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Middle East
US parses Yasser's statement
2002-04-13
  • Secretary of State Colin Powell was examining a statement on Saturday by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat condemning terrorism and a Friday suicide bombing that prompted him to put talks with Arafat on hold, a senior State Department official said. "We've got the statement and we're looking at it. We expected him to condemn terrorism. We expected him to do so. Now he's made a statement and we're looking at it," an official said.
    They'll be looking for weasel words and tell-tale grease spots.
    Powell, who issued a statement in the early hours urging Arafat to condemn the bombing that threw his peacemaking mission into disarray on its first day, said earlier he would decide on Saturday whether to meet the Palestinian leader.
    Thereby tying the statement to a meeting without explicitly saying so.
    The official noted that the United States had not publicly made the condemnation a condition for a meeting between Arafat and Powell, who held lengthy talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Friday.
    Not publicly, no. But privately certainly, though intermediaries, and along with that implicitly.
    Powell's spokesman however called for a condemnation in the same statement in which he announced that the planned talks with Arafat on Saturday had been canceled.
    Yup. That's pretty implicit.
    However he did not rule out a meeting in future, saying when asked if the talks were being rescheduled for Sunday, "We'll see."
    "If we have time. We might have to do our hair that day. We'll letcha know."
    The chances of the statement leading to a positive decision by Powell were increased by the fact that Arafat issued his condemnation in Arabic.
    Chances statements by most politicians are understood increase when they're made in the local language.
    Powell has called on Israel to end its military offensive against Palestinian targets in the West Bank, where Arafat has been besieged in his Ramallah headquarters by Israeli tanks and troops.
    That was pretty much obligatory, wasn't it?

    Update: FoxNews says Powell will meet with Yasser on Sunday. James Zogby, on Tony Snow's show, says he expects there will be more detailed condemnations from Yasser in the coming days. Rooters, on the other hand, reports that
    A senior aide to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat said Saturday, following Friday's suicide bombing in Jerusalem, that the Palestinian Authority had always condemned all attacks on civilians on both sides. But Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo charged that the United States only condemned attacks against Israelis while ignoring what he called "massacres" by the Israeli army during a 15-day-old West Bank offensive.
    And there's the obligatory dilution for internal consumption. Pretty good bet that statement was in Arabic.

    This would also be the cue for the Hamas boomers to try and swarm before tomorrow...
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

    00:00