PA sources deny reports that Yasser Arafat, in a recent meeting with Jibril Rajoub, head of PA Preventive Security in Gaza, pulled a gun or slapped him. Arafat was reportedly upset with, among other things, the fact that many prisoners had been released from PA prisons during a recent Israeli retaliatory bombing. Journalist Roni Shaked, who covers Judea and Samaria for Yediot Acharonot, told Arutz-7 today that he is skeptical about these reports, but in any event \"it\'s true that there is increasing tension between Arafat and Rajoub. This is because they know they\'ve made no progress in 17 months, and it\'s frustrating to them. Not only that, the Palestinian street is much more extremist than its leaders, and the public demands no let-up to the violence; this also leads to tension.\"
Shaked named yet another reason for the inter-PA tensions: \"Arafat doesn\'t give clear or consistent instructions, he speaks with 1,000 tongues, and the result is total anarchy - as we saw in the recent courtroom lynching of three defendants who had just been convicted, and no law and no order… The Balata refugee camp, for instance, has become a state unto itself; not only does Israel not want to go in, even the PA doesn\'t want to. It\'s the same with Jenin.\" Shaked said that this does not mean the PA is falling apart, but rather that, \"all it needs is the necessary oxygen to allow it to function again... Its public sees the violence not as terrorism, the way we do, but as a war of independence, and we have to understand this.\"
Shaked named yet another reason for the inter-PA tensions: \"Arafat doesn\'t give clear or consistent instructions, he speaks with 1,000 tongues, and the result is total anarchy - as we saw in the recent courtroom lynching of three defendants who had just been convicted, and no law and no order… The Balata refugee camp, for instance, has become a state unto itself; not only does Israel not want to go in, even the PA doesn\'t want to. It\'s the same with Jenin.\" Shaked said that this does not mean the PA is falling apart, but rather that, \"all it needs is the necessary oxygen to allow it to function again... Its public sees the violence not as terrorism, the way we do, but as a war of independence, and we have to understand this.\"