A New Challenge To Arafat's Rule

Last week Yasser Arafat made an effort to assuage concerns about his rule within the Palestinian Authority by announcing that he wants to hold overdue elections by year's end and signing a two-year-old bill guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary. But for a growing number of people within his organization, it's too little too late. Palestinian Authority members are haggling over reforms that include a plan to shift Arafat to a symbolic role as President. Senior Palestinian officials tell TIME that the shake-up would install Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary-General Mahmoud Abbas--an Arafat ally who has recently been critical of him in private--as Prime Minister, responsible for creating an accountable administration. Among other proposed reforms: folding Arafat's nine security organizations into one police service. The hope among U.S. officials is that greater democracy will diminish the power of gunmen in Palestinian society and make a compromise peace deal more likely. But that outcome is far from guaranteed. A senior Palestinian official says that the regional peace conference the U.S. had hoped to stage in Turkey this summer "is dead" because of Syrian reluctance to sit with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and limitations insisted on by Sharon. --By Matt Rees and Jamil Hamad/Ramallah