THE Palestine Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, delivered yesterday on a promise he had given to the US Middle East envoy, Mr Dennis Ross, on Thursday in Rabat.
That was to "calm" the situation in the West Bank by preventing protests on the occasion of Land Day from escalating into a return the Intifada, ended when Palestinians signed a peace accord with Israel in 1993.
Because of Mr Arafat's intervention, demonstrations marking the anniversary of the 1976 killing of Palestinian citizens of Israel six protesting land expropriations passed off peacefully inside Israel and without undue violence in the West Bank.
Mr Arafat also sent a message to the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, via the European Union envoy, Mr Miguel Moratinos. The Palestinian leader reiterated his rejection of violence and terrorism, but did not commit himself to taking six specific steps - including mass arrests and extradition of suspects - demanded by Mr Netanynhu as a precondition for resuming talks.
These are steps which, after 11 days of confrontations between Palestinian civilians and Israeli soldiers, Mr Arafat could not take without risking a major popular challenge to his leadership.
The danger of an explosion was very real yesterday following the fatal shooting by Israeli soldiers on Saturday of Mr Abdullah Saleh, an engineering student at the prestigious Bir Zeit University. Mr Saleh was buried yesterday morning in his home town of Beit Sahur near the controversial Jabal Abu Ghneim/Har Homa settlement, the focus of the protests. His death, the first in this round of demonstrations, was condemned by the Palestinian Minister of Finance, Mr Muhammad Nashashibi, as a "declaration of war" against the Palestinians. Thirty Palestinians were injured yesterday, adding to the toll of 460 wounded by live fire, rubber bullets and tear gas during the demonstrations.
Mr Arafat managed the protests by controlling and containing them. He controlled them through local leaders and supporters of his own Fateh movement who have been in the vanguard of the demonstrations. And he contained them by interposing his police and security forces between protesters and Israeli soldiers. One of Mr Arafat's political advisers, Mr Bassam Abu Sharif, firmly predicted on Friday that the protests would be "peaceful".
The Israeli Defence Minister, Gen Yitzak Mordechai, said there had been considerable co operation between his forces and those of the Palestine Authority.
If Mr Arafat had failed to field Fateh, the protests would have been taken over by the Islamic Hamas movement and secular opponents of the peace process who, during "Land Day" demonstrations in refugee camps outside Beirut, called for the suspension of negotiations with Israel.
Mr Arafat "froze" talks three weeks ago when Mr Nytanyahu made what the Palestinians considered was an unacceptable offer to redeploy the Israel army from only 9 per cent of the West Bank. The beginning of work on the new settlement compounded the difficulty of restarting talks which neither side could afford to abandon.
According to an authoritative source, Mr Arafat, an avid consumer of opinion polls, has staked his presidency and the future of his people on the stubborn support given to the problematical peace process by both Palestinians and Israelis.
A poll taken this month put Palestinian support at 75 per cent, while, according to a Gallup poll conducted among Israelis last week following the Tel Aviv cafe bomb which killed three Israeli women, 78 per cent supported the peace process (against 19 per cent who opposed) and 66 per cent said negotiations should not be halted (against 31 per cent favouring suspension).
Assured that the situation was under control, Mr Arafat flew to Cairo for a meeting with Arab League foreign ministers called to map out a common strategy for confronting Israel over Jerusalem settlements and redeployment.
