The West Bank leader of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fateh faction warned Tuesday that the creation of a Palestinian state could only come with violence.
"What is needed is not a political announcement but the establishment of the Palestinian state on the ground, and it can only come with conflict and confrontation," said Marwan Barghouti, the Fateh official accused by Israel of being a prime instigator of weeks of unrest in the occupied territories.
"One lesson from the past five weeks is that negotiations cannot remove the (Israeli) occupation or the (Jewish) settlements, but actions on the ground can," he said at a seminar here on Palestinian statehood.
The central committee of Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization is due to meet before November 15 to discuss the creation of a Palestinian state, even in the absence of a peace deal with Israel.
Barghouti called for the expansion of the conflict zones in the Palestinian territories after 40 days of violence that has claimed the lives of more than 180 people, most of them Arabs.
"There must be hundreds of conflict points. Wherever there are bypass roads or soldiers or settlers, there must be resistance," he added.
"America and Israel don't want to be under pressure, that is why they want the Intifada to stop for the negotiations to continue."
He was speaking ahead of separate meetings between US President Bill Clinton and Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in the next few days aimed at quelling the unrest and repairing the shattered peace process -- EL BIREH, West Bank (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
