THE ISRAELI Ambassador to Cyprus yesterday attacked Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat as a weak man, justifying his house arrest.
But he clashed with the Palestinian Representative in Cyprus over whether Arafat could attend the Arab League summit in Beirut at the end of the month.
Ambassador Michael Eligan said Arafat would have to ask permission from the Israeli government to travel to Lebanon, where the Arab-Israeli conflict will be tabled for discussion.
“He can ask. He didn’t ask. If he does I think we will consider it,” said the ambassador.
“Certainly he will try to go if he is free to go,” replied Palestinian representative Fayez Younes. “He’s not a subject of the Israeli government. He’s head of a state in accordance with agreements signed between the Palestine Liberation Organisation and three Israeli governments. So he’s not supposed to ask permission. We’ll wait and see if the Sharon government will try and prevent him,” said Younes.
Despite claiming some Islamic groups operating against Israel were under Iranian and Syrian control, Eligal criticised Arafat for failing to check them.
“If he can’t control all the militias operating in the name of his people then how can we talk? We as a state assume full responsibility for what is happening within the borders of Israel, but on the other side we don’t see any efforts to control,” he said.
“Do the Israelis expect the Palestinians to be just slaughtered like goats, without resistance? In the first three months of the Intifada, 96 children were shot,” said Younes. “Certainly the Palestinian Authority condemns all acts of violence against Palestinian and Israeli civilians,” he added.
But Eligal said Arafat had failed to digest that Palestinian violence only isolated their cause. It weakened support amongst the previously sympathetic left, he claimed, adding Arab States would only ever pay lip service to the Palestinian cause, as they refused to sacrifice their national interests in their foreign policy.
“I don’t think he’s able to make the switch from a militia boss to political leader able to make a comprehensive settlement and create a national state,” Eligal said.
“We have huge support from the United States regarding the situation in the Middle East, and Arafat is the only one that can be blamed. He’s not a victim in this conflict,” he said.
“Yasser Arafat is the national leader of the Palestinian people. He is the symbol of their resistance. And certainly if the basic rights of the Palestinian people are made, he is ready to sign a historic compromise,” said Younes.
But Eligal chastised Arafat for missing “two opportunities” in 1997, when he rejected the UN resolution that gave Palestinians the right to create a state and 2000, for pulling the plug on the Camp David agreement.
That “mistake”, he said, swept Ariel Sharon to power, precipitating the escalation of violence between the two sides over the last 17 months.
But Younes refused to accept the Ambassador’s interpretation.
“They are always trying to twist the facts. The reason of resistance is the occupation and the failures of the Israeli government to implement any of the agreements that were signed with the PLO, sponsored by the Americans, the Europeans and the UN.”
“The Camp David agreement fell short of UN expectations. It’s not a question of internal Israeli politics, it’s about basic Palestinian rights,” he said.
In a friendly briefing session, designed to counter pro-Palestinian sympathies in the Cypriot press, Eligal stressed the need to understand Israel as a democracy with a highly developed civil society.
He cited the death of more than 300 Israelis in the last year, 75 per cent of them civilian, insisting that Palestinian women and children were only ever killed by accident.
The ambassador refused to compare indiscriminate suicide bombers targeting commercial and residential areas to stray Israeli bullets or bombs that killed Palestinian civilians.
He said Israeli policy would continue until terror organisations collapsed, deprived of their infrastructure, weapons and fuel.
“At this point the international community, mainly the US, will see opportunities to facilitate the dialogue between the two parties,” he said.
Neither side criticised US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s comments about Israeli violence on Wednesday night.
The Embassy said US-Israeli friendship was as strong as ever and Younes welcomed his remarks as reversal of blanket approval for Israeli policy.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
