In a report on October 14 by the Washington Post, the paper said that that half-dozen Israeli missiles slammed into a target less than a mile from Saeb Erekat's house Thursday night. The Palestinian official charged that the Israeli army was targeting his residence.
"I was sure most of the [Israeli] commanders who decided to bomb this place have been sitting exactly where you're sitting, right here in my living room!" the Palestinian minister and top negotiator told the Post after the attack ended.
Erekat had more immediate worries than the future of Middle East peace, said the Post.
“There was, for instance, Erekat's 9-year-old son, Mohammed, so terrified by the blasts that he wept in his father's arms. And there was the structural integrity of his house, which quaked so badly from the concussions that he rushed his wife and children out to the street.”
According to the daily, Erekat who has been the leading Palestinian negotiator for so long, and who “sometimes refers to the peace talks launched seven years ago as ‘my peace process,” has fallen into dismay after two weeks of bloody violence.
"You're talking to a very confused man," he said in an interview with the Post, "things are slipping through my fingers like sand. I don't know who will kill who next. Desperation drives people to crazy acts. That's why I say the worst is yet to come. . . . Voices like Saeb Erekat--the voices of moderation--have been silenced."
But Erekat, and the peace process, enjoy only a modest political constituency among Palestinians. And with prospects for peace crushed for the moment, Arafat seems to be listening increasingly to his security chiefs and street militia captains and less to moderates like Erekat, according to the paper.
"I'm a weak person," Erekat said. "I'm a person who's never put a gun in my hand--I'm proud of that!"
Alarmed by an attempt to burn down a Jewish synagogue after Thursday’s Israeli attacks, Erekat and his bodyguards raced to the synagogue. When they arrived, he put himself between the synagogue and the crowd and held his arms outstretched like a traffic cop. The local Palestinian security chief was also there, trying to disperse the crowd, he said.
"I was shouting, 'This madness must stop!' " he told the paper. "And this time, they listened to me. I was surprised."
The damage to the building was moderate, and the mosaic floor was unharmed, he said. But it was too late to convince the Israelis. Less than two hours later, about 10:15 p.m., Israeli helicopter gunships retaliated for the torching by firing missiles into Jericho.
Israel said its missiles hit a police officers' training center. Erekat said the missiles struck a police warehouse where hundreds of uniforms were stored--a symbolic target but still deeply damaging Erekat told the paper.
However, Palestinian officials and key figures have condemned such attacks on holy sites, charging that “such acts are done by the Fifth Column,” and masterminded by Israeli security services.
“I believe that these actions are the work of the Fifth Column, and definitely masterminded by certain Israeli parties in an attempt to undermine the Palestinian resistance by all means. There is a consensus among the PNA and the political powers that the Israeli security services are behind these acts,” said Hussam Arafat, a member of the Palestinian Joint Command of Intifada in an interview with Albawaba.com – Albawaba.com
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
