JERUSALEM (KRT) — Israeli forces on Monday captured a top aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as U.S. officials announced that Secretary of State Colin Powell would meet again with Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to try to jump start the Middle East peace process.
Powell, who is to see Sharon on Tuesday and Arafat the following day, embraced an Israeli suggestion for an American-led peace conference that could take place among foreign ministers and not necessarily involve Arafat. That addresses a key Israeli demand, but analysts said the Palestinians and Arab states might reject any meeting arranged to specifically exclude Arafat.
Sharon, meanwhile, said Israeli troops would withdraw from most West Bank cities by next week. He provided two important exceptions, however: Bethlehem, where Palestinian gunmen are holed up in the Church of the Nativity; and Ramallah, where Israeli troops have placed Arafat’s compound under siege.
The arrest of Marwan Barghouti, leader of the Tanzim militia and a chief organizer of the 18-month-old armed uprising against the Israeli presence in Palestinian lands, brought condemnation from Palestinian officials.
“Any harm to Barghouti will lead to grave consequences,” Arafat aide Ahmed Abdul Rahman told Reuters.
Israeli officials once considered Barghouti, 41, a supporter of the peace process, a man they could deal with, perhaps even a palatable alternative to Arafat. But the Sharon government now views him as a terrorist masquerading as a politician.
Israeli officials tie Barghouti to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a shadowy group linked to Arafat’s Fatah movement that has claimed responsibility for a series of suicide bombings and shooting attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said Barghouti had turned Fatah’s militia into “the most murderous of the terrorist organizations, committing most of the recent attacks against Israel.”
Sharon said Israel would try Barghouti, who was brought to Jerusalem for interrogation after his arrest in Ramallah. Barghouti had been evading Israeli troops since their sweeping assault on Palestinian territories began nearly three weeks ago after a Passover holiday suicide bombing killed 26 Israelis.
Barghouti, the highest-ranking Fatah official detained by Israel, had not left the Palestinian-controlled town of Ramallah for 19 months, for fear of being arrested by Israel or being killed.
Some members of the Sharon government despise him. When his arrest was announced, a government spokesman said bitterly: “They should have killed him. He doesn’t deserve to live and he will be a bigger headache alive.”
Well-educated, charismatic and a member of a prominent Ramallah family, Barghouti is a member of the Palestinian parliament and one of the most popular figures of the current uprising. He is considered an accomplished street politician believed capable of expertly organizing demonstrations but whose darker impulses are less understood.
Barghouti has talked both of the promise of a negotiated peace settlement with issue and made threats that there can be “no security without peace.”
“I do not seek to destroy Israel but only to end its occupation of my country,” he once said.