Don't Forget Arafat

Secretary of State Colin Powell flew to the Middle East last weekend in an effort to kick-start the U.S.-backed plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace. But its fate may depend largely on one leader Powell did not plan to meet: Yasser Arafat. The Palestinian chief last month grudgingly turned over power, at least in theory, to a newly installed Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas. But top Palestinian officials tell TIME that Arafat is still fomenting opposition to the new PM. Arafat met last week with several local leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Fatah faction (to which Abbas also belongs), offering money and jobs to ensure their loyalty. "We must make sure," Arafat warned his visitors, "that Fatah is capable of countering plots against the people." That was a dig at Abbas and his security chief Mohammed Dahlan, who won U.S. support for condemning the violence of the intifadeh.

Arafat's machinations are having an effect. Dahlan is finding it hard to crack down on militants, as he must to win Israeli cooperation in any peace plan. That's partly because last week Arafat ordered the head of Preventive Security a plain-clothes police agency in the West Bank not to cooperate with the security chief. And Fatah's militant arm, the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, released a communique in which it stated that it refused to comply with Abbas' and Dahlan's calls for an end to terrorism. "We will not halt our resistance," it read, "as long as the occupation of our land continues."

Senior Palestinian leaders say Arafat is simply signaling that he is still in charge. What Arafat will not advertise, though, is his diplomatic isolation. No Arab leader, save Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, calls him anymore, and the Gulf states have better relations with Abbas. Jordanian diplomats, for their part, call Arafat "irrelevant." But as Powell is soon likely to learn, Arafat is a long way from agreeing.