RAMALLAH, West Bank — Vowing defiance but facing growing doubts about his future as Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat emerged Thursday from the remnants of his shrinking West Bank compound, pummeled anew in a morning siege by Israeli troops.
As Israel mourned the 17 people who died Monday when a suicide bomber struck a commuter bus in the country’s north, Arafat accused Israeli forces of trying to kill him when their tanks and bulldozers responded to the bombing by pounding his Ramallah bedroom, home and office complex early Thursday.
Israeli officials dismissed Arafat’s charge. Killing Arafat would have been easy, the Israelis say, given the collapse of his security services and the overwhelming firepower of the Israeli army.
More difficult for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is finding a way to decisively sideline a man he insists has neither the will nor the ability to be a reliable partner.
Sharon has long tried to persuade the Bush administration to abandon Arafat, who retains some U.S. support by virtue of being the Palestinians’ only elected leader. With Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak scheduled to meet with President Bush this weekend, and Sharon to visit Washington next week, Israel is pressing for more leeway to act against Arafat.
In its six-hour assault on the Ramallah compound, a thundering echo of the Israeli army siege that made Arafat a captive from late March until early May, Israeli troops and tanks again showed the Palestinian people that they can move at will against the Palestinian Authority leader.
A dormitory was pummeled into a mountain of concrete and a swirl of white powder. A gas station was flattened. Mattresses and bureaus tumbled out of one building. A small fire was sparked in another. By the time the thunder of grenades, tanks shells and automatic gunfire fell silent around 7 a.m., six buildings were rubble and one Palestinian intelligence officer was dead.
“If there had been any intention of harming Arafat, it would not have been a problem,” said Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman.
Arafat, however, again presented himself as a survivor.
Emerging shortly before 10 a.m. to flash a V-for-victory sign with a trembling, pale hand, Arafat took reporters on a tour of his wreck of a complex. An Israeli blast had opened a hole in the wall between his bedroom and bathroom, and a fine dust covered the quarters.
“I was supposed to sleep here last night but I had some work downstairs,” Arafat said. “Of course (the Israelis) knew where I was. Everybody knows this is my bedroom.”
Arafat has said he would rather die than endure exile, and on Thursday he repeated this while examining the damage from the latest Israeli attack on his compound. “Expel me?” laughed Arafat, when asked about it. “I will die here.”
(Correspondent Howard Witt contributed
to this report.) © 2002, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
Arafat’s stature is being battered at home, too. Though Arafat retains stature as a national symbol, many Palestinians view his government as corrupt and inept. Militant groups accuse Arafat of being unable to protect Palestinians against the Israeli army, using his weakness as partial justification for their attacks.
A senior Cabinet minister suggested that expelling Arafat from Israel and the occupied territories had become “the least bad alternative” and that the idea was gaining support even among moderate politicians.
Other Israelis, including senior security officials, contend that Arafat would present more trouble from abroad. Few Israelis believe that his expulsion would end terror attacks on Israeli civilians. And by presenting himself as a victim, the 72-year-old leader could rally international support that now slips with every Palestinian assault.
