UN envoy Terje Larsen has stood by his account earlier Friday that Yasser Arafat told him Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is "betraying the interests of the Palestinian people." Palestinian officials denied that Arafat said such a thing, and accused Larsen of not being a fair mediator by running to the Israelis and telling them what the Palestinians are saying.
| "That was supposed to be just between us!" |
"He is behaving like a tyro who doesn't know what he is doing," Larsen reported Arafat saying about Abbas. "How does he dare to stand next to an Israeli flag and next to [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon and to act friendly with a man whose history is known to all the world?"
| Ummm... Trying to get something done? |
Arafat's associates have been ratcheting up the criticism of Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Prime Minister and Arafat's co-founder of the Fatah movement. Abbas has threatened to resign both from Fatah and as prime minister, but neither resignation has been accepted. |