Barghouti out, Arafat next?

By WND Staff

Editor’s note: DEBKAfile’s electronic news publication is a news-cum-analysis live wire, online round the clock seven days a week. A weekly edition,DEBKA-Net-Weekly, is available through orldNetDaily.com. Drawing on DEBKAfile’s unique sources, analytical talents and forward-looking insights, it is presented as a compact, intelligence-angled weekly package. It is available as a direct e-mail feed or via the Internet.

Israel’s triumphant capture of Marwan Barghouti, 41, the secretary general of the West Bank’s Fatah-Tanzim and the most vocal Palestinian leader, gave a strong impetus to the Sharon government’s campaign to delegitimize and replace Yasser Arafat reports DEBKA-Net-Weekly.

Military sources reveal that Israeli security leaders, including prime minister Ariel Sharon, have been telling U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell that, since the Palestinian Authority and its security apparatus has buckled, the only real fighting force left on the West Bank is the Tanzim. Because Barghouti rules the Tanzim, he is by definition the strongman of the West Bank.

Our sources, looking for the battles in which Barghouti’s Tanzim was engaged, turned up empty. The Jenin refugee camp was the only place where the Palestinians showed real resistance. But the fighters there were the Islamic Jihad, together with Hezbollah and al-Qaida elements who had been scattered round the West Bank and mustered in Jenin for the showdown with Israeli troops.

However, the casting of Tanzim in a heroic light is part of a wider maneuver.
At the outset of the Israeli operation on March 29, the fiery Tanzim leader reportedly went into hiding in the West Bank security headquarters of Jibril Rajoub at Betunia, near Ramallah. When Israeli troops stormed the building, Barghouti was not to be found. It was said he had gone to ground in a big bunker under a nearby hill, from which he was running terror operations. The IDF was described as bulldozing the hill – but again, no Barghouti.

That the Tanzim leader was so thoroughly lost defies belief. The Shin Beit, which monitors all telephone traffic going in and out of the West Bank, cannot have missed Barghouti’s telephone interview to the al-Jazeera satellite network last week. But knowing where he was, Israel still held off picking him up for one important reason; It had big plans for the Tanzim leader. But first he was allowed to evade and outwit his Israeli pursuers in order to build him up as a legendary figure of the people.
His capture today was a badly needed morale boost for Israelis preparing to celebrate the national memorial and independence days this week.

Mentioned in the past as a possible Arafat successor, Barghouti has seen the inside of an Israeli jail before now. At the age of 18, he was arrested for membership of an armed Fatah squad, served six years in prison where he became fluent in Hebrew, and was deported in 1987. He returned home in 1994, an ardent supporter of the newly signed Oslo accords.

For the Israeli secret service, the Shin Beit, Barghouti is not only the highest-ranking Palestinian terror activist to fall into their hands, but also the richest source of intelligence on the Palestinian terror machine, from top to bottom. But he retains choices. He can spill all he knows about some of Arafat’s top henchmen and their culpability as terror masterminds – particularly his leading rival for the succession, Col. Tawfiq Tirawi, West Bank intelligence chief and supreme commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is run by Arafat’s Fatah as a factory for suicides – as well as smaller fry.

Alternatively, he can finger Arafat in person as directly involved in Palestinian acts of terror at large, and the suicide offensive in particular. The captured Palestinian knows enough to blow the close operational ties Arafat maintains with Tehran, the Hezbollah and the notorious hostage taker and bomber, Imad Mughniyeh, who is on the FBI’s list of 22 most wanted terrorists in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks.

If the Tanzim leader goes for option one, he can expect a long stretch in jail or expulsion from the country. But if, at some point, after the hue and cry over his arrest dies down, he decides to burn Arafat, he will have bought himself a good chance to bid for the succession and a seat at the regional peace conference Sharon has asked the U.S. to host. Since only moderate Arab and Palestinian leaders will be invited, Arafat is disqualified.

The data coming from Barghouti – if it does – will strengthen the case against Arafat as a war criminal. Israel’s Attorney General Eliyakim Rubinstein declared he intends to pursue such a case a few hours before Barghouti’s capture.

Later today, Powell said on the plane heading back to Israel from Damascus that in his view a regional conference could go ahead without Arafat.

In light of today’s rush of events, climaxing with Barghouti’s arrest, a new lineup is taking shape on the Palestinian side of any future peace conference table. Its members are Barghouti, Gaza Strip security chief and strongman Muhamed Dahlan, West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub and veteran Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erikat, with Abu Mazen, Arafat’s official deputy, providing a more venerable presence.

This group would constitute the middle-generation Palestinian team the U. S. and Israel are hoping will take over from Arafat and his clique.

The maneuver might not work – Arafat is still a force to be reckoned with. But if it does, the new leaders will eventually step forward to center stage, with Abu Mazen likely filling the top man’s shoes for a period as a stabilizing interim figure.

Subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly.