minister, told reporters in the Gaza Strip. "The gaps still remain wide, and we are in the last half-hour."
Barak dismissed as speculative a flurry of reports that have appeared in Israeli newspapers purporting to detail the concessions the two sides are willing to make to achieve an accord. On the statehood question, Arafat has said for some time that Palestinians would have a right to declare independence once the Sept. 13 deadline for reaching a treaty had expired. Such an accord is meant to encompass extremely difficult questions including the status of disputed Jerusalem, the borders of a Palestinian state and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
Past Palestinian plans for a declaration of independence have always been deferred in the absence of a peace pact. But Arafat's remarks in Nablus were clearly meant to pressure Barak by raising the specter of independence whether Israel was ready or not.
Shaath, the Palestinian planning minister, said the matter would be decided next month by the Palestinian Central Council, which is to meet July 2-3 in Gaza. "The decision ... will most likely be to declare statehood, but we must wait and see the decision of the PCC," he said.
In practical terms, a unilateral declaration of Palestinian independence would pose huge problems for both sides and likely spark widespread violence. Even so, Shaath held out the possibility that the Palestinians might move in that direction if negotiations stall.
"If we find ourselves without an agreement on Sept. 13 and not close to reaching one, then we must tell the international community that ... our land is occupied," he said. "And on this we will declare statehood."
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