Soccer Dad

The End of the PA

A recent article in the Washington Post declared: "Palestinian Authority Broke and In Disarray: Collapse Is 'Real Possibility'"

The turmoil within the Palestinian Authority is fueling concern that the agency --created almost 10 years ago to govern the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- is disintegrating and could collapse, leaving a political and security vacuum in one of the Middle East's most volatile regions, many of those officials said.
At a time when Israel is constructing a massive barrier complex through and around the West Bank and planning for the possible withdrawal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, Palestinian leaders have offered no political strategy to prevent the authority from becoming marginalized or obsolete, officials and analysts said. Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia's chief of staff, Hassan Abu Libdeh, said the collapse of the governing authority was "a real possibility" and could lead to "a lawless situation" that would play into the hands of radical Islamic groups already competing with the Palestinian Authority for power.
None of the analysts or officials interviewed said they believed a collapse was imminent, and many noted that the key players in the Middle East, including Israel, the United States, the European Union and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, have a strong interest in preventing the Palestinian Authority's demise. However, most agreed that the key issue affecting its survival is a lack of money, and they noted that even on the verge of bankruptcy, the authority has not imposed many of the reforms that frustrated donors are demanding.

Anderson and Moore have a way of making the collapse of the PA sound as if it were a bad thing. If only they'd made the necessary reforms. But that's not the point at all. The point is that the PA is a hopelessly corrupt institution.
Dan Diker and Khaled Abu Toameh wrote in "What Happened to Reform of the Palestinian Authority?" that in addition to PA's loss of authority, there is a reform movement afoot, even if it's not very effective. Diker and Toameh don't view the PA in a favorable light at all.

According to public opinion polls, Palestinians support an end to rampant corruption and lawlessness, which they increasingly associate with Yasser Arafat. A Palestinian poll released on February 9, 2004, revealed that only 27 percent of the Palestinian public expressed "strong support" for Arafat.

According to Israeli and American assessments, Arafat has engaged in "a willing suspension of control" since 1994, following a strategy of "organized chaos" and playing security forces against one another to prevent any one group from becoming too powerful. As a result, the PA has lost legitimacy in the eyes of the public since it has left the control of Palestinian cities and towns to competing armed militants and terror groups.

Since Israel's Operation Defensive Shield in the spring of 2002, there has been a growing chorus of criticism of Arafat by Palestinian legislators, academics, and NGO leaders.

Palestinian reformers have refrained from demanding the complete cessation of violence against Israel. Former U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross noted that Palestinian reformers have not offered any concrete suggestions for tackling the problem of Palestinian terror and incitement.

According to Ramallah banker Omar Ibrahim Karsou, who has called for Arafat's ouster and the replacement of the entire PA leadership, Palestinians want first to regain normalcy in their everyday lives. That means an end to violence, full employment including the possibility of working in Israel, and the ability to travel freely throughout the territories.

But was there any real hope that the PA would have turned out differently. The late Michael Kelly, actually was in Gaza when Arafat arrived triumphantly. In "Promises but never Peace," Kelly described what he saw and what it portended:

Arafat's entry into Gaza was an object lesson: a purposely uncaring display of brute power. He arrived from the Sinai in a long caravan of Chevrolet Blazers and Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs, 70 or 80 cars packed to the rooflines with men with guns. The caravan roared up the thronged roads and down the mobbed streets, with the overfed, leather-jacketed, sunglassed thugs of Arafat's bodyguard detail all the time screaming and shooting off their Kalashnikovs to make their beloved people scurry out of their beloved leader's way.
This was the whole of the Palestinian Authority from the beginning, an ugly little cartoon of Middle East despotism. There was never any pretense of democracy, of rule of law, of a free press, of a working system of taxes or courts or hospitals. There was never any real government. No one ever bothered to build an economy or create jobs or even pick up the trash or pave the streets. There were only security forces -- many, many of these -- and villas by the sea for Arafat's cronies, and millions of dollars in foreign aid that seemed to always turn up missing, and prisons and propaganda. And in the middle of it all: "President" Arafat sitting in a room -- surrounded by waiting sycophants and toadies and respectful ladies and gentlemen of the press -- and complaining.

The truth is that the pathologies of Arafat's government was already well established, even before he entered Gaza. Daniel Pipes wrote "How Important is the PLO?" over 20 years ago. This paragraph summarizes the anamolies of the PLO in hte 70's and 80's nicely.

All in all, the PLO's annual budget in recent years has been estimated at about $1 billion, prompting Time to call it "probably the richest, best-financed revolutionary-terrorist organization in history." Its leaders could enjoy an unusually opulent style of life; on one occasion, three PLO directors lost $250,000 of the organization's money at the gambling tables. If Yasir 'Arafat maintained an abstemious way of life, other of the top PLO brass were notorious for high living; Zuhayr Muhsin, head of As-Sa'iqa, was assassinated while residing in a luxury hotel on the Riviera.

But there's more. A lot more and well worth reading.
The only question I have (to paraphrase a characterization that was popular 20 years ago) is whether Arafat loves fame and wealth more than he hates Israel. Did he fail to create Palestine because he couldn't stand making a deal with the Jewish state that ended the Palestinian grievance against Israel? Or did he love the money and respectability that came his way as a reward for his being a "partner in peace" and fear that actually making peace would diminish his perks? Or was it a combination?
The politicians, diplomats and journalists who excused Arafat's violence and corruption in the name of the greater good of Palestinian rights have simply been Arafat's enablers and accomplices, allowing him to amass wealth and legitimacy as thousands died. I'm glad that many seem to have come around to the knowledge that Arafat is unworthy. I'm hoping that maybe they will also see that Palestinian nationalism, as it now exists, is similarly unworthy.
I won't hold my breath.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at March 5, 2004 01:22 AM | TrackBack