The sole person challenging Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat for the leadership of the Palestinian Council has announced that if elected, she would cancel all the agreements reached with Israel.
Samiha Khalil, a 72-year-old Palestinian activist who will be going head-to- head with Arafat in the January elections, said the accords with Israel did not come close to achieving Palestinian national aspirations.
She further criticized the agreements, saying that they enabled Israel to have continued overall control of Palestinian residents in the territories.
In a separate development, Palestinian security forces have arrested an editor at the eastern Jerusalem paper Al-Quds for printing a report about Arafat on the front page, officials said Wednesday.
News reported said Maher Al-Alami was summoned to the West Bank Jericho enclave by security officials, but had not returned to Jerusalem.
Palestinian officials confirmed that he had been arrested, but gave no further details.
Officials from Arafat’s office had reportedly called Al-Alami earlier this week and asked him to publish on the newspaper’s front page a story about a meeting between Arafat and the Greek Orthodox patriarch.
Instead, the story reportedly appeared on an inside page because the front page was already filled with stories about Arafat.
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