Arafat's Bonus Round

For a man supposedly under siege, Yasser Arafat seems to be enjoying himself. As the TV crews and diplomats came calling last week at the Muqata'a, Arafat's tattered Ramallah compound, his aides festooned the courtyard with streamers and draped posters of the grinning Palestinian leader on copper pipes left exposed by previous Israeli assaults. A motley collection of supporters--including Palestinian schoolchildren, a marching band and a dozen members of Arafat's Fatah Party on horseback--rallied outside the quarters, chanting Arafat's nom de guerre, Abu Amar. President Bush has declared Arafat a "failed" leader, the Israeli Cabinet has vowed to "remove" him, and Israel's Deputy Prime Minister has called for his assassination, but the 74-year-old is walking as tall as ever. "I feel good," he told a visitor.

Arafat's public standing has been elevated by Israel's latest effort to neutralize him--the Cabinet announced this month that it intends "in principle" to expel him. Muqata'a insiders say Arafat is making the most of the situation. Having engineered the ouster of his rival, Mahmoud Abbas, the Prime Minister handpicked by the U.S. to supplant him, Arafat last week reasserted his claim as the undisputed leader of the Palestinians and positioned himself to control the makeup and direction of the new government of the Palestinian Authority, headed by Abbas' replacement, Ahmed Qurei. In a meeting with Fatah leaders last Thursday, Arafat shouted down anyone who dared to question his choices for the new Cabinet. As Arafat blustered, a senior Palestinian official says, Qurei sat in articulate silence. "Arafat is determined to make this Cabinet his own," says a Fatah official. "Then he can go to the U.S. and show them he holds all the cards."

The Bush Administration doesn't want to play along. A Jordanian official told TIME that Arafat asked Jordan's King Abdullah to implore the U.S. to reopen the lines of communication that it severed last year in response to Arafat's failure to crack down on militant Palestinian groups. But at a press conference with the King last Thursday, Bush dismissed Arafat as a potential partner and blamed him for sabotaging peace efforts by undermining Abbas. "That's why we're now stalled," Bush said.

Arafat's aides acknowledge that he did indeed subvert Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, who was once Arafat's first lieutenant. "He felt that Abu Mazen was going to take his crown," says a senior Arafat aide. Arafat exploited Palestinian anger at Israeli military operations in the occupied territories to cast Abbas as a tool of Israel. For Abbas, the final straw came in early September when Fatah militants confronted him as he entered the offices of the Palestinian Legislative Council and accused him of treason. A shaken Abbas resigned the next day. An aide says he plans to go abroad as soon as a new government is formed. "Arafat's morale is high," says a top Palestinian official, "not because of Israel's threat against him but because he got rid of Abu Mazen."