WEEK IN REVIEW DESK

The World; Post-Arafat Could Be Worse Than Arafat

By JOHN KIFNER (NYT) 1071 words

True, the old guerrilla, looking frail as he was helped by bodyguards over a pile of rubble blocking his doorway, managed his familiar display of victimized fury. ''I am addressing this appeal to the whole international world to stop this fascism, this racism, this dirty work against our people,'' he said, sending an aide scurrying after the cameraman from al-Jazeera Arab satellite station, who had missed the statement the first time around. But there was only a handful of supporters to raise a cheer, mostly security officers on Mr. Arafat's payroll.

To Israelis, hounded by a seemingly unending series of suicide bombers -- including one who last Wednesday killed 17 people in a bus -- Mr. Arafat is increasingly seen as the ultimate villain. The columnist Yoel Marcus summed it up in Ha'aretz: ''No matter who takes responsibility for a particular attack, be it Islamic Jihad or the Tanzim, this bloodshed is Arafat's fault.''

No Israeli believes this more than the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and when he visits the White House this week he is expected to try to persuade President Bush that -- one way or another -- it's time for Mr. Arafat to go.

But whatever responsibility Mr. Arafat bears for fomenting the violence that now dominates his society, there is a real question whether he now has the power to stop it. One senior European diplomat, who deals frequently with both Palestinians and Israelis, believes he does not. ''Not even close.'' he said. ''Maybe a year ago he had it, possibly. Today, absolutely not.''

Mr. Arafat is increasingly unpopular among his own people, the butt of snide jokes about his corrupt Palestinian Authority and the cronies he brought with him from exile in Tunis and installed in top jobs. And there is a growing rivalry between this ''Old Guard'' of outsiders and the ''Young Guard'' of insiders who grew up in the street battles of the first intifada. The latter include men like Marwan Barghouti, the leader on the West Bank of the Tanzim, a militia nominally an offshoot of Mr. Arafat's Fatah, but in practice an independent rival.

''I don't believe he has much power,'' said Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah. Mr. Shikaki's polls chart a mounting disillusion with Mr. Arafat and the Palestinian Authority since a high point of Oslo optimism in 1996. A central tenet of the Oslo agreement was that a Palestinian security force would protect Israelis from Palestinians, and back then, the Preventive Security Force chiefs -- Jibril Rajoub on the West Bank and Mohammed Dahlan in Gaza -- locked up Islamic fundamentalists wholesale. There was no public support for suicide bombing because hopes were high for a Palestinian state in the near term.

Israelis still want the P.L.O. to help ensure their security, but in the face of current conditions, it seems a preposterous idea. In Dr. Shikaki's latest poll, taken late last month, Mr. Arafat had only a 35 percent approval rating. Ninety-one percent supported fundamental change in the Palestinian Authority, 95 percent wanted the ministers dismissed and 83 percent believed corruption existed. And while 52 percent supported suicide bombing inside Israel, 86 percent opposed arresting the bombers.

But if Mr. Arafat is a much-disliked man these days, there is still no one around to replace him. ''Arafat has made certain that he has become indispensable,'' Dr. Shikaki said. ''It is certainly not the case that if he goes, everything will be resolved.''

''In fact, we could have an even worse situation,'' he added. ''There is a good chance we could find ourselves launched into domestic violence for a long time, even a civil war.''

The second intifada that broke out 20 months ago was as much a revolt against the aging P.L.O. leaders as it was against Israel, and today Mr. Arafat faces challenges from both secular nationalists -- many with Western, democratic ideals -- and from Islamic fundamentalists, whose influence has spread from their stronghold in Gaza to areas of the West Bank. The Islamists openly defy Mr. Arafat -- last week they turned down an offer to join his ''reform'' government -- and reject his call to stop suicide bombings inside Israel. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, spiritual leader of Hamas, told the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar: ''We shall continue to pursue them everywhere, and they will not have security as long as we don't have it.''

The attacks that brought Israeli wrath down on Mr. Arafat, both last April and last week, were carried out by Islamic radicals. Even as Mr. Arafat's compound here was besieged after the Passover bombing that killed 28 sitting down to a Seder, the Hamas leaders responsible were gloating to reporters in Gaza about their new explosives. Wednesday's bombing was carried out by a teenager from Jenin who residents said had been taught to drive just two days before by his Islamic Jihad mentors.

Israel attacked Mr. Arafat's compound in response, but the erosion of P.L.O. authority has left the bombers and the independent militias, now largely freelance, in charge.

THERE have been efforts to rectify the growing political vacuum. Egypt sent its intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, to try to reorganize Mr. Arafat's hydra-headed security services. But, Mr. Arafat, who has always based his power on playing these groups against each other, seemed unlikely to change.

Last week, meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority's Jenin governor, Azzaldin Manasra, resigned. Associates told Palestinian journalists that ''the intifada activists from Islamic Jihad and the other movements are in control and no senior Palestinian official dares go there.'' In fact, Mr. Arafat's Palestinian Authority functionaries have been afraid to venture into Jenin for some time.

A Western diplomat painted a bleak picture. ''They are laughing at him,'' he said of the Palestinian attitude to Mr. Arafat, ''because he has absolutely no authority. His security apparatus is a joke. Nobody in a uniform did anything. It's all Tanzim, Hamas, Islamic Jihad. The fighters in Jenin fought very bravely. It's all street corner guys, it's gangland.''