RAMALLAH, West Bank - The squat tomb sits in dignified quiet, decked in gleaming white Jerusalem stone on a slope that soon will be carpeted green by 25 species of trees and shrubs.

A two-story prayer hall and 98-foot minaret stand guard nearby, completing a memorial complex for the late Yasser Arafat that is tranquil, stately, and well ordered. It is, in other words, pretty much everything his reign as Palestinian Authority leader was not.

Three years after Arafat's death, Palestinian officials yesterday unveiled a tomb complex on the spot where he was buried Nov. 12, 2004, in a scene of pandemonium a day after his death.

During the ceremony, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, laid a wreath in the colors of the Palestinian flag on the tombstone and honored his onetime rival with a moment of silence.

In a brief speech, Abbas pledged to reclaim part of Jerusalem for his people, the Associated Press reported. The fate of the city, claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians as a capital, is one of the most explosive issues in peace talks, expected to resume after a US-hosted Mideast conference in Annapolis, Md., later this month.

"We will continue on the path of the martyred President Yasser Arafat to be reburied in Jerusalem, which he loved . . . Jerusalem, which he tried to make, and which all our people are trying to make, the capital of the Palestinian state," Abbas said...