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The European Union has decided to openly fight the Bush administration’s moves to sideline Yasser Arafat, according to DEBKAfile U.S. and European sources.
The explicit policy departure by the European Union follows the Church of the Nativity episode that ended in the banishment of 13 senior terrorists from the Middle East, the deportation of 26 to the Gaza Strip and the release of another 84.
The European bloc reached a clear decision over the weekend to extend the Palestinian leader a lifeline and restore his standing together with the Palestinian Authority.
This move cancels out the U.S. president’s attempt to use the Bethlehem crisis as an opportunity for forging a joint U.S.-European stand on the Palestinian question.
The first outward indication of the rift was the surprise announcement by EU Middle East Envoy Miguel Moratinos in Nicosia today after he visited the 13 terrorists whom Israel says have blood on their hands.
“They are free men, not prisoners, not deportees,” Moratinos said. “They have signed on a personal basis an agreement to go to a third country. They came on a voluntary basis. This is not a deportation.”
All thirteen have been welcomed at the three-star Flamingo Hotel in Larnaca. European foreign ministers will meet Monday to decide which countries will take them.
According to DEBKAfile’s Washington and Brussels sources, the Europeans decided to act when they found out that in whichever countries the 13 terrorists are dispersed, the U.S. intends to apply to those governments for the extradition of suspected murderers of American citizens.
The first on the U.S. list is Ismail Hamdan, a Bethlehem Tanzim leader and member of Tawfiq Tirawi’s General Intelligence service, who killed Avi Boaz, an American businessman based in Gilo, Jerusalem, earlier this year.
According to our sources, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has informed his confidants that he intends to follow the European lead and openly challenge the Sharon line on Arafat, which is aligned with Washington.
If Peres goes through with this strategy, the national unity government created by the Likud prime minister 14 months ago will face its first real threat.
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