As Arafat Critics Close In, Deputies Vie in the Wings
Yasir Arafat, for decades the very personification of Palestinian aspirations, is now in deep trouble with his own people, according to Palestinian political analysts and Israeli intelligence officials who see his authority challenged by a younger generation of street leaders who grew up fighting Israeli occupation.

For now, the analysts say, Mr. Arafat is likely to remain at the helm, however weakened, because there is no alternative in sight.

But a potentially violent power struggle is building, pitting different generations of Palestinian fighters against each other and also setting at odds rival security chiefs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israel's incursion into the West Bank, in which whole cities were shut down and much property destroyed, further hardened Palestinians toward Israel, but it also showed them the weakness of the Palestinian Authority.

During the operation, Mr. Arafat was trapped by Israeli soldiers in his compound as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel tried to isolate and perhaps exile him. But Mr. Sharon's strategy backfired, Palestinian and Israeli officials said, as sympathy for Mr. Arafat soared among Palestinians who identified with his plight.

But Mr. Arafat's liberation and the deals that made it possible have prompted Palestinians to start questioning his leadership again.

In the arrangement that freed Mr. Arafat, six Palestinian militants who had been tried under siege in Ramallah were sent to jail in Jericho under British and American supervision. Thirteen of the men who were under siege in Bethlehem have been sent abroad into effective exile.

Palestinian political analysts said the Bethlehem deal is proving especially costly for Mr. Arafat, who had been riding a surge of support during his own siege by the Israelis.

"The tanks were on his doorstep," said Hisham Ahmed, a political scientist at Bir Zeit University in Bethlehem. "His popularity was enhanced to a degree that we had almost not witnessed in the past. And then came this event that took it from the top level and threw it to the floor."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/21/international/21ARAF.html