During his speech, Arafat said the Palestinian Authority "should open doors wide to the younger generation." He said a top priority should be reorganizing the security apparatus and "putting an end to the state of security chaos," but he made no proposals.
Even as Arafat conceded that some Palestinian officials had abused power and that he was among those who had made mistakes in not strengthening government institutions, independent lawmaker and former cabinet member Abdul Jawad Salah shouted, "You are the one who protected them!"
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat responds to a heckler following his speech to a session of the Palestinian Legislative Council at his headquarters.
(Kevin Frayer -- AP)
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AP Video Report: Yasser Arafat said Wednesday that he has made "mistakes" and promised to correct them.
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A flustered Arafat jabbed his finger toward Salah and shot back: "Be careful! Be careful!"
"He's not part of the reform, he's part of the corruption," Salah said after the speech, which was delivered in a refurbished meeting hall across from Arafat's battered offices.
Sharon's internal battles began in earnest in May, with the referendum defeat of his Gaza disengagement plan. His continued pursuit of the plan has divided the party, and he had to fire two ministers from the ultranationalist National Union party to get the plan through his own cabinet. Two ministers from the hard-right National Religious Party also quit, leaving Sharon's coalition with just 59 votes in the 120-seat parliament.
His government has been subjected to almost weekly no-confidence votes, spurring Sharon to reach out to Labor and other parties to broaden his coalition.
Before the balloting Wednesday night, many Likud members at the convention who said they were voting against Sharon explained that they simply could not stomach an alliance with Shimon Peres, the Labor Party chairman and architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
"Peres will have an appeasement policy vis-a-vis Arafat and continue with the Oslo accords that are long dead," said Yitzhak Ben Gad, 60, a real estate agent and former deputy mayor of the coastal town of Netanya. "He thinks in terms of a new Middle East, but the Middle East we live in is old, and nothing has changed."
Special correspondent Samuel Sockol in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
