Give me more time to quell terror attacks, pleads Arafat
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has sent a hand-delivered letter to US President George Bush, appealing for more time to prove he is trying to halt terrorist violence against Israelis.
‘‘Now is his time,’’ Bush said yesterday.
‘‘And other nations around the world that are interested in peace must encourage Mr Arafat, must insist that Mr Arafat use everything in his power to prevent further terrorist attacks in Israel.’’
Norwegian prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, who met Bush yesterday, said he gave the president ‘‘fresh messages’’ from the Middle East: Arafat’s letter plus word from Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon that Israel had ended its retaliatory strikes on Palestinian targets.
In a telephone conversation earlier yesterday, ‘‘Sharon said he had no intention of attacking Palestinian targets more, and for the last 26 hours, there has been no attack’’, Bondevik told journalists on the White House driveway.
As for Arafat’s message to Bush: ‘‘The main message was, ‘Give me a chance’,’’ said Bondevik.
White House spokesmen had no immediate comment on Arafat’s letter.
Bush has demanded for four straight days that Arafat arrest the militants from the radical Hamas group, who claimed responsibility for weekend suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Haifa that killed 25 people and wounded almost 200. Another suicide bomber detonated explosives yesterday outside a Jerusalem hotel, blowing himself up and injuring two others.
‘‘Mr Arafat must show leadership, and bring those to justice who would use murder as a weapon to derail peace and to destroy innocent life,’’ Bush said at the opening of his Oval Office meeting with Bondevik.
‘‘It’s going to be very difficult to have any peace in the Middle East so long as terror runs loose, so long as there are people, individuals, who feel like they can kill and murder to prevent us from getting to any kind of peace process.’’
In Ankara, Turkey, Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested that yesterday’s bombing in Jerusalem called into question Arafat’s claim that he was exerting a 100% effort to end the violence.
‘‘I can’t judge whether he is or not,’’ Powell said. ‘‘What he really has to do, though, is show significant results.’’
‘‘As long as bombs keep going off, as long as this kind of activity is not stopped, then it will be very difficult to put in place conditions leading into a ceasefire.’’
‘‘We’d like to see zero violence and terror,’’ Powell said.
A US envoy in the Middle East, retired General Anthony Zinni, talked to Arafat by phone last night, said a US official.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle also was sceptical about Arafat’s commitment.
Wednesday’s attack in Jerusalem, coming after the weekend bloodshed, ‘‘ended any patience the world has for excuses and inaction on the part of Chairman Arafat and the Palestinian Authority’’, Daschle said on the Senate floor.
