Arafat Can Do Little Under Siege: Palestinian Official

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, April 01, 2002

Arafat Can Do Little Under Siege: Palestinian Official

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A senior Palestinian official said on Sunday that Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat could do very little to control suicide bombings as he is under siege in his West Bank office in Ramallah by the Israeli forces.

Without mentioning the Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories, U.S. President George W. Bush said on Saturday that he thought Arafat could do "a lot more" to halt the Palestinian suicide attacks against Israelis.

But Nabil Shaath, a Palestinian cabinet minister and top advisor to Arafat, said: "Arafat, who is under siege and being a hostage now with very little communication coming in and out of his office, can do very little."

"He can do more if he is helped in two ways -- his ability to persuade and his ability to discipline," Shaath told CBS's Face the Nation. "His ability to persuade would be increasing tremendously if the Israelis would pull out and would end the siege."

"His ability to discipline requires that again he takes control and he is helped to rebuild his police force and his communication networks, and command and control centers," Shaath said.

He noted that both these persuasion ability and disciplining ability required the Israelis to do something. "It requires them to pull out of the occupied Palestinian territory and to end the siege imposed upon the Palestinian people."

The Israeli forces have been besieging Arafat's compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah since Friday in response to a series of suicide bombings that killed dozens of Israelis.

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