U.S. Presses Mideast and Europe to Reduce Ties to Arafat
April 25, 2003  
WASHINGTON,  — The Bush administration, seeking to bolster a newly emerging team of Palestinian leaders, is pressing Arab and European nations to cut back diplomatic contacts with Yasir Arafat and divert the financing of Palestinian activities away from his control, officials here said today.
 

The campaign for a global drive to undercut Mr. Arafat is one of several items on Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's agenda for his trip to the Middle East next month, the first Bush administration attempt in a year to become directly involved in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mr. Powell's objective is also to persuade Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries to get the newly designated Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, to push Mr. Arafat aside and disarm Hamas and other militant groups in order to help a process that could lead to the creation of a Palestinian state.

The United States has already told Israel that it must ease the crackdown on Palestinian areas once Mr. Abbas takes office, which could be next week.

Now is also the time, an administration official said, to "collect the bill" from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, which have pressed for more American pressure on Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians.

Mr. Powell's long-delayed Middle East trip was made possible this week by an agreement between Mr. Abbas and Mr. Arafat on a new cabinet, in which a crackdown on Hamas and other militant groups would be taken over by a new security chief, Muhammad Dahlan.

Administration officials said today that the trip could yet be put off or split into two trips, because of new concerns that Mr. Arafat was still trying to grab hold of power.

In addition, American officials say they do not want to be seen arriving the minute Mr. Abbas takes office, making it seem as if he was an American puppet.

With combat in Iraq winding down and with American troops in control of a country that used to be one of Israel's worst enemies, Mr. Powell's trip is viewed inside the Bush administration as one of his most important as secretary of state. There will even be some "shuttle diplomacy" between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem and Mr. Abbas in Ramallah, officials said.

Administration officials said that not only was Mr. Powell expected to snub Mr. Arafat, with whom the United States has had no contact for nearly a year, but that an effort was under way to persuade other nations to cut off contact as well.

A test of this policy may come Sunday, with the visit of the Japanese foreign minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi, to Israel. Administration officials said today that Ms. Kawaguchi and others are being told that if they meet with Mr. Arafat, they may not be able to meet with Mr. Sharon.

In addition, an administration official said today that the United States had told officials from the European Union, the United Nations and Russia that a peace plan they helped draft toward a Palestinian state, known as the road map, would not be formally presented to Mr. Arafat.

Instead, the officials said the plan should be presented only to Mr. Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen. President Bush had earlier said that the plan would not be published or promulgated until Mr. Abbas had taken the job of prime minister.

"We're telling people that this is the moment to build up Abu Mazen, and it undermines that objective if you treat Arafat like he's still in charge," said an American official. "That cannot happen and must not happen."

Part of the leverage for the new pressure on Mr. Arafat, administration officials said, is the $1 billion a year that donor nations supply to the Palestinian Authority, about a quarter of which comes from the European Union and more than a third from the Arab League.

In the last six months, American and European officials have said they are pleased with what they call a new transparency in the Palestinians' financial accounts, which they maintain were riddled until recently with corruption and secrecy.

Under the new finance minister, Salam Fayyad, a former International Monetary Fund official, Palestinian books are said to be more open. But American officials said there was still some work that could be done to make sure that funds are not transferred to parts of the government still controlled by Mr. Arafat.

In addition, diplomats involved with the Palestinians said they were pressing Mr. Fayyad to get control not only of the $1 billion in donations, but also of the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues generated by various Palestinian government monopolies that sell consumer goods from flour to cigarettes to cement.

These funds are often described as a source of Palestinian corruption and of money that makes its way to militant groups that carry out attacks on Israel.

Trips to the Middle East by American secretaries of state have been frequent, but Mr. Powell has not made one for a year, under rising criticism from Arabs and Europeans that the administration was more interested in making war on Iraq than helping negotiate peace between Israel and its neighbors.

In addition, administration hard-liners were angry over Mr. Powell's decision during his last trip to meet with Mr. Arafat at the very moment when many were blaming Mr. Arafat for a series of attacks on Israelis and when his headquarters in Ramallah were under siege from Israeli forces.

After Mr. Powell came home, insisting that he had met with Mr. Arafat only to demand that he crack down on violence, the Bush administration effectively froze its peacemaking efforts until someone other than Mr. Arafat could emerge.

In the year since, the administration has spent perhaps more time negotiating the road map plan than it has talking with the Israelis, and certainly with the Palestinians.

The turnaround made possible by Mr. Abbas's ascendance ushers in what some administration officials say is a delicate new phase in which Israel and the United States will try to orchestrate a series of concessions to the Palestinians to bolster Mr. Abbas's standing.

Another tough challenge for Mr. Powell is Syria, also on his itinerary. The administration has labeled Syria a supporter of terrorists and accused it of aiding the government of Saddam Hussein during the Iraq war.

But Mr. Powell is expected to test whether there might still be room for Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, to be more accommodating.