I give up to pro-Israel racists! (cartoon by Latuff)

Arafat endorses spurned Clinton peace plan
Move seen as attempt to hold power

Compiled by Daily Star staff

In a desperate attempt to preserve his eroding clout, Yasser Arafat endorsed a US proposal for a settlement with Israel on Friday, one he rejected two years ago for failing to meet Palestinian aspirations.

The Palestinian president’s about-face came as Israeli troops and tanks rumbled back into Palestinian territories, sparking new confrontations that claimed the lives of 15 civilian Arabs and Jews on Friday.

Arafat told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that he now accepts a peace plan proposed by former US President Bill Clinton, because he wanted “no more war” with Israel.

“Enough is enough,” the paper quoted him as saying.

The Clinton plan envisions an Israeli withdrawal from much of the territory captured in the 1967 war, shared Palestinian-Israeli control of Jerusalem and land swaps that would allow 80 percent of Jewish settlers in the West Bank to remain there.

It calls for an equitable solution for Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes following the creation of Israel 1948, and proposes that the right of return be granted only to those who qualify for it on humanitarian grounds, giving others financial compensation. The Clinton proposals were taken off the table when the former president left office in January 2001.

In the interview, Arafat also said he supported an initiative by prominent Palestinians who published an advertisement against the suicide bombings and said that unspecified “foreign” forces were exploiting young hopeless Palestinians and encouraging them to commit attacks in exchange for money.

Washington welcomed Arafat’s “positive” comments, but continued its mantra that Arafat needed to do more to act against violence and terrorism.

“We welcome especially calls to end violence and terror,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. “But (even with) all these remarks being positive in that sense, we still need to see the action that reinforces this message, concrete action on the ground that actually stops the violence and terror and eliminates the infrastructure that supports it.”

Boucher said that Washington took note of Arafat’s remarks on the outline and that they would be thrown into the mix of ideas that US President George W. Bush is considering as he hones a new regional peace strategy, expected to be announced soon.

But Jordan’s King Abdullah cautioned against expecting too much from Arafat, saying he had substantially lost control of militant groups.

“What I can say is that over the years I always thought Arafat was capable of controlling Palestinian public sentiment and extremism,” he was quoted as telling the Belgian weekly Le Vif/L’Express. “I think that is no longer the case today.”

European leaders, meanwhile, backed an early international peace conference on the Middle East which should set a “well-defined timetable” for a political solution.

A draft statement due to be approved by the 15 leaders on Saturday after a two-day summit in Seville, also condemns Palestinian suicide attacks while urging Israel to halt its military operations in the Occupied Territories.

“There is general agreement among (European Union foreign) ministers that this conference should start soon … even though it won’t lead to very rapid results,” he told reporters.

With no signs of a quick political remedy in sight, Palestinian-Israeli violence raged. Israeli forces have in recent days reoccupied Jenin, Nablus, Qalqiliya, Bethlehem and Tulkarem.

Tanks fired on a fruit and vegetable market in Jenin on Friday, killing three Palestinians who mistakenly thought a curfew had been lifted.

Hospital officials said a 6-year-old boy, a 7-year-old girl and a senior city education official in his 50s were killed after residents emerged from their homes to stock up on supplies. Twenty-six people were wounded.

Hours earlier, a Palestinian gunman killed five Israelis ­ three children, their mother and a security guard ­ in a Jewish settlement, spurring Israel to send tanks into the nearby Palestinian-ruled city of Nablus.

In an apparent response to the attack on the settlement, a convoy of Jewish settlers drove into a Palestinian-ruled town near Nablus and opened fire, killing one man, witnesses said.

The five settlers killed in Thursday’s assault on Itamar settlement were a 40-year-old woman, three of her six children, aged between five and 15, as well as the security guard.

“The terrorist climbed a fence, entered one of the houses and opened fire at its residents,” an army statement said.

After a standoff, soldiers stormed the house and killed the gunman, the army said. Two other children in the house, which burned down after a bullet ignited a gas canister, were wounded by the gunman.

In other violence, troops shot dead a Palestinian militant in the Gaza Strip who attacked them at a border crossing with grenades. Two Palestinians at the crossing were also killed.

Troops shot dead an eight-year-old Palestinian boy in Gaza in a raid after an Israeli was wounded by gunmen. And Palestinian medics said an 11-year-old Palestinian boy died Friday of wounds suffered in the Israeli thrust into Jenin. ­ With agencies.