By Akiva Eldar - March 2, 2000 - Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat plans to declare Palestinian statehood on November 15 of this year, according to the assessment of Foreign Ministry officials.

Arafat's expectation is that U.S. President Bill Clinton will recognize the new state following the election of a new American president on November 3.

Research analysts in the Foreign Ministry and the defense establishment now think Arafat will defer by two months his original intention to declare an independent Palestinian state on September 13, which is the date scheduled for the completion of the negotiations on the permanent settlement.

Arafat has lately stopped mentioning that date and has begun talking about his intention to proclaim a state by the end of the year. One reason put forward by the analysts for his choice of November 15 is that it was on that date in 1988 that he declared Palestinian independence in Algiers.

It was also noted in discussions held in Jerusalem that President Ronald Reagan launched a dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization in the transition period between the election of George Bush as president in November 1988 and Bush's inauguration in January 1989.

In the meantime, in Arafat's summing-up meeting with U.S. peace envoy Dennis Ross before Ross left for Washington, the PA chairman told Ross that he does not intend to renew negotiations with Israel on the final settlement until the fog lifts from the the negotiations on the Syrian track.
Arafat said he sees no point in continuing the talks because he knows that Barak will not want to make hard decisions regarding the Palestinians until he has ensured the IDF's withdrawal from Lebanon through an agreement with Syria.

At the same time, senior PA officials have told their Israeli counterparts that Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), Arafat's deputy and the co-chairman - with Foreign Minister David Levy - of the joint Israeli-Palestinian steering committee, cannot meet with Levy because of the foreign minister's "child for child" statement in the Knesset in connection with Lebanon.

[http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=14&datee=03/02/00&id=70711][source: http://philologos.org/bpr]

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