Like suitors flocking to a young widow, would-be Palestinian leaders are vying replace Yasser Arafat, and the international community is keener than ever to play chaperone. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell flew out to the Middle East on Sunday for a last round of Israeli-Palestinian shuttle diplomacy before he retires, a sign of Washington’s renewed interest in a peace process that had been stalled for many months.
Powell will be followed in his visit to Israel and the West Bank by his British and Russian counterparts, Jack Straw and Sergei Lavrov.
Powell’s message was simple: With Arafat gone, real reform should be encouraged in the Palestinian Authority in the lead-up to a Jan. 9 presidential election that has already drawn the interest of at least five potential candidates.
“We are determined to do everything we can to help in that” democratic “process and we also support steps by Israel which are needed to facilitate these elections,” said the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, William Burns, after meeting the acting Palestinian Authority president, Rawhi Fattouh, in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
According to Israeli political sources, Washington wants Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to order a limited pullback of troops from major Palestinian population centers to allow for the election to proceed without obstacles.
Sharon is likely to agree, but wants to avoid the appearance of cooperating too closely with Arafat’s likeliest successor, PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas, out of concern fellow Palestinians could consider the moderate statesman an Israeli stooge.
Still unclear is the fate of eastern Jerusalem Arabs who want to take part in the election under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. Israel has ruled this out despite mounting international pressure from Palestinian officials, saying eastern Jerusalem Arabs can cast absentee ballots in the West Bank, as they did in the 1996 election.
With at least four Palestinians killed in West Bank and Gaza Strip clashes over the weekend and Sharon still set on his unilateral Gaza withdrawal plan, the Palestinian Authority has eyed Powell’s impending replacement by the more hawkish Condoleezza Rice with concern.
“We will ask Mr. Powell specific questions about how to renew the peace process,” Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei told Reuters. “We want to know how the road map will be implemented, what are the timelines,” he said, referring to a U.S.-backed plan for Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by 2005.
But the Americans are likely to redirect attention to the road map’s requirements of security reform in the Palestinian Authority, despite Sharon’s hinting last week that he could forgo his traditional request for a crackdown on terrorist groups in the West Bank and Gaza if the Palestinians show their sincerity about peacemaking by stopping anti-Israel incitement in their state media.
U.S. officals also have been watching the succession struggle that has followed Arafat’s death, hopeful it will breed constructive dissent rather than a descent into chaos.
Abbas received a boost Sunday when a longtime PLO rival, Farouk Kaddoumi, backed his bid to lead Fatah in a faction election slated for later this week.
But the 69-year-old Abbas still faces possible competition from Marwan Barghouti, who is expected to run against him from an Israeli jail, where he is serving five life sentences for murder.
Other likely contenders include Abdel Sattar Qassem, a political science professor and reformer once jailed by Arafat, and Talal Sidr, a one-time Hamas leader now considered more moderate.
Journalist Majda Al-Batch has said she could run — the only woman to do so.
A distant Barghouti cousin, Mustafa Barghouti, has proposed taking part in the election independent of any faction, while reclusive Palestinian property magnate Monib Al-Masri has drawn interest by saying business strategies should be applied in solving the conflict with Israel.
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