Weakened Arafat left in isolation as factions offer alternative route

Leadership under fire from all sides .

Yasser Arafat responded to yesterday's devastating car bomb attack with a swift condemnation of the operation, followed by an defensive insistence that his leadership had no connection with the attack.

He first convened a meeting of his security chiefs, vowing that the Palestinian Authority would arrest Islamic Jihad members "if they were behind the bombing". Then in a speech broadcast to a ceremony in Cairo marking the 35th anniversary of the 1967 Six Day war, he reiterated that peace remained the "strategic option" of the Palestinians.

But Mr Arafat added a defiant note: "The Israeli government answered our efforts, the efforts of the Arab nation and by those of peace lovers by launching a wild military escalation against our people and against the PA."

The carnage at Megiddo junction has once more thrown into question his leadership and its responsibility for the violence in Israel and the occupied territories.

Mr Arafat has had little success in trying to rally the Palestinian factions behind his leadership. In the past week the PA has held "intensive consultations" with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PLO's Popular and Democratic Front factions, urging them to join a new national unity cabinet.

They all refused.

The PFLP said it wanted elections before any "reshuffling of the ministries" while the DFLP said an agreed national programme and policy was necessary to participate in any new Palestinian leadership.

Islamic Jihad and Hamas reportedly turned down at least two cabinet seats because they could not be bound to a government "still tied to the Oslo accords".

Mr Arafat can largely ignore Islamic Jihad and the PFLP and DFLP since they have little popular support. But Hamas is a different proposition. Polls regularly show the Islamist movement commanding between 20-25% backing among Palestinians.

Hamas has also made it clear it intends to stand in local elections if they are held. Its candidates would almost certainly do well, not only for their advocacy for ongoing resistance but equally for their stand against corruption in the PA.

There is a growing Palestinian view that their leader may have become more a burden than asset: lacking the credibility to marshal enough international support to force an Israeli withdrawal; and unwilling to implement the reforms necessary to renew the Palestinians' struggle against Israeli occupation.

Power will irreversibly shift to those whose message is crude but resonates with an increasingly desperate people. "To those who tell us to stop the martyrdom operations we say: give us an alternative," said Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shallah yesterday.

But many Palestinians do not see an alternative: not from Sharon nor from America nor from their own leadership.