IntlNYTimes

November 15, 2001

U.N. Sends Envoy to Calm Arafat's Pique Over Snub by Bush

By SERGE SCHMEMANN

NITED NATIONS, Nov. 14 — Yasir Arafat was so incensed at snubs he received from President Bush at the United Nations on Saturday that the special United Nations coordinator for the Middle East, Terje Larsen, was urgently sent back to Gaza to calm the Palestinian leader, officials at the United Nations said today.

While at the United Nations, Mr. Bush made a major bow to Palestinian aspirations, referring publicly to a state of Palestine. But he also declined to meet with Mr. Arafat in what was described as a signal that the administration was dissatisfied with the Palestinian leader's efforts to crack down on terror organizations on his territory.

But what really set Mr. Arafat off, the United Nations officials said, came at a diplomatic lunch on Saturday that was given by Secretary General Kofi Annan. There, despite efforts by other diplomats to have Mr. Bush greet or acknowledge Mr. Arafat, the president did not.

It was not clear why Mr. Bush did not, especially since no media people were present at the lunch. But for Mr. Arafat, the absence of even a handshake came as he has found himself under intensely conflicting pressures over how to react to the changed political circumstances since Sept. 11.

Though Washington initially welcomed his professions of support and his call for a cease-fire on Sept. 18, the administration has since become frustrated at his indecision about cracking down on radical groups in territories he controls. Officials familiar with Palestinian politics said senior members of Mr. Arafat's Palestinian Authority had been pressing him to take such action, if only to bolster the authority's eroding power.

Mr. Arafat has always been keenly sensitive to the level and quality of his reception abroad. In fact, the importance he places on meetings with American presidents was probably one reason the administration chose to deny him a meeting as a means of demonstrating its displeasure.

Officials said there were other reasons behind that decision. One was to offset whatever criticism the administration would incur among American Jews and Israelis over calling for a Palestinian state, and another was to avoid creating the impression that the administration was altering its stance as a result of the terror attacks of Sept. 11.

Those considerations, however, were apparently lost on Mr. Arafat, who felt acutely humiliated, officials said. He was said to have taken out his wrath on some aides and visitors, though by all accounts he was civil and gracious at a session on Sunday with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

Mr. Arafat also showed no sign of pique in his address to the General Assembly, in which he declared his "deepest appreciation" for Mr. Bush's endorsement of a Palestinian state.

But United Nations officials deemed Mr. Arafat's fury sufficiently worrisome to interrupt Mr. Larsen's visit to New York and send the envoy to Gaza, evidently to make sure that the Palestinian leader did nothing rash. Mr. Larsen, a Norwegian, has dealt with Mr. Arafat for years, and knows him well.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 2001