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| Middle East |
| Arafat under pressure |
| 2002-08-13 |
| Yasser Arafat has come under intense international pressure to make sweeping reforms, and the political factions have been meeting in Gaza City to establish unified positions in preparation for elections in January and other planned changes. The factions meeting in Gaza say they want to create a "national unity leadership" that would include all major groups — including militant movements such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad that have carried out many of the suicide bombings against Israel. "That's not a cabinet! It's a rogues' gallery!" The Palestinian leadership has said it believes it can exert more influence over Hamas and other militant groups by bringing them into the fold. After all, there aren't that many difference among them... Arafat's Fatah movement was the driving force behind the current meetings, and it offered a draft proposal that called for an end to attacks against civilians inside Israel. "The idea in this initiative is to stop attacking civilians and limit the resistance" to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, said Kadoura Fares, a member of parliament from Fatah. But you can't have a "sea of blood" that way, so they'll continue just killing everybody in sight. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |