(Newsweek) Joshua Hammer - Arafat still has the loyalty of 28,000 troops (and their commanders) who are paid by a security unit he controls. He uses Fatah's Central Committee and the Palestinian Legislative Council to block reforms: when Abbas's finance minister, Salam Fayyad, tried to force into retirement 600 of Arafat's elderly Fatah cronies, Arafat bullied the legislature into rejecting the plan. Arafat appoints governors and mayors, and maintains a personal war chest of $30 million a year, doling out cash to supplicants. Arafat named Jibril Rajoub, his former West Bank head of Preventive Security, to the previously unfilled post of national-security adviser. Palestinian sources say that Rajoub will likely preside over a new council that will control all 53,000 men in the security forces - and answer only to Arafat. That could sideline Mohammed Dahlan, who now serves as the director of Abbas's security apparatus. In remarks to Newsweek, Rajoub declared, "We need a united command and Arafat will run it." The Bush administration is furious. U.S. and Israeli officials believe that Arafat has supported armed resistance and winked at terror for the past three years. "By preventing the consolidation of the Palestinian security forces under Prime Minister Abbas, Yasser Arafat undercuts the fight against terrorism," a White House spokeswoman said last week.
2003-09-01 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive