Danny Rubinstein

Palestinians are using the Arab pejorative term instead of `Israeli'

A dispute about control of branches of the Palestinian Authority security apparatus had Yasser Arafat and General Nasser Yussef cursing and spitting at one another. The stormy discussion was held against the background of powerful demonstrations of support for the PA chairman.

The Palestinian leadership and public believe that if Arafat is deported, the Palestinian Authority will collapse and chaos will reign. Israel will then find it very difficult to impose order. In any case, the latest developments have put Arafat back into the center of the picture.

Strange as it might sound, yesterday's resignation of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was met with sighs of relief in the Palestinian political arena.

Behind the severe crisis among the Palestinian leadership lies a struggle over the next generation of leaders and who will follow Yasser Arafat. This struggle is not always discernible.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas yesterday reminded the Palestinian Legislative Council - and anyone else who was listening - that with all due respect to the power struggle in the Palestinian leadership and his troubles with Yasser Arafat, the real problem is the conflict with the state of Israel.

The Palestinian Legislative Council, which is meeting this morning in Ramallah, is expected to avoid creating more tension among the Palestinian leadership by not holding a vote of confidence in Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas's government - a vote Abbas's government was not certain to win as of last night.

Last Wednesday's Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount were most interested in speculation about the precise location of the Temple. One member of the group explained where the courts for the priests and the people and the women were located and where the Holy of Holies stood, but the police officer accompanying them urged them to move on: They were not allowed to pause, lest they begin praying.

Yasser Arafat called yesterday for the hudna (cease-fire) to be renewed in an attempt to show that he's in control, and he has serious intentions.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, anticipating large-scale action on the part of Hamas, spent the weekend making efforts to reinstate the recently-ended hudna.

The prevailing assessment among the Palestinian leadership yesterday was that the end of the cease-fire is also the end of Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas's government.

The assessment among PA leadership is that end of truce is also end of Abbas government.

Palestinian spokesmen said last night that everyone had expected a revenge attack by Islamic Jihad following Israel's killing of senior Jihad operative Mohammed Sidr last week - but now that the attack has come, and proved so deadly, they fear that it will mark the end of the cease-fire and attempts to implement the road map.

Toward the end of last week, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) returned to Ramallah from a series of quick meetings in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Jordan and Tunisia. He came home early because of the suicide bombings in Rosh Ha'ayin and Ariel.

The hudna's not over, but it is definitely fading, and not only due to yesterday's two suicide attacks. It is also evident in the disappointment and anger of Israel's government over the PA's failure to take action against armed factions - and there's personal anger at Mahmoud Abbas.

According to Amnesty International and other sources, including the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions, which also relies on Amnesty data, Israeli authorities in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza, destroyed more than 10,000 Palestinian homes since 1967.

The separation fence, or the "wall," as he calls it, bothers Arafat. He describes how it turned Qalqilyah into a city under siege with one gate and how Tul Karm is better off, with three gates planned for the fence around the city.

The arrest of militants in Yasser Arafat's bureau was carried out in a Palestinian attempt to release Arafat from the long siege on the Muqata.

Voices in the territories are calling for a switch to nonviolent struggle. In the Palestinian press, writers speak of the power of the weak.