Palestinians agree to PM but Arafat hangs on

Palestinian MPs today approved the new position of prime minister but a behind-the-scenes deal is reported to be already in place guaranteeing Yasser Arafat continued control over security and peace talks with Israel.

Parliament in the West Bank town of Ramallah was to discuss the powers of the prime minister later today. Arafat has chosen his deputy in the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas, for the job.

Approval of the position had been expected a majority of the 88 MPs are from Arafat’s Fatah movement which has been pushing for reform, and has urged Arafat to share power.

However, heated debate was likely on the powers of the prime minister. An indication came after the vote – 63-3, with four abstentions – when Arafat said: “I can understand from your vote that you have accepted the nomination of your brother, Mahmoud Abbas.”

“No, no,” several members shouted, saying the vote was on creating the position, not on the candidate or his powers.

A senior Palestinian official said Arafat and Abbas, widely known as Abu Mazen, reached agreement last week on a basic division of labour: Arafat would retain final word on negotiations with Israel and control the security forces while Abu Mazen would be in charge of running the government, including naming and supervising Cabinet ministers.

The power-sharing deal falls short of US and Israeli demands that a new prime minister effectively replace Arafat as the chief peace negotiator. President George Bush has said the Palestinians have to choose new leaders as a precondition for statehood.

Arafat’s parliamentary critics remained sceptical about his appointment of a prime minister, saying while the move could be presented as genuine reform, they expected the Palestinian leader to find a way to cling to his near absolute power.

“It would be a radical change for someone other than Arafat to be exercising broad powers,” said MP Ziad Abu Amr. “It don’t think it will be easy for this prime minister to extract power from President Arafat.”

Arafat opened today’s session with an hour long, often rambling, speech. He revisited familiar themes, including accusations that Israel’s military strikes against Palestinian militants were “state terrorism,” that Israel is sabotaging international peace efforts and that international monitors must be dispatched to protect Palestinian civilians.

Arafat also reiterated that he was opposed to attacks on civilians. Israel has accused Arafat of encouraging and financing violence against Israel.

In other developments today, Israeli troops began withdrawing from a four-square-mile area of northern Gaza they had seized last week in an attempt to stop the firing of home-made rockets at Israeli border towns.

At the time, army commanders said the reoccupation was open-ended. The pullback came despite the firing of four Qassam rockets on the Israeli town of Sderot today.