Aides of Arafat meet without him

JERUSALEM — Flanking a chair left empty by the emergency medical evacuation of Yasser Arafat, Palestinian officials convened a leadership meeting Saturday in an attempt to allay fears of a power vacuum caused by their president's absence.

It was the first time in 35 years that Arafat had not presided over a meeting of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which serves as the senior decision-making body for Palestinians.

These facts alone underlined the void left by the decline of Arafat, whose incapacitation foretells an upheaval in Palestinian politics and vast uncertainty for neighboring Israelis. A Jordanian military helicopter on Friday evacuated the 75-year-old "rais" from his battered compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah and rushed him to a hospital near Paris.

In the West Bank, meanwhile, Palestinian officials were keen to broadcast an image of "business as usual," even though it certainly wasn't, and that Palestinian institutions, as weak as they are, continue to function. The Palestinian Legislative Council, the leadership of Arafat's FATAH party and a national security council that oversees all Palestinian police forces will be convened Sunday, and senior Palestinian officials planned to brief international diplomats on Monday.

"President Arafat wants us to continue normally, particularly in these difficult circumstances," Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's No. 2 inside the PLO executive committee, said after Saturday's meeting.

Abbas has taken over running the PLO, and Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, known as Abu Alaa, has taken over day-to-day management of the Palestinian Authority, both at Arafat's request, officials said. While the Palestinian Authority is the internationally recognized governing agency for the Palestinian territories, the PLO still eclipses it in real power.

Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, urged the Palestinian public and myriad factions "to unite and work together so that there will be no pretext that may be used to harm the Palestinian people."

He read from a prepared statement and would not take questions.

At the meeting, held in the same sandbagged headquarters that Arafat departed the day before, Abbas and others symbolically left the chair at the head of the table — Arafat's chair — empty. Abbas, as secretary-general of the committee, presided.

Palestinian officials are reluctant to make overt plays for power while Arafat is alive and are taking pains to appear respectful and act as though they expect their president to return.