Barely one day after Yasser Arafat supposedly called for ending terror attacks on Israeli civilians, his official Palestinian television station broadcast ten minutes of films calling expressly for attacking the Israeli “enemy.”

The films which immediately followed the major three o’clock afternoon news show left no doubt as to Palestinian intentions, and they featured footage of Arafat himself and other Palestinian leaders carrying weapons during attacks on Israel. (See accompanying video footage on www.themedialine.org)

“Ya-jamaheer ard-al muhtallah, yallah al-thawra dhid-al’udu “Oh, masses of the occupied land, go forward with the revolution against the enemy.”

This verse was repeated tens of times in a song that featured a mixture of celebratory martial music that played over pictures of Palestinian youths throwing burning gasoline bombs, rocks and firing rifles.

Arafat himself and his late aide Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad)–in footage taken more than two decades ago– were shown carrying weapons and even in the midst attacking Israeli targets.

“Oh masses of the occupied land, give of your blood. Forward our martyrs, forward our suns,” sang another verse in the song that was repeated several times.

Arafat has been deliberately offering a mixture of messages–one aimed largely at Western audiences, and one aimed mostly at his own Palestinian constituency.

In his speech in Ramallah Monday (September 9) he only offered some general calls for not attacking ‘Israeli civilians inside Israel’ while steadfastly refusing to condemn any of the terrorists–Islamic Jihad, HAMAS and his own Fatah organization–that have carried out the attacks.

It appears that Arafat’s main message to his own people was a call for unity and an almost plaintive attempt to say “I am still here, alive and kicking.”

All the Palestinian newspapers carried front page pictures of Arafat flashing his now-famous “V-for-victory” sign to the crowds.

But there are signs that Arafat’s two-tiered public relations approach and his corruption-riddled regime are losing their hold on Palestinians, and not just on Israeli and American critics.

For several days Arafat has held off a vote in the Palestinian legislature because it was likely his cabinet would not have been approved.

Inside his own Fatah movement, there are growing calls for Arafat to step aside, in practical if not symbolic terms, by appointing a prime minister. Fatah’s Central Committee urged Arafat three weeks ago to name Mahmoud Abbas (known widely by his nickname Abu Mazen) as prime minister, but Arafat has so far refused to do so. Even Arafat’s own Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda newspaper published a cartoon several weeks ago showing a tombstone over the Palestinian legislature–as if to say that it was being railroaded by the high-handed tactics of Arafat. Such a cartoon would have been unthinkable a year ago.

“We reserve the right to fight against the occupation and to defend ourselves,” declared Hussein al-Sheikh, a leader of the Fatah Tanzeem militia in the West Bank only a few hours after Arafat’s speech. It was the kind of bold comment that he perhaps would not have made even one year ago.

“We need an election law that strengthen the parties and not the families,” said another Fatah member, Kadoura Farress, and his comment was also testimony that blind faith in Arafat had ended.

However, the dismay with Arafat does not mean that the Palestinian community as a whole is now ready to admit that it has lost the two-year-long war of attrition and terror waged against Israel.

Polls inside the Palestinian community show that “al-muqawama”–the resistance–is still very popular.

Even as Arafat has sent messages to the Israeli media and to Western European diplomats insisting that his Fatah units are ready to end attacks on Israeli civilians, Arafat has been working hard to show his Palestinian supporters that he will not surrender to Israel.

At least 25 Palestinian gunmen, bombers and terror planners have holed up in Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah, according to a report released yesterday by Israeli security officials.

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