Arafat seeks broad reforms

Associated Press

JERUSALEM – Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, accepted blame Wednesday for mistakes by his much-criticized administration and called for broad reforms and new elections to make life better for the beleaguered Palestinians who live under his rule in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Arafat’s call for change, made in a speech to the Palestinian Legislative Council in the West Bank city of Ramallah, responded to a swelling tide of demands – from foreign leaders and Palestinians – for drastic reforms in his 8-year-old experiment in limited self-rule. But the speech contained few specifics, amounting to a broad statement of intentions rather than a program of changes to be carried out in the near future.

As such, it was vintage Arafat, part of the guerrilla-leader style that has generated much of the criticism.

The 72-year-old icon of the Palestinian revolution issued another rousing summons to action, one of countless he has made in more than 35 years struggling for a Palestinian state, but skipped over difficult decisions on the nuts-and-bolts administration of his territory and the composition of his crony-heavy Palestinian Authority.

“It is time for change and reform,” Arafat declared in a 40-minute speech marking Catastrophe Day, on which Palestinians recall the 1948 war that erupted with Israel’s declaration of independence. “We are now badly in need of re-evaluating our policies and plans in order to fix our errors and correct our march toward independence with resolve and steadfastness.”

“Allow me to propose to you the speedy preparation of elections and to implement whatever is possible,” he said at another point, without fixing a date for the vote.

The last Palestinian general elections were in 1996, when Arafat was elected overwhelmingly to head the Palestinian Authority and, it was hoped then, lead his people swiftly to full-fledged statehood in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

With a violent conflict with Israel now in its 20th month and peace negotiations frozen, that prospect seems as distant as ever; most of the million-plus Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank remain stuck in cities and villages surrounded by Israeli soldiers.

As he has before, Arafat urged an end to the suicide bombings that have so enraged Israelis and led Sharon to order the April offensive. “Palestinian and Arab public opinion have reached a point where they agree such operations do not serve our goals,” he said.