JERUSALEM — Yasser Arafat faces what may be his final chance to draw back from the brink of all-out war.
After two days of heavy bombardment in retaliation for a series of bloody terror attacks in Israel, Israel paused its airstrikes Wednesday to give the Palestinian president a few hours to prove that he is serious about cracking down on Palestinian terror.
In a stormy late-night meeting Monday, Israel’s Cabinet designated the Palestinian Authority a terror-supporting entity that “must be dealt with accordingly.”
The Israeli government also declared that two groups affiliated with Arafat — the Tanzim militia and the Force 17 presidential guard — are terrorist organizations.
The Cabinet decisions came after a weekend of terror bombings in Jerusalem and Haifa that left at least 25 Israelis dead and nearly 200 injured. They demanded unspecified “actions more wide-ranging than those taken against Palestinian terrorism until now.”
But the Cabinet deliberately left Arafat a loophole.
“This determination is subject to change — by Cabinet decision — if the Palestinian Authority fulfills its commitments, according to the agreements, to prevent and foil terrorism, punish terrorists and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure,” the communiqué read.
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres had demanded that the decision be deferred for a week to give the Palestinian Authority a chance to show that this time it is serious about fighting terror.
When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rejected this idea, Peres and his Labor Party colleagues walked out of the Cabinet meeting before the vote.
An angry Peres said the decision adopted by the Cabinet majority meant Israel would seek to overthrow the Palestinian Authority by force.
Though it has no illusions about Arafat’s responsibility for Palestinian terror, Labor does not want to discredit him as a potential negotiating partner, believing that the lack of a legitimate Palestinian leader would be even worse.
However, during a visit Tuesday to Romania, where he met with Secretary of State Colin Powell and other world leaders to discuss the crisis, Peres sought to portray the Cabinet decision as relatively restrained, arguing that the Cabinet had ordered the army to hit Palestinian Authority buildings and property — not people.
On Wednesday, Labor announced that it would not leave the government. And in fact Sharon urged Labor to remain within the coalition, emphasizing that with Israel under attack, unity is critical.
Just the same, Peres said he was concerned by what he called Sharon’s failure to uphold the coalition agreement he signed with Labor when the unity government was formed earlier this year. He and other Labor leaders are also reportedly upset with Sharon’s appointment of Meir Dagan, a hardliner, to head the negotiating team that will meet with U.S. envoy Gen. Anthony Zinni.
In a series of telephone calls Wednesday between Arafat and Peres, the Palestinian leader complained that Israeli airstrikes were preventing him from arresting terrorists.
Israeli airstrikes on Monday and Tuesday targeted empty Palestinian installations, including Palestinian security targets in the West Bank and Gaza, several of Arafat’s helicopters and the runway of the Palestinian airport in Gaza.
The idea was to avoid harming not only civilians but also members of Arafat’s security apparatus. Just the same, according to Palestinian sources, a 17-year-old boy and a policeman were killed in Gaza.
The strikes were halted Wednesday, when Peres and Sharon decided to give Arafat the breathing spell he’d requested.
Peres later told Israel Radio that he’d said to Arafat, “We are giving you a list of 36 people who, as we know, are terrorist leaders. I strongly recommend that you put them in jail.”
Some Cabinet members may be hoping that Arafat will not round up terrorists. This appears to be the attitude of two hawkish ministers, Binyamin Elon and Avigdor Lieberman of the National Union-Israel, Our Home bloc.
They were at the forefront of efforts to convince Sharon to declare the Palestinian Authority an “entity that supports terrorism.”
In Sharon’s own Likud Party, too, there are ministers — among them Finance Minister Silvan Shalom — who don’t hide their desire to see Arafat toppled and sent into exile.
But political observers here still believe Sharon has not been given a green light by the United States — assuming he needs one — to topple the Palestinian Authority.
President Bush and other top U.S. officials supported Israel’s right to act in its own self-defense this week, statements that gave implicit support for the Israeli air strikes.
Bush and Sharon met in the White House on Sunday, before Sharon cut short his U.S. trip to deal with the escalating situation in Israel.
In addition, the Bush administration has greatly increased its pressure on Arafat to clamp down on terror.
In an interview aired Wednesday on ABC-TV News, President Bush said, “It’s now time for Mr. Arafat to prove whether or not he is for peace.”
The president added: “And the way he can do that is to aggressively rout out those who would derail the peace process by murdering innocent Israelis, innocent women, innocent children.”
Despite such comments, there is no evidence that the Bush administration has written off Arafat.
Just two weeks ago, the Bush administration offered its vision for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. If Arafat is seen to be making a real effort against Palestinian terror, the U.S. could resume its pressure on Sharon to respond with concessions that ease Arafat’s political predicament.
That, indeed, has been Peres’ prescription all along.