Arafat Under Pressure to Reform His Government
Arafat has been widely criticized for agreeing to send the men into exile -- a first in the long conflict with Israel. ``I tell you if there was a mistake, I take full responsibility,'' Arafat said. ``There are always mistakes in every movement.''

Arafat also reiterated his opposition to attacks on Israeli civilians. ``Palestinian and Arabic public opinion have reached a point where they agree such operations do not serve our goals,'' he said. ``On the contrary it creates the hatred within the international community which was behind the creation of Israel.''

Arafat's speech came on ``Naqba Day,'' Arabic for ``catastrophe'' -- the uprooting of Palestinians during the 1948 war that erupted when Israel declared independence. In recent years, tens of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets for the commemorations, but Wednesday's turnout was much smaller.

``People are not interested anymore in words, demonstrations and clashes. They are looking how to get food for their children. They are looking how to stay alive,'' said Monir Hilo, a 32-year-old teacher from Gaza. ``We are living the Naqba everyday.''

About 400 people marched in the town of Rafah. Last year, 6,000 showed up.

Several hundred people marched from Shati refugee camp to nearby Gaza City. Hundreds of others marched through other areas of the town.

Palestinian officials said Hamas has come under growing pressure from Saudi Arabia to halt suicide bombings in Israel. In the coming days, Hamas leaders are to hold talks in Cairo with Saudi officials, said two senior Palestinian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In Israel, meanwhile, the center-left Labor Party was split over competing peace plans, as it geared up for a leadership battle at a party conference Wednesday between the hawkish party chief, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, and Haim Ramon, a charismatic legislator who proposes a unilateral withdrawal from nearly all of the West Bank and Gaza.

Addressing a party convention under a banner that read, ``Israel chooses separation for peace,'' Ben-Eliezer warned: ``Any border that we set for ourselves would be temporary and would perpetuate the conflict.'' He favored a negotiated solution with ``two states for two people, living side by side in peaceful coexistence, Israel and Palestine.''
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html