Palestinians reject Bush proposal for Arafat ouster to gain state

11.00am

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian officials rejected any removal of President Yasser Arafat as a condition for statehood, as proposed today by United States President George W.Bush in a speech scripting a path to Middle East peace.

"Palestinian leaders don't come from parachutes from Washington or from anywhere else. Palestinian leaders are elected directly by the Palestinian people. President Yasser Arafat was directly elected in a free and fair election," cabinet minister and chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told CNN.

"The world and President Bush must respect the democratic choice of the Palestinian people."

Bush, in a long anticipated address, told Palestinians they must elect a new leadership "not compromised by terror" to win an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"Terror" referred to suicide bombings by Palestinian militants that have killed scores of Israelis during a 21-month-old uprising against occupation in territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said the Palestinian Authority leadership welcomed the ideas in Bush's speech and called for more detail.

He also said international intervention to make Israel withdraw from Palestinian towns was necessary to carry out democratic reforms and elections considered essential by Israel and the United States for Palestinian statehood.

Bush said a halt to Jewish settlement building in the Palestinian territories was necessary to lend momentum to a peace accord.

The Israeli government had no immediate reaction to his speech.

In Cairo, Randa Ashmawi, an analyst at Al-Ahram Hebdo newspaper, said: "It's evident that his (Bush's) speech takes into account the pressure of the Jewish lobby inside the United States. It was very much pro-Israel and put Israel in a very comfortable situation -- especially when he talked about the need for a new Palestinian leadership."

But he said changing the Palestinian leadership was "a very sensitive issue and cannot be imposed by a foreign country, it has to emerge naturally among Palestinians".

Last week's suicide bombings in Israel crystallised George W Bush's determination seek the replacement of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian leadership, White House officials said.

His speech was delayed by two Palestinian suicide bombings in Jerusalem that killed 26 Israelis. The violence reshaped Bush's speech from a summary of several weeks of consultations on the Middle East into a strongly worded call for change, officials said.

Israel responded to the attacks by reclaiming some of the Palestinian territories it had ceded under previous peace agreements, including the West Bank city of Ramallah, where Israeli forces on Monday again surrounded Arafat's headquarters.

But after reviewing events on the ground, Bush decided to proceed on Monday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

"To not give a speech would be to yield to terrorism," he said.

Said another official: "It was time to lay things out, because the situation in the Middle East was untenable"

"The violence did change the character of this speech," the official said. "It also crystallised again the fact that the disappointments that we've had with the Palestinian leadership -- finally you have to say something has to change."

She declined to say whether US officials would deal directly with Arafat pending his replacement, saying only that the issue of leadership change was bigger than any individual.

Bush has consistently refused to meet Arafat since assuming office in January 2001, saying he was not doing enough to end Palestinian attacks or to earn the US president's respect.

Another official said Washington had been increasingly emphasizing a need for institutional reform among Palestinians, but the recent violence gave "new impetus" to Washington's disappointment with Arafat.

"The president really feels strongly that one of the key jobs of a leader is to offer hope. And he reached the conclusion that the only hope for Israel to live in security and for Israeli citizens to live free from fear, and the only hope Palestinians to have a vibrant economy is for a new, responsible partner to emerge with whom Israel can work," she said.

Some analysts said Arabs had expected more from Bush's speech.

"I think Arabs were expecting a more detailed timetable than the three years he mentioned and a more flexible plan, but I am speculating that he must have changed his speech and tipped it towards Israel's favour after the last few bombings," Ashmawi said.

He said that there were "some very positive aspects in his speech, such as indicating that occupation would never guarantee Israel's security and showing a better understanding of Palestinian suffering".

A Saudi analyst, Dawood al-Shirian, said Bush's speech contained many positive elements and said Arabs must seize on them to try to bring peace to the area.

"These statements represent a positive step which Arabs must cling to and push for implementing it," Shirian told Reuters.

"But I am afraid that Arab states will be held back by Bush's call for changing the Palestinian leadership, ignoring the positive elements in the speech," he added.

"Despite the fact that there are many positive elements, I am afraid that some of the conditions are impossible to achieve."

Analysts said that while Palestinians would reject ousting Arafat, some Arab states would put pressure on the Palestinian leader to reform his administration.

"I believe that Arab states will exercise pressure on President Arafat to bring about transparency and accountability into his administration so as to preserve his position as the Palestinian leader," Shirian said.

He said Bush's speech would please Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and America's other friends in the Middle East.

- REUTERS

Feature: Middle East

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