MIDDLE EAST: Expelling Mr Yasser Arafat, a course of action favoured by several ministers in the Israeli government, was back on the agenda yesterday after Defence Minister Mr Shaul Mofaz said the Palestinian Authority president had to "disappear from the stage of history" and that Israel might determine his fate by the end of the year, writes Peter Hirschberg Jerusalem
Mr Mofaz, who was once caught on camera when he was army chief of staff imploring Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon to expel the Palestinian leader from the West Bank and Gaza, told Army Radio that Israel had "made a historic mistake by not exiling him two years ago".
Asked about the timing of any decision to banish the Palestinian leader, Mr Mofaz said: "With regard to the future, I think we will be compelled to deal with this issue within a relatively short period of time, very possibly even this year."
The timing, he said, was critical so as not to "hurt" embattled Palestinian Prime Minister Mr Mahmoud Abbas, whom Israel views as a moderate and who is engaged in a bitter power struggle with Mr Arafat. He faces the danger of being ousted in a confidence vote in parliament, likely to be held in the next few days.
But the expulsion of Mr Arafat would almost certainly lead to the immediate resignation of Mr Abbas. He has said as much.
The United States has also repeatedly told Israel the Palestinian leader is not to be harmed. This message was again broadcast, via diplomatic back channels, after 21 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem on August 19th.
Some senior Israeli figures oppose exiling Mr Arafat. They believe that a semi-isolated Mr Arafat, confined to his battered compound in Ramallah, is less dangerous than he would be championing the Palestinian cause abroad.
Palestinian leaders accused Israel of meddling in their internal affairs. "Israeli officials should respect the democratic choice of the Palestinian people and sit instead at the negotiating table," said Palestinian Minister Mr Ghassan Khatib. Mr Arafat was elected in 1996.
Efforts continued yesterday to defuse tensions between Mr Arafat and Mr Abbas. In large newspaper advertisements, a group of Palestinian lawmakers, writers and academics, called on the men to end their prolonged showdown, saying it was undermining Palestinian interests.
Violence continued yesterday in the West Bank, with Israeli troops shooting dead a senior member of the radical Islamic Jihad movement, Abd al-Qadar Dahani. In Gaza City, an 11-year-old girl, Sana Daour, died of wounds she sustained in an Israeli missile strike last week, bringing to four the number of bystanders who have been killed since Israel began intensively targeting members of Hamas after the Jerusalem bombing. A total of 11 Hamas members have been killed in these strikes.