By IPS Correspondents
ABU DHABI, Apr 25 2003 (IPS)

A United Arab Emirates (UAE) newspaper today urged the US to pressure Sharon to comply with the Palestinians’ minimum demands, including the easing of the horrific conditions in the Occupied Territories, ending military attacks and curbing settlement expansion.

Commenting editorially on the issue, the Sharjah-based ‘The Gulf Today’ said: – For Yasser Arafat, the enduring symbol of Palestinian struggle, the game is not yet over. The emergence of prime minister-designate Mahmoud Abbas does not mean the political end of Arafat who trod the Middle East as a colossus for decades.

ôHe gave in to international pressure to patch up with Abbas for the sake of peace. As European Union envoy Miguel Angel Moratinos has said, Arafat is the political and moral authority of the Palestinian people.

ôIt is impertinent for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to think that Arafat’s ‘removal’ from peace talks is one of his key achievements while attempting to marginalize the Palestinian leadership. In fact the onus of success of the Quartet-drafted Middle East roadmap for peace rests with Sharon.

ôThursday’s suicide bombing by a Palestinian hours after Arafat-Abbas agreement on cabinet formation is unlikely to hit Abbas’ standing. The United States, a Quartet member along with the EU, the United Nations and Russia, has invested heavily in seeing an alternative power centre to negotiate with Israel.

ôNow there is Abbas, who is seeking parliamentary approval for his cabinet next week. Sharon may dispense with Arafat, but it would be facile to think that the rise of Abbas marks the eclipse of Arafat or Sharon as a rising star in the region’s political firmament for pulling off a quiet coup in Palestine politics.

ôSharon should not think that he can call all the shots. Arafat has made up with Abbas because he does not want to be seen as a peace-wrecker at a time when the region is facing cataclysmic changes following America’s Iraq invasion.

ôHe cannot afford to have a head-on collision with Washington when the regional leaders do not want to precipitate problems in the neighborhood. But it is Sharon who would have to do more for peace by withdrawing troops from occupied territories and call off his aggression.

ôAbbas, who has succeeded in having the Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan as security minister despite Arafat’s objection, is determined to lay the ground for peace talks.

ôHe may succeed in curbing resistance attacks, but that can be expected only if Sharon stops unleashing violence. He has to stop demolishing Palestinian homes and the targeted killings.

ôUS President George W. Bush should realize that marginalization of Arafat is not the key to peace. Arafat, who has a dozen allies in the cabinet, can still tilt the new government.

ôWriting off Arafat and his faction to please Sharon is counter-productive. Instead, the Quartet, particularly the US, should strive to strengthen the Abbas government and stop Sharon from riding roughshod over Palestinian aspirations. Israel has more responsibility than ever before in ensuring that the roadmap becomes a reality. It is not bye bye Arafat yet, it is bye bye to Sharon’s bloodletting that should be the Quartet’s thrust," the paper concluded.

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