MIDDLE EAST: Israel's decision to "remove" the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, prompted a wave of opposition yesterday - from Palestinians, Arab states, international powers and some within Israel itself, writes David Horovitz
And amid calls by leaders of Mr Arafat's Fatah faction to protest the move, hundreds of Palestinian worshippers threw stones on to the Western Wall plaza below and clashed with Israeli police after prayers at the mosques on Jerusalem's Temple Mount yesterday at lunchtime. Police used stun-grenades to disperse them; there were no reports of injuries.
While some Israeli officials said the decision was essentially declarative in nature, and that there was no likelihood of its being implemented so long as the Bush administration was steadfastly opposing the move, one of the senior ministers who approved it said that it was most definitely "operational."
Mr Effi Eitam, the head of the right-wing National Religious Party in Mr Ariel Sharon's government, explained that the announced intention to remove Mr Arafat left "three options" open: the Palestinian leader would either be "liquidated, captured and put on trial, or moved elsewhere."
His preference, the minister said, would be for Mr Arafat to be arrested and tried as a war criminal - he did not specify whether in Israel or elsewhere - and he asserted that there was more than sufficient evidence to bring about his conviction.
But, Mr Eitam went on, he and his ministerial colleagues had taken their decision in the full knowledge that Mr Arafat did not intend to be captured alive, and he stressed that it therefore constituted "a readiness to take responsibility for his death."
Soon after the Israeli cabinet statement was issued late on Thursday night, an anchorman on Arafat-controlled Palestinian television urged viewers to take to the streets to show solidarity with their threatened President.
Beaming, blowing kisses and flashing victory signs at the thousands who responded to the call and massed at his battered Muqata presidential headquarters in Ramallah, where he has been confined for well over a year, Mr Arafat praised them for their courage, urged them to remain true to the struggle for Jerusalem and vowed to stay put.
Mr Ahmed Korei (also known as Abu Ala), the incoming Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, said he was now suspending his efforts to form a new government and warned that Israel's "crazy decision," if implemented, could "blow up" the Middle East.
The al-Aqsa Brigades, a splinter group of Mr Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO, issued a statement vowing to mount a wave of suicide bombings in Israel if Mr Arafat is harmed. And in the two countries that have signed peace accords with Israel, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak urged Israel to reverse the decision and Jordan criticised it as hasty, wrongheaded and a threat to peace.
It has been speculated that troops might try to enter the Muqata, capture Mr Arafat and transport him by helicopter to an undisclosed destination.