It looked as though after ten days, the brawl within the Palestinian leadership over Yasser Arafat's body and ill-gotten fortune might be running out of mind-boggling maneuvers, when French president Jacques Chirac stepped in. Whereas until now, he had insisted on the whole mess being removed from France tout de suite, Monday, November 8, he saw a way of using the arrival of present and former Palestinian prime ministers, Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala) and Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), to pick up points for France and score a few against the US interest. After a consultation with his Middle East advisers, he decided to back Suha Arafat all the way and at the same time reach out to the radical, rejectionist wing of the Palestinian camp - PLO politburo chief Farouk Kaddumi, Arafat's close confidant Hanni al Hassan, Force 17 commander and senior terrorist chief Col. Feisal Abu Srakh, as well as Mohammed Jihad, an important Jordanian Palestinian general...
Chirac is so desperate to do anything to raise French prestige at the expense of the US that his gambles, and resulting embarassments are becoming comic. |