'Arafat must go'

The BBC's Tim Sebastian met Bassem Eid

A leading Palestinian human rights worker has called on Yasser Arafat to step aside in favour of what he called a new leadership, free from corruption.

Bassem Eid, Executive Director of The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group criticised the Palestinian leader for being a "disappointment" to his own people.

"I think everybody is disappointed in Arafat, not only the Americans, not only the Israelis but also the Palestinians," he said.

Click here to watch the full interview

"I think that Arafat is not doing enough right now to protect the Palestinian people and to keep them surviving during this terrible situation."

Reforms

This week Mr Arafat sacked two senior security officials in the Palestinian Authority. The move was widely seen as a response to demands for him to crack down on terrorism and to reform his administration.

Arafat is not doing enough right now to protect the Palestinian people

Bassem Eid

The US President, George W Bush, recently called upon the Palestinians to appoint a "new and different leadership" that could lead them towards their own state.

In response, Yasser Arafat announced that the Palestinian Authority will hold presidential and legislative elections in January 2003.

Mr Eid claimed that only a leadership free from corruption will increase the rate of progress towards peace.

"The corrupt people couldn't create any reforms right now in the Palestinian territories," he said.

"When the Americans called upon Arafat for reforms, Arafat couldn't do the reforms."

Solution

Mr Eid went on to predict that if Arafat was re-elected it would be disastrous for the Palestinian people.

Bush believes that the Palestinians need a new leader

"I think I can be 100% sure that a very dark future is waiting for the Palestinian people if Arafat would be re-elected by the Palestinians," he said.

Although Mr Eid did not give the names of any potential successors, he believed that there are people who could gain enough support to beat Arafat in the forthcoming election.

"There are enough Palestinians who are intelligent here and they know exactly how to manage things. They understood the Israeli mentality much more than Arafat," he said.

"If these people one day take the authority and power they will know exactly what to do to bring more and more security and prosperity for their own people."

But for the long term future of the Middle East, Mr Eid said that he could see no final solution.

"I don't believe that there is any plan in this world that will be able to solve the Palestinian - Israeli conflict," he said.

"I wish that one day the climate will be prepared by the Palestinians and the Israelis for the peace forces to start entering and to start spreading a kind of quiet and calm to the region."

You can watch the HARDtalk interview in full at the following times:

BBC News 24 (times shown in BST)
Thursday 4 July 0430, repeated 2230

BBC World (times shown in BST)
Thursday 4 July 0430, repeated 0930, 1130, 1630, 1930, 0030