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What Reforms?
Ehud Ya'ari

Arafat has no intention of turning into a Palestinian Queen Mother; he is trying to bury the demands for reform in committees

Everyone is playing the same music but coming out with a different tune. Sharon and Bush, Mubarak and Abdullah, Abu Mazen and Muhammad Dahlan -- and even Arafat himself -- are all for "reform" within the Palestinian Authority. Of course, each envisions a house-cleaning of a different kind, so as to retain the upper hand. But at this point, an enormously important goal has generally been adopted: The transformation of the PA into a much more civilized body, rid of the plague of terror and working toward a peaceful settlement, in the interests of its own subjects and not just for the cause of self-perpetuating conflict.

This is now the "in thing" in the Middle East. And along with all the rightly placed cynicism over what will actually transpire in the end, this development shouldn�t be lightly dismissed.

Sharon, for one, deserves kudos for having raised the international community�s consciousness about the need for such reform, so long as he doesn�t entertain any notion that he can get away with stopping at that. The Saudis, the Egyptians and the Jordanians say -- with a large degree of justification -- that it will be hard to carry out such a complicated process of transformation without the backup of an Israeli guarantee to return, in the wake of the reforms, to a political framework along the lines of the "Clinton Proposals" of December 2000.

It�s worth noting that Sharon has some room for maneuver, given that none of the players wants to end up with Bibi, whose recent speeches before the AIPAC conference in Washington -- in the presence of dozens of senators and members of Congress -- and at the pro-Israel demonstration in London�s Trafalgar Square, reached worrying depths of demagoguery. Since they don�t want Netanyahu, with his platform of destroying the PA, back as prime minister, U.S. administration officials have hinted to me, at least, that Sharon could probably get away with some vague kind of promise about a Palestinian state at the end of the road.

The transformation, it has been agreed by all concerned except the Ra�is himself, will come at Yasser Arafat�s expense. He will remain the chairman of the PA, but preferably as a figurehead with less authority. A new government will be set up by Fatah�s powerful Central Committee after a great purge of many of the corrupt barons of the Oslo regime. It�s possible that a prime minister will be appointed who will take on many of the powers that Arafat has so far concentrated in his own hands. There will be a restructuring of the security services and the armed forces into three or four bodies, alongside the disarmament of the militias of the various factions; a reduction in the vastly inflated number of "policemen"; and above all, the end of the intifada, a denunciation in principle of suicide bombing and attacks on civilians, and a turn to the path of negotiations.

This is the vision, but it�s possible that it is still somewhat bordering on hallucination. Arafat has no intention of turning into a Palestinian Queen Mother. He is trying to bury the demands for reform by appointing committees to examine the proposals. Even Abu Mazen has come out against him on this, with the excuse that the PA is in "worse straits than ever could have been imagined," and that "anarchy is running riot at every turn." There is a need, says Abu Mazen, for "immediate" action. And there are others, including Nabil Amru, one of Arafat�s most senior aides, who resigned from the cabinet to underline his membership in the reformist camp.

The quiet partnership between the Arab leaders who met on May 12 at Sharm el-Sheikh and the reform-seekers from Arafat�s entourage forms a powerful coalition against him. Arafat can�t ignore the strength of the offensive. So like any experienced master of manipulation, he is taking pains to create rifts and fan rivalries among those calling for reforms.

Clearly, in the absence of any agreed upon plan as to who will enjoy the spoils of this pre-post-Arafat "succession," the candidates will all be pulling in different directions. The heads of the Preventive Security apparatuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Jibril Rajoub and Muhammad Dahlan, the two leading contenders to become powerful viceroys, are already embroiled in an open fray. So far it�s been limited to a war of words, but this means that the two are not in league for a shared "reform." They are quarrelling, for example, about whether to call elections at some future date, or just ignore this demand.

Others, such as Nabil Sha�ath, who see their own positions in danger of being hurt, are railing against "reform" being dictated from outside. And many more are hearing from those whispering at Arafat�s behest how bad things will be for them if they are lured into the pro-transformation "trap." The battle is only beginning.

What should Israel be doing? The best thing would be to sit back and watch. Israel must not bet on its favorites or mark out its own aspirations for the said revolution. Sharon should just stick to the principle that the PA has to be changed from its foundations up, and leave it at that. It would be best for Israel to declare that it has no interest in the personal fate of Arafat, but only in the quality of the neighboring government and the nature of its policies.

This is a war we can spare ourselves. Let�s leave Mubarak and Abdullah and all the candidates in the Palestinian camp to bash out amongst themselves, as well as with Condaleezza Rice, what the limits of the transformation will be. We can make our opinion heard afterwards. Meanwhile, if we stick to the sidelines, we can always blow a referee�s whistle and shout foul play.