Arafat challenger maintains strong ties to Missouri

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- If Yasser Arafat holds an election, he has just one announced challenger: Abdel-Sattar Qassem, who supports suicide bombings, and the Mizzou Tigers.

Qassem, 53, lives in the West Bank now, but he has strong midwestern ties, including degrees from the University of Missouri, where his son is now enrolled.

"I received a very good education at the University of Missouri, and it helped me in forming a very organized type of thinking," Qassem told the Columbia Daily Tribune in a telephone interview from his home in the West Bank. "I strongly advocate freedom, and I believe people that are not free cannot be creative."

Qassem is a political science professor at An-Najah University in the West Bank. He has spent 14 months in Palestinian Authority jails for criticizing Yasser Arafat's leadership as corrupt and undemocratic.

Qassem announced his candidacy on Friday, the same day Arafat said he will hold elections if Israelis withdraw their troops to positions held before the outbreak of fighting 20 months ago.

Qassem's chances of winning appear slim. Arafat remains the symbol of the Palestinian people, and Qassem, a Western-educated sympathizer with Islamic militants, has no political power base.

He received a master's degree in economics and a doctorate in political science from Missouri in 1977, where he was a regular at Tigers basketball games. Qassem returned to Columbia five years ago during a rare Israeli-sanctioned trip outside the West Bank.

Last year, Qassem sent his son to his alma mater. Mohammed Khalilia, 20, moved to Columbia in July to study computer science and engineering at Missouri. He keeps his father abreast of the Tigers progress.

If elected, Qassem said he would focus on rooting out corruption within the Palestinian Authority and returning millions of Palestinian refugees to their homeland in what is now Israel.

Qassem endorses bombing and shooting attacks by Islamic militant groups on Israel civilians. Suicide bombers have killed dozens of Israelis and wounded scores of others throughout the fighting.

"As long as the Palestinian civilians are suffering as refugees in the camps for 54 years the Israeli civilians should suffer as well," he told The Associated Press last week.

He does not recognize the state of Israel.

"The main problem we have is Palestinian refugees who have been living in refugee camps," Qassem said. "I want peace for sure, but those who refuse or do not accept the right of those Palestinians to get back to their homes and property do not want peace."

Missouri political science Professor Patrick Peritore guided Qassem's doctoral thesis and described him as "a very quiet, very serious guy" and a leader of Palestinian students at Missouri.