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By MATTHEW GUTMAN
With two weeks to go before elections for Palestinian Authority chairman, security around the frontrunner, PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), has been bolstered to unprecedented levels ? partly on the word of a Tunisian astrologer.
The astrologer, Hassan al-Sharibi, gained fame in the Arab world for prophesying the 1997 death of Princess Diana, the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin last March and the "mysterious death" of former PA chairman Yasser Arafat
The Tunis-based oracle's prediction for 2005 is that both Abbas and US President George W. Bush will be ferried cross the River Styx by an assassin's bullet.
"Abu Mazen is in danger. That is why he is being kept away from the public," a senior Palestinian official told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend. "The people closest to him are highly concerned about his safety."
The official, a member of Fatah for the past 30 years, characterized the threat emanating from Sharibi's charts as "very serious." The source added that Abbas's aides put a "great deal of credence" in the Tunisian soothsayer.
Instead of a chance to kiss babies and shmooze with an adoring crowd, Abbas's campaign kickoff event on Saturday was a dour show. Dozens of leather-coated security agents secured the podium as Abbas delivered a speech to an essentially handpicked crowd, which responded with tepid applause. His guards swarmed around him as soon as he concluded his speech.
He embraced a few key Palestinian figures ? including Ahmed Jbarra, better known as the "refrigerator bomber," whose booby-trapped appliance exploded in Jerusalem's Kikar Zion in 1975, killing 14; and Fadwa Barghouti, the long-suffering spouse of Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving time for five counts of murder ? before being bundled off the stage and into a waiting motorcade bound for the Mukata compound in Ramallah.
Abbas's guards had similarly formed an impregnable phalanx around him when the leader attended midnight mass in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.
Given the security concerns, his campaign headquarters refuse to divulge his campaign schedule. And in lieu of large rallies, Abbas's aides said Saturday they have scheduled smaller campaign stops in major Palestinian towns and villages. There the putative Palestinian leader will meet "friends" from his Fatah faction and pose for photo-ops.
Saleh Masharka, an editor with the Ramallah-based Al-Hayat al-Jadida, put little credence in the fatal alignment of the stars in Abbas's astrological charts. However, he observed, disgruntled "members of an increasingly fragmented Fatah might be dangerous to Abbas."
In an incident last month, Fatah toughs burst into a funeral tent for Arafat where Abbas was mourning, and opened fire. Two Abbas security guards were killed and six people injured in the ensuing gunfight.
Critics have labeled Sharibi a quack with flair who relies on logic and wishful thinking. After all, predicting Yassin's assassination ? he was Israel's "public enemy No. 1" ? and the death of an already ailing Arafat are hardly major feats.
N., another source working on Abbas's campaign, said, "Everyone is worried about him ? it was the Americans' idea to give him more bodyguards."
Soothsaying is not unusual in Islam, and Arabian leaders and early Muslim caliphs relied on court astrologers as early as the eighth century.
"The Middle East region will be sitting on a volcano in 2005, and the situation in Iraq will get even more dramatic as Saddam Hussein is expected to die suddenly before his trial even starts," Sharibi predicted, according to a report by United Press International.
Among Sharibi's other projections are that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will lose his government and Osama bin Laden will finally be captured ? more likely dead than alive.
Dr. Muhammad Shtiya, Abbas's campaign manager, denied that there is any danger to the man members of his campaign are calling the "savior of the Palestinian cause."
Defending the restricted kickoff event, he argued that "the idea was to select an audience that reflected the Palestinian people, and that is what you saw on the podium."
By MATTHEW GUTMAN
With two weeks to go before elections for Palestinian Authority chairman, security around the frontrunner, PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), has been bolstered to unprecedented levels ? partly on the word of a Tunisian astrologer.
The astrologer, Hassan al-Sharibi, gained fame in the Arab world for prophesying the 1997 death of Princess Diana, the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin last March and the "mysterious death" of former PA chairman Yasser Arafat
The Tunis-based oracle's prediction for 2005 is that both Abbas and US President George W. Bush will be ferried cross the River Styx by an assassin's bullet.
"Abu Mazen is in danger. That is why he is being kept away from the public," a senior Palestinian official told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend. "The people closest to him are highly concerned about his safety."
The official, a member of Fatah for the past 30 years, characterized the threat emanating from Sharibi's charts as "very serious." The source added that Abbas's aides put a "great deal of credence" in the Tunisian soothsayer.
Instead of a chance to kiss babies and shmooze with an adoring crowd, Abbas's campaign kickoff event on Saturday was a dour show. Dozens of leather-coated security agents secured the podium as Abbas delivered a speech to an essentially handpicked crowd, which responded with tepid applause. His guards swarmed around him as soon as he concluded his speech.
He embraced a few key Palestinian figures ? including Ahmed Jbarra, better known as the "refrigerator bomber," whose booby-trapped appliance exploded in Jerusalem's Kikar Zion in 1975, killing 14; and Fadwa Barghouti, the long-suffering spouse of Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving time for five counts of murder ? before being bundled off the stage and into a waiting motorcade bound for the Mukata compound in Ramallah.
Abbas's guards had similarly formed an impregnable phalanx around him when the leader attended midnight mass in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.
Given the security concerns, his campaign headquarters refuse to divulge his campaign schedule. And in lieu of large rallies, Abbas's aides said Saturday they have scheduled smaller campaign stops in major Palestinian towns and villages. There the putative Palestinian leader will meet "friends" from his Fatah faction and pose for photo-ops.
Saleh Masharka, an editor with the Ramallah-based Al-Hayat al-Jadida, put little credence in the fatal alignment of the stars in Abbas's astrological charts. However, he observed, disgruntled "members of an increasingly fragmented Fatah might be dangerous to Abbas."
In an incident last month, Fatah toughs burst into a funeral tent for Arafat where Abbas was mourning, and opened fire. Two Abbas security guards were killed and six people injured in the ensuing gunfight.
Critics have labeled Sharibi a quack with flair who relies on logic and wishful thinking. After all, predicting Yassin's assassination ? he was Israel's "public enemy No. 1" ? and the death of an already ailing Arafat are hardly major feats.
N., another source working on Abbas's campaign, said, "Everyone is worried about him ? it was the Americans' idea to give him more bodyguards."
Soothsaying is not unusual in Islam, and Arabian leaders and early Muslim caliphs relied on court astrologers as early as the eighth century.
"The Middle East region will be sitting on a volcano in 2005, and the situation in Iraq will get even more dramatic as Saddam Hussein is expected to die suddenly before his trial even starts," Sharibi predicted, according to a report by United Press International.
Among Sharibi's other projections are that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will lose his government and Osama bin Laden will finally be captured ? more likely dead than alive.
Dr. Muhammad Shtiya, Abbas's campaign manager, denied that there is any danger to the man members of his campaign are calling the "savior of the Palestinian cause."
Defending the restricted kickoff event, he argued that "the idea was to select an audience that reflected the Palestinian people, and that is what you saw on the podium."
