-Caveat Lector- Palestinian Authority Threatened by Violent Infighting ****************************************************** At 8:30 am (local time), Wednesday morning,Radio Palestine suddenly interrupted its regular broadcasts for a solemn announcement: "All the forces (guilty of) assailing national unity at this moment of fateful struggle should understand the fearful responsibility they bear in determining the destiny of the Palestinian people." This announcement brought to an overt climax the conflict raging in the last fortnight inside the Palestinian Authority between the veteran ex-Tunis based leadership led by Yasser Arafat and the field activists. DEBKAfile's Palestinian sources emphasize that this conflict is not the result of Arafat's presumed efforts, as reported by most Israeli media, to hold down the combative Hamas, Jhad Islmi and the Popular Front, in order to establish seven quiet days and move forward to the next stages of the Mitchell recommendations. The diplomatic initiative conducted by Foreign minister Shimon Peres and various European diplomats to prove Arafat's efforts in this regard are totally irrelevant, because the violent confrontations now tearing through the Palestinian camp have nothing to do with differences over political or even military strategy. What is happening is the first open uprising by the forces of the intifada against Arafat's regime. Starting in Nablus a fortnight ago, elements of the Fatah, Tanzim, Hamas, Jihad Islami, Hizballah and the Popular Front, rose up against Arafat and his veteran cronies. Last week, Arafat, with the help of West Bank General Intelligence commander Tewfiq Tirawi and the head of Military Intelligence, Mussa Arafat, was able to subdue the Nablus insurrection. He then went off to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, to try yet again to open purse strings and release the funds promised him at the Amman Arab summit earlier this year. He had no notion - any more than did US and Israeli intelligence experts - that the flames from Nablus would spread so quickly to the Gaza Strip. None of them appreciated the force and depth of the Palestinian street's alienation from Arafat and his regime. It flared Sunday night, July 22, according to DEBKAfile's Palestinian and Gulf sources, at a roadblock that Mussa Arafat set up on the western approach to Beit Lehiyeh to detain a mortar crew on its way back from a shooting attack against Israel targets. The crew was a mixed one, as are most Palestinian teams of late, this one composed of Fatah, Hamas and Jihad Islami militants. Mussa Arafat had been told to arrest the crew - not for the act of firing the mortars against Israeli targets, but because did so without authorization from Saher Habash, Yasser Arafat's terror master for the Intifada Popular Commands. The crew was therefore guilty of insubordination to the Chairman's authority. But the men in the field were not cowed. Monday night, July 23, hundreds of angry members of the popular committees from all the Palestinian organizations in the field mobbed Mussa Arafat's house in Gaza. They did not merely shake fists and heap abuse on this nephew of the Palestinian leader; they also fired threatening shots - in the air this time. Tuesday, July 24, Habash put in an early morning call to Yasser Arafat in Abu Dhabi and told him to return home at once, warning him that a popular revolt was developing. From intelligence reports, he understood that local team commanders from all the Palestinian movements, including Arafat's own Fatah, were planning to call an emergency meeting to approve the resumption of mortar fire against Israeli targets. The use of mortars was chosen as the most convenient vehicle to enable the local commanders to escape their operational subordination to Arafat and start acting independently. Those commanders, many of them Fatah members, believe that Arafat erred when he halted the mortar fire in deference to US, Israel, and European pressure. They think that their disobedience to the Chairman's orders will be the best way to prove to the Palestinian street for the first time since the intifiada erupted ten months ago that Arafat is not the absolute ruler of the Palestinian Authority and that others have a say in dictating events. Saher Habash warned his boss that if this movement is allowed to gather steam, it would become a full-blown armed revolt and threaten his regime. Arafat was back in Gaza the same day. Wednesday morning, he ordered Radio Palestine to issue its dramatic warning. Israeli and US intelligence forces who have propped up Yasser Arafat and his Authority for so many years pitched in this time too. Out of the blue, Israeli electronic and print media 'discovered' that the West Bank Preventive Security chief, Jibril Rajoub, was a major gunrunner, smuggling into the West Bank mortars and shells. Tawfiq Tirawi was described as leading the fight against this illegal traffic. In this theater of the absurd, the West Bank strongman, Rajoub, hitherto regarded as a benign force in the Palestinian camp, was suddenly depicted as the source of evil, while Tirawi, who is personally responsible for the cruelest acts of terrorism on the West Bank, was morphed into a model upholder of law and order. DEBKAfile 's political analysts note that Jibril's arms importing trade is an old story to which a blind eye was turned in appreciation of a Palestinian leader considered most trustworthy by Israel and the Americans. However, in the interests of sanitizing Tirawi, so as to encourage him to throw all his support behind Arafat in his hour of peril, Jibril was thrown to the dogs. DEBKAfile 's political analysts doubt strongly that the tactics leading to this gambit originated in the top policy-making levels in either Washington or Israel. They may not even be aware yet of the full implications of the Palestinian upheaval. But when they are fully apprised, they may very well reverse the political, intelligence and military actions taken by their agents on the spot. Much depends on Arafat's success in keeping the lid on the simmering Palestinian pot. He may have banked down the outbreaks against his rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but he has yet to come to grips with the first real breach driven by the intifada in the Palestinian field command. ********************* The GAMLA News Ticker <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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