Near Miss

Did I Say Israel? What I Meant Was...

Palestinian leader YASSER ARAFAT'S outburst last week--threatening to renew the intifadeh and warning Israel "our rifles are ready"--seemed strange, given that the Knesset was debating a controversial land transfer to the Palestinian Authority. According to a senior aide, however, the Chairman's remarks, to a gathering of his Fatah organization, were meant for local consumption only. Arafat, says the official, is furious with the group's secretary-general, MARWAN BARGHOUTI, who has led an anticorruption campaign within Fatah that culminated in an anti-P.A. riot in Ramallah last month. The ferocious rhetoric, says the source, was aimed at rallying Fatah activists behind Arafat. When Israeli...

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