Arafat to Visit Jericho, Gaza This Weekend

JERUSALEM —  After weeks of hesitation, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat announced Wednesday that he will visit the Gaza Strip and West Bank town of Jericho this weekend, a historic return inaugurating the new Palestinian Authority that now governs the regions after 27 years of Israeli occupation.

“I am coming!” Arafat excitedly told Nabil Shaath, now the authority’s senior minister in the Gaza Strip, in a pre-dawn telephone call from the Tunis, Tunisia, headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization. “I am going back home!”

Arafat’s visit--his first to the Palestinian territories since 1967--should bring hundreds of thousands of people into the streets and galvanize Palestinians’ efforts to establish their own government in Gaza and Jericho, then extend its authority across the whole West Bank.

“This will be a historic day that Palestinian people have waited for a long time,” said Dr. Ahmed Tibi, an Arafat adviser in Jerusalem. “It symbolizes the beginning of a long trip for reconstruction and independence.”

The suddenness of Arafat’s decision, catching PLO and Israeli officials alike by surprise, initially put the timing in doubt, as the Israelis scrambled to make security arrangements.

But Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, committed to honoring Israel’s accord with the PLO on Palestinian self-government, agreed to a three-day visit. He reportedly told his generals and security chiefs that the question was not whether Arafat would come but how Israel would cope with the visit. He then gave them until this morning to develop a plan.

“The prime minister decided to allow this visit after considering all security considerations, and the visit will take place starting this Saturday,” Environment Minister Yossi Sarid announced on Rabin’s behalf.

Israel’s right-wing opposition, including Jewish settlers from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, began, in turn, to plan massive demonstrations in Jerusalem that they said would paralyze the capital--even though Arafat has not asked to come to pray at the Islamic shrines here.

“This is a national embarrassment, allowing a murderer to enter Gaza and Jericho,” said Benjamin Netanyahu, chairman of the opposition Likud Party, predicting Arafat will try to come to Jerusalem. “The people feel this is a humiliation. With this visit of Arafat, the countdown begins toward a Palestinian Arab state whose goal is the destruction of Israel.”

Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert also said he believes Arafat might try to sneak into the holy city on Saturday, the Sabbath, when religious Jews could not organize a demonstration. Settler groups already have plans to bring more than 100,000 protesters to Jerusalem starting today to prevent such a visit.

“Arafat is the master terrorist, and we will do what we can to make sure that life in this country will be disrupted,” Aharon Domb of the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and Gaza said. “We don’t mind Arafat visiting the Land of Israel, but in handcuffs and on his way to trial as an arch-murderer.”

The group offered a $33,000 reward for Arafat’s “capture” but withdrew a mock “wanted poster” that put a price on his head “dead or alive” after Israeli authorities ruled that it amounted to an incitement to murder. A former chief rabbi, Shlomo Goren, citing the PLO’s past terrorist acts, again called on Jews to kill Arafat as a religious obligation.

An Arafat visit to Jerusalem could trigger violence because of emotions that surround the city, regarded as sacred by Jews, Muslims and Christians. Jerusalem’s future will probably be the most serious, sensitive issue in negotiations on a full peace settlement, with both Israelis and Palestinians claiming it as their capital.

Arafat decided to come to Gaza and Jericho despite concerns--among them numerous assassination threats--about his own security, Shaath said. “Mr. Arafat took a lot of risks in the struggle to go home, so this will not be a deterrent,” he said. “But our police are preparing for all the security requirements as are the Israeli army and police on their side.”

Arafat had been expected to arrive in Jericho and the Gaza Strip earlier this month but put off the visit, apparently to pressure Western donors to provide $600 million they had promised to underwrite the Palestinian Authority in its first year of operation.

Over the last week, some PLO officials had grown less optimistic about his early arrival in the autonomous regions; Shaath on Tuesday said he thought Arafat would come no earlier than mid-July and maybe much later.

But others--including Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Maazen), an architect of the secret talks in Oslo that produced the breakthrough peace agreement with Israel--have urged Arafat to make good on his pledge to come home to the Palestinian territories, Palestinian sources said. To delay, while demanding more money from the international community, made it appear that the PLO chairman is “for sale,” one PLO official said in Cairo.

Another Palestinian observed, “It’s a political statement--that he’s there for his people. Once you announce you’re going to go, you have to go.”

Arafat, who is scheduled to meet representatives of donor countries in Paris next week, will insist on stronger international backing before he returns to Gaza and Jericho to stay, PLO officials said. So far, donors have offered to release $42 million to last through August.

Arafat received letters Wednesday from Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown assuring him of U.S. support for West Bank and Gaza Strip development.

Shaath, minister of planning and international cooperation in the Palestinian Authority, did not explain the eight-week delay from the signing of the self-government agreement with Israel, but said Arafat felt the moment was right for his arrival in the Gaza Strip.

“Many positive signs” in recent days paved the way, Shaath said, citing talks Tuesday on extending self-rule to the rest of the West Bank and the easing of travel restrictions on PLO officials moving from Jericho to Gaza.

On Wednesday, Israel freed about 400 of the 4,000 to 6,000 Palestinians it is still holding in its prisons and detention camps, a key step toward widening the scope of its peace accord with the PLO. Israeli authorities say they have now freed about 4,000 of 5,000 prisoners they promised to release under autonomy agreements.

Arrangements for Arafat’s visit were uncertain Wednesday because of the haste with which it is being arranged. Egyptian officials said Arafat would likely fly from Cairo to a military airfield near the Egyptian-Israeli border at Rafah, then drive the short distance across the border to the Gaza Strip. But Israeli officials said he would probably arrive by helicopter.

PLO officials said Arafat would travel to Jericho, but Israeli authorities said they have not been notified of that plan.

Arafat and Rabin are unlikely to meet during the visit, but they plan to hold talks next week in Paris, where they will jointly receive a peace prize.

Parks reported from Jerusalem, Murphy from Cairo.