PARIS/GAZA, 10 February — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned yesterday of chaos in the Middle East if anything happened to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. It would be dreadful if anything untoward happened to Arafat, Mubarak told journalists in Paris. Mubarak stressed he was not defending Arafat himself but rather peace and stability in the region.
Also yesterday, Ariel Sharon, who failed to win US support for a boycott of Arafat, continued his visit to the United States as Israeli soldiers wounded two teenagers in the West Bank. And as Washington and Europe sparred verbally on how to deal with the Middle East conflict, Israeli public radio reported that Sharon and US officials had agreed to study a plan for international aid to the population of the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Israeli incursion into the autonomous village of Tamoun was to hunt for accomplices of a Hamas gunman who killed a Jewish settler, her daughter and an Israeli soldier Wednesday before being shot dead himself, Israeli radio said. Troops captured 25 Palestinians overnight after moving into Tamoun on Friday morning, Israeli radio said.
Israeli soldiers yesterday afternoon shot and wounded two Palestinian teenage brothers who were throwing stones at an army unit, hospital sources said, adding one of them was in serious condition.
The Israeli crackdown proceeded against the backdrop of Sharon failing to secure a boycott by Washington of Arafat. Arafat “is not and never will be a partner. He’s out of play,” the hawkish Israeli prime minister had said, calling for an “alternative Palestinian leadership.” But while US President George W. Bush agreed on keeping Arafat under pressure, he stopped short of questioning his credentials as the elected representative of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian leadership welcomed that decision.
Arafat has been under effective house arrest in the West Bank town of Ramallah for more than two months since Israeli forces surrounded his compound in response to a series of suicide attacks in Israel. In Paris, Mubarak had earlier met French President Jacques Chirac. Chirac’s office said he had put forward French proposals for a solution to the conflict and underlined that everything possible had to be done to end the impasse in the peace process.
The office said Mubarak had shown interest in the proposal to hold elections in the autonomous Palestinian areas. France’s left-wing government proposes declaring a Palestinian state immediately after such elections as a start to negotiations.
Despite its refusal to completely sideline Arafat, the United States swiftly dismissed the ideas. “Without saying something particular about these ideas, I think we’ve always felt introducing other elements that divert attention from that focus don’t really move the situation forward,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
