Palestinians Set January Elections

The on-again off-again Palestinian elections are on again, reports CBS News Correspondent Robert Berger, and the leading candidate for president is...Yasser Arafat.

The announcement appears to be a response to President Bush's demand that the Palestinians choose a new leadership. But the catch is that Yasser Arafat will probably be re-elected.

Asked if Arafat would run, Palestinian planning minister Nabil Shaath said, "Yes, absolutely." He added that Arafat had told him so himself, but that he expected other candidates as well.

Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat announced that presidential, parliamentary, and municipal elections will be held in January.

"President Arafat officially declares today that the election of the president of the Palestinian Authority and the election of the Palestinian legislative council will be held in January 2003," Erekat said, suggesting Jan. 10 or Jan. 20 as possible dates.

Palestinian Parliament Secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman said it appeared most likely the elections would be held earlier in that timeframe, perhaps Jan. 10 or 11.

Israeli officials dismissed the announcements, saying action was needed, not words.

And Erekat implied the Bush speech was not a factor in the decision.

"Many of you may think, `Are we submitting this or saying this in response to President Bush's speech?' We are saying this in response to Palestinian needs. We're saying this because we have been working on this reform for months," Erekat said.

In a speech on Monday charting a course for a road map to Middle East peace, President Bush told Palestinians they must elect a new leadership "not compromised by terror" — remarks taken as shorthand for an end to Arafat's rule.

Analysts have said the veteran Palestinian leader would be likely to win any presidential poll, and the Palestinian Authority has stressed that only elections, not outsiders, can dictate who leads their people.

A Palestinian official said on Wednesday presidential and legislative ballots would take place between January 10 and 20.

"Hamas will probably make a significant showing and might even take over a majority of the parliament," warned Shaath. "Their threat to the presidency is less," he said.

Commenting on Mr. Bush's Middle East address, Shaath said there some long-term positives for the Palestinians — notably his reference to an eventual Palestinian state — but feared a pro-Israeli tone would lead to further hardening of views among Palestinian extremists.

Arabs across the world had focused predominantly on the negative overtones of Mr. Bush's speech, Shaath said. This had engendered a lot of negative feeling towards President Bush and therefore against American policy in the region.

"The music of the speech was bad, the lyrics were not that bad," Shaath said.

Israeli forces, meanwhile, maintained their grip over West Bank towns, confining at least 700,000 Palestinians to their homes under curfew orders, and carried out arrests and searches. The army re-entered Palestinian West Bank towns and cities last week, when after back-to-back suicide bombings killed 26 Israelis.

Hebron was the latest Israeli target, where forces surrounded a hilltop government compound Tuesday, killing four Palestinian policemen in exchanges of gunfire. Heavy machine-gun fire continued there Wednesday.

Jericho was apparently chosen as the site for the election announcement because it is the only Palestinian-ruled West Bank city which Israeli forces have not seized in the past week following back-to-back suicide bombings in Jerusalem.

Asked how long the army would stay in the cities they entered after suicide bombers killed 26 people in Israel last week — Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, Qalqilya, Tulkarm, Nablus and Jenin — Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said: "As long as it takes us to fulfill our basic duty to our children."

Speaking on Israel's Channel One television, Ben-Eliezer said that on Tuesday alone Israeli forces had seized explosives belts, homemade rockets and "several terrorists and murderers of the first order" in sweeps through the West Bank.

Echoing a threat by Sharon to launch operations against the militant Islamic group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Ben-Eliezer said: "If Hamas's activities reach an intolerable level, nothing will help and we will have to go and fight it, too."

Also on Wednesday, the Israeli army said its forces in the Gaza Strip found and blew up an underground tunnel used to smuggle weapons from Egypt into Palestinian territory.

Raanan Gissin, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said Israel wants to see concrete evidence of a clampdown on terror attacks against Israelis before judging the effectiveness of Palestinian reforms. "This is how it will be tested — with action, not with words. In the meantime, all we have is words," said Gissin.

Erekat clearly anticipated any moves the Palestinians made would not impress Sharon, telling reporters: "Even if we have a political situation where Mr. (Alan) Greenspan (chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve) will be appointed for a temporary period as Palestinian minister of finance and (U.S. Attorney General) Mr. John Ashcroft will be taking care of Justice for the Palestinians and (U.S. Defense Secretary) Mr. Donald Rumsfeld will be the Defense Minister, and maybe President Bush will come...Will this change the course of Sharon's government that is determined to destroy the peace process, to destroy the Palestinian Authority and to full resume the occupation?"

Also Wednesday, a Brussels appeals court threw out a lawsuit against Sharon, ruling he was immune from investigation in Belgium over his alleged role in a 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees.

"What the court decided is that the complaint against Sharon...is not admissible because of the principle of Belgian law that crimes committed in other countries cannot be prosecuted in Belgium unless the author or presumed author has been found in Belgium," a court spokesman said.

The ruling deals a major blow to Belgium's law giving the country's courts the right to try foreigners for serious human rights abuses wherever they are committed.

It was under this controversial law that a group of Palestinian and Lebanese filed the complaint last year, accusing Sharon of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.