Clashes prompt Abbas to resign

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, regarded by the United States and Israel as a crucial partner in renewed Middle East peace efforts, submitted his resignation Saturday after a four-month tenure dogged by Palestinian infighting and a failure to meet international demands for security reforms.

Abbas told Palestinian legislators in a closed meeting that he wanted to quit his appointed position because of continuous clashes with Yasser Arafat, the elected leader of the Palestinian Authority. Also, he was frustrated that the United States and Israel did not support his fragile government with more substantive efforts to move the peace process forward, according to lawmakers present at the session.

Arafat did not immediately accept the resignation and was meeting with lawmakers and political allies Saturday night to discuss his options, Palestinian officials said. Abbas has a history of employing brinksmanship in political battles, often winning concessions by threatening to quit positions, though he has never before submitted his resignation.

The unanswered questions surrounding the two Palestinian leaders' methods and motives did not diminish the impact of Saturday's announcement by Abbas, which plunged the Palestinian Authority into its most serious crisis since he was sworn in as prime minister on April 30. It also represented yet another major setback for the U.S.- backed peace process known as the "road map."

Hours after Abbas's resignation speech, an Israeli fighter jet bombed a residential building in the Gaza Strip in an attempt to kill Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas. Yassin and a top aide were slightly injured when a 550-pound bomb slammed into the home of an Islamic scholar where numerous top Hamas leaders were meeting, Israeli and Palestinian security sources said. Ten other people were also wounded, according to hospital officials.

The decision by Abbas to leave his post, created under pressure from President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a bid to sideline Arafat, will complicate attempts to resurrect the road map. Efforts to end the three-year-old Palestinian uprising, in which more than 2,400 Palestinians and 850 Israelis have been killed, collapsed after a Palestinian suicide bus bombing on Aug. 19 that killed 22 people and the subsequent assassinations of Hamas leaders by Israeli forces.

In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Bush administration was "following events in the region closely, and our representatives are in touch with all interested parties." He added that "we remain committed to implementation of the road map."

Sharon's office, in a written statement, said "Israel will not accept a situation where control of the Palestinian Authority is returned to Arafat or anyone who does his bidding."

Ziad Abu Amr, a cabinet member in the Abbas government, said "the Palestinian political system is in crisis." Describing "a crisis of mistrust" between Abbas and Arafat, Abu Amr said that the prime minister's resignation speech was "very personal" and that the mood in the legislative chamber was one of "sadness and frustration."

Under Palestinian law, Arafat can take as much time as he wants to consider Abbas' resignation, according to Saeb Erekat, an Arafat loyalist and chief Palestinian negotiator with the United States and Israel. Abbas and his ministers will likely stay on as caretakers, Erekat said. After a new prime minister is selected, he will have five weeks to form a cabinet and seek a vote of confidence from the legislature.

Erekat and other Palestinian lawmakers said Arafat could rename Abbas. But several lawmakers who support Abbas said he was unlikely to accept any such proposal.

From the day Abbas was confirmed, analysts said his term would be marked by turmoil and tension as he struggled to define and empower the prime minister's post while Arafat fought to retain his influence. Arafat has the upper hand, analysts say, because he was elected by the Palestinian people, while Abbas was appointed and lacked legitimacy.

The immediate conflict between Abbas and Arafat was over control of the nine main Palestinian security forces, which had been divided between the two men. Abbas demanded that all of the security forces answer to the interior minister, a portfolio he kept for himself when he formed his government.

But lawmakers and associates of the pair said their differences were much deeper.

According to a source who attended the closed-door meeting, Abbas "said he had been betrayed, stabbed in the back by Arafat and his people," who the prime minister complained had incited popular disapproval of his government."

"He went into details, how from within, Arafat and his people wanted his government to fail," the source said. "He felt humiliated by Arafat, who had sided against him, but he did not want to pay him back with the same currency, and that's one reason why he wanted to quit."

"The fact is that Israel did nothing and Arafat did nothing, and the Americans watched from a distance, and in the end Hamas tried to undermine him and he became a punching bag for everybody, and he said, 'This is it,"' the source recounted.

Abbas told legislators that he regretted the failures of his government, but he blamed Israel for not fulfilling its obligations under the peace process, and the United States for not exerting enough pressure on Israel to meet those obligations.

Israeli and U.S. officials have criticized Abbas for not ordering his security forces to crack down on Palestinian militant groups and their operations. But they have also blasted Arafat for undermining Abbas's ability to take such steps by not relinquishing control of the security agencies under his command. The United States and Israel both have refused to deal with Arafat, saying he is tainted by ties to terrorism.

Several Palestinian officials noted that the relationship between Arafat and Abbas, who had been one of Arafat's top advisers for decades, had deteriorated dramatically in recent weeks, prompting some of Abbas's strongest supporters to discourage him from accepting any offer to return to the job. On Thursday, in a speech assessing his brief term in office, Abbas told Palestinian legislators to strengthen his position "or take it back." Lawmakers then called for a vote of no-confidence in his government.

As Abbas -- popularly known as Abu Mazen, or "father of Mazen," in keeping with the Palestinians' practice of referring to a man as the father of his eldest son -- entered the legislative chamber before the speech, protesters pushed and shoved the visibly shaken prime minister, screaming that he was guilty of treason. Some spray- painted a sign on the front of a building saying, "Down with Abu Mazen's government." Because Abbas was supported so vocally by U.S. and Israeli leaders, many Palestinians considered him a puppet of the United States.

"The things of the past few days left a scar on Abu Mazen," said Kadoura Fares, a member of the legislature who had been instrumental in efforts to patch disagreements between Arafat and Abbas in the past few days. "Abu Mazen is not built to take such a thing."

In his speech to the legislature Saturday, Abbas reportedly told lawmakers that accusations of treason were particularly stinging. He argued that he had not been appointed by the United States, but by Arafat, Arafat's Fatah political movement, the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Nevertheless, many Palestinians interviewed Saturday after Abbas' announcement said he had lacked legitimacy.

"Abu Mazen was imposed on the Palestinian people by the infidels," said Tawfik Abudullah Shami, 20, a salesman at a small clothing shop in predominantly Muslim East Jerusalem. "He came to fulfill the will of the United States and Israel. Naturally he was unpopular among the Palestinian people."

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