Nazir Majally, Asharq Al-Awsat

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 12 September 2003 — Israel yesterday decided to remove Yasser Arafat from the Palestinian territories. A short government statement after an Israeli Security Cabinet meeting said that Arafat “is a complete obstacle” to peace and “will be removed.”

The statement said “recent days’ events have proven again that Yasser Arafat is a complete obstacle to any process of reconciliation.” “Israel will act to remove this obstacle in the manner, at the time, and in the ways that will be decided on separately,” the statement said.

The decision was an apparent effort to balance growing public and political pressure for a dramatic move with a desire to avoid a confrontation with the United States, which opposes expulsion.

One source said the Security Cabinet decided to ask the army to prepare a plan for Arafat’s exile from the region.

The United States said the expulsion would be unhelpful because it would give Arafat a new stage on which to perform. “We don’t believe that dealing with Mr. Arafat... through expulsion is going to be helpful at all with the situation,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a briefing.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke against the expulsion of Arafat at the weekend. “I don’t think there’s any purpose in doing it right now. What purpose would it serve? To give him a broader stage to operate from outside of the region?” Powell told ABC. Boucher echoed that argument. “We think it would not be helpful to expel him because it would just give him another stage to play on,” he said.

The Palestinian president himself was defiant. “No one can kick me out,” Arafat told reporters at his Ramallah headquarters where he has been confined by the Israeli Army for the last 20 months.

“They can kill me, kill me with bombs, but I will not leave.”

Palestinian Prime Minister-designate Ahmed Qorei said the decision “will have grave consequences, not just on the Palestinian areas, but on the entire region.”

“This is a destructive decision for all the efforts that are being exerted to restore quiet and stability and peace in the region,” he said. “We call upon all wise people in the world to stop this crazy decision.”

Qorei said that expelling Arafat would be a choice that “will explode in the entire area” and block his efforts to form a new government and “impose law and order.”

Radical Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad promised to fight the Israeli move. Spokesman Khaled Al-Batch said the decision meant “Palestinian resistance will intensify.” “We cannot accept such a decision and we will not remain silent,” he said, warning that if Arafat were kicked out “it would lead the region into a cycle of violence and the (Palestinian) people are ready to defend out leaders and our rights.”

French President Jacques Chirac and his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak also warned against such a move.