Arafat says bullets raising cancer rate

By Paul Martin and Maria Cedrell

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat accused Israel
of polluting the West Bank and Gaza Strip with depleted-uranium bullets,
causing a sharp increase in cancer rates.

"They have caused cancer that is like Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Mr. 
Arafat said in an interview.

"America could not find uranium in Iraq, but we have found it here
in Palestine — and the Israelis are using it to kill our people."

Mr. Arafat, his eyes bulging with anger and his lips trembling, the
effect of rumored Parkinson’s disease, encouraged reporters to visit
Palestinian hospitals and see the cancer patients.

Cancer specialists at two hospitals, one in Ramallah and the other
in Bethlehem, said they had seen no increase in cancer rates during the
current uprising, which began in September 2000.

The Palestinian leader was referring to dense bullets of depleted
uranium that are sometimes used by U.S. forces to pierce tank armor. The
Palestinians have no tanks.

Mr. Arafat also accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of
being linked to the 1995 assassination of then-Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin.

Mr. Sharon is "part of that group of fanatics who killed my
partner, Yitzhak Rabin, with whom I signed the peace of the brave," said
the Palestinian leader, referring to the now-defunct 1993 Oslo peace
accords.

Israeli government spokesman Danny Seaman described Mr. Arafat’s
charges as "the product of a sick mind and a fevered imagination."

Apart from what Mr. Arafat said during the interview at his
Ramallah compound, his tone and demeanor raised questions about the
degree of control that the Palestinian leader has over national events
and over himself.

The visit lasted several hours. Palestinian officials said two
previous interviewers were ordered to leave after angering Mr. Arafat
with their questions.

A list of questions or topics was demanded before this interview,
and many questions were vetoed by Mr. Arafat’s top adviser, Nabil Abu
Rdeineh.

Mr. Arafat declined to discuss the recent upheavals within the
Palestinian Authority.

To back the charges of cancer-causing uranium bullets, Mr. Arafat
waved a report that he said he had received from the so-called Quartet
behind the latest Middle East peace initiative — the United States,
European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

"This report, an American report, proves it," he said, handing a
copy to visiting reporters.

The document turned out to have been written by an obscure peace
group. It contained no evidence that Israel had used uranium bullets. It
did conclude that Israel probably has such weapons in its armory because
it has a close military relationship with the United States.

Separately, no analysis of cancer rates was available at the
Palestinian Authority’s official bureau of statistics or its department
of health.

Mr. Arafat’s remarks mixed aggression toward his interviewers with
anger at his enemies.

He became upset when asked why the Israelis had recently killed the
two top leaders of the rival Palestinian group Hamas but had not
eliminated him.

"How dare you?" he yelled, his finger pointing menacingly and lips
quivering more than usual. "Are you a Mossad agent? Do you work for the
killers of Rabin? Of course they want to kill me, too.

"Look at my bedroom that he bombed. Remember, one of [Mr. Sharon’s]
ministers said a 2-ton bomb would finish me off ... he tried to kill me
13 times in Beirut."

Israeli spokesmen have said that if their army or air force wanted
to kill Mr Arafat, they could have easily done so numerous times. For
more than two years, he has remained at his compound in Ramallah.

Mr. Arafat insisted on conducting the interview in a small room in
front of a photo of the Dome of the Rock, the ubiquitous symbol of
Palestinian ambition for sovereignty over the holiest site in Jerusalem.
Mr. Arafat said he was convinced Mr Sharon was not serious about
his plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

"If he’d wanted to withdraw, he need not have gone to his own
[Likud Party] first — when they voted against," he said.

"He could have gone to the Knesset and got a big majority with [the
opposition Labor Party] supporting him. So I think it’s just a show,
just a theater to fool the world."

THE WASHINGTON TIMES