Time for action

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President Yasser Arafat's current ill-health has underlined the urgency with which the Palestinian people, both inside and outside the occupied territories, must choose a future leadership, a move that has been delayed for years.

Arafat has been in poor health since 1996 and should have groomed new leaders years ago. This would not have undermined his standing as a symbol of struggle -- Nelson Mandela did exactly that in South Africa.

That Arafat left Ramallah for treatment in France without appointing anyone to run the show in his absence was a major political error. One sign of the emerging crisis is that Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the secretary of Fatah who assumed power in Arafat's absence, has rejected calls by other factions, including Hamas, to form a unified command. And Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath announced in Beirut that any leadership formed in Arafat's absence will be temporary.

So everything remains unresolved. For years the absence of initiative on the Palestinian scene has played into Israel's hand, prompting Sharon to claim that no Palestinian partner exists.

Once again we call on the leaders and factions of the Palestinian people to come together. The Palestinians need a leadership behind which they can rally, leaders who can steer negotiations as well as resistance, that can act as a credible partner and take initiatives that reinforce this credibility. And the Arabs, for their part, must back whoever the Palestinian people choose as their leader if further disasters are to be averted.