 |  |
Click for Contents
|
P.O. Box 1805,Jerusalem 91017 Tel. 972-2-531-5440, Fax: 972-2-537-9489 Advertising Fax: 972-2-531-5425, Email Editorial: [email protected] Subscriptions: [email protected] Web site: http://www.jrep.com |
Arafat�s Reform School
Isabel Kershner
Even Hamas is getting in on the reform act, but the Palestinian proponents of political change don�t have high hopes.
In the highly skepticalL, politically apathetic Palestinian street, where even Yasser Arafat, the "Symbol of the Revolution," often garners only 30-something percent in the popularity polls, few issues have grabbed public sympathy like the calls for political reform. In a mid-May survey carried out by the respected Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), 91 percent of those asked said they want fundamental changes in the Palestinian Authority, with a whopping 95 percent supporting the dismissal of ministers and 85 percent in favor of streamlining the multitentacled security services that have ill-defined areas of power and are perceived as often overstepping their mark.
There could hardly be a stronger indictment of Arafat�s autocratic leadership style, which has allowed the PA to grow over the past eight years into a corrupt, inefficient and bloated beast.
PSR director Khalil Shikaki, a political scientist, was the first Palestinian to go public with a peace process and political reform package that would eventually turn Arafat into a ceremonial president, rather than the sole source of authority that he is today. Shikaki himself is surprised that the eager adoption by Prime Minister Sharon and President Bush of the "ceremonial" part of the package hasn�t killed the idea off. While his poll indicates that Palestinians have an emotional attachment to the presidential system -- only 48 percent support an Arafat bypass that would place power in the hands of a prime minister -- Shikaki points out that this is still more than the 43 percent who oppose the idea.
The Palestinian reformists are ready. Longtime pro-democracy advocates like Hanan Ashrawi and Ziad Abu Amr, members of the Palestinian Legislative Council political committee, came up with a detailed proposal for reform practically the day that Arafat -- under mounting domestic and international pressure -- asked them to in mid-May. The proposal calls, among other things, for the separation of powers to lay the ground for transparency and accountability, for a ratification of the Basic Law, essentially a constitution that was passed by the PLC in 1997, and for all other legislation passed over the years to be implemented. It also calls for legislative and presidential elections by the beginning of next year, for reform of the security services, for an independent judiciary and for proper financial order in the PA.
Almost everybody is signing up for the reform club that was formed in the wake of the Israeli army�s devastating Operation Defensive Shield, aimed at destroying the terrorism infrastructure in the West Bank in April. Arafat�s veteran colleagues in Fatah; the more radical members of the "young guard" who have risen to prominence during the past 20 months of intifada; the PLC pro-democracy corps; independents like Shikaki and security chiefs like Gaza Preventive Security head Col. Muhammad Dahlan -- all are calling for change.
That�s on top of the pressure from Jerusalem, Washington, Cairo, Riyadh and Amman. Each of the factions and players has a different view and agenda, but ironically, many of the proponents of reform have one thing in common: So long as Arafat is around, they are skeptical of their own chances of success, harboring few illusions that the "Symbol" is ready to turn himself into just that.
"We don�t expect 100-percent results," says Ashrawi, "but we�re trying. There is no magic wand to wave to get rid of our internal shortcomings. But this is an incremental process. We are writing, working."
Adds Ziad Abu Amr: "There is a great deal of skepticism among the proponents of reform. Past experience is not encouraging. We worry that the reform may come in a cosmetic fashion. There are serious questions about the Palestinians� ability to reform the system in any fundamental way."
Shikaki, for his part, sees political reform working only as part of a package of three interlocking phases. The first is stabilization, by which he means "ending the threat of violence and replacing it with hope for the Palestinians" in the form of statehood and the removal of some settlements. Next would come an overlapping process of reform including the adoption of a constitution and elections. The third phase would be a permanent-status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians within a year. Arafat would declare the state and sign on the agreement, thus fulfilling his historic objectives, says Shikaki, and only then would he be ready to retire into a more ceremonial role.
Without the peace process element, Shikaki asserts, the PLC members� attempts at reform "won�t see the light of day."
The precedents are indeed disheartening. In July 1997, the PLC voted by an overwhelming majority for Arafat to dissolve his 18-member cabinet following an auditor�s report that showed that $326 million of the PA�s $800-million annual budget had been wasted. At the same time, a PLC investigations committee alleged wide-spread corruption in all the PA ministries and accused two ministers of criminal actions. The cabinet resigned, but reconvened after Arafat promised reforms. A year later, in August 1998, Arafat finally appointed a new cabinet. It included all the previous ministers and added 10 new ones, including some of those who�d led the calls for reform in the first place.
"We�d asked for a change in government and accountability. We ended up with the same government plus another bunch of ministers, including some of the former critics. It was cooption," recalls Ashrawi.
Ashrawi, who�d served in the previous government, took a stand, "politely refusing" to take up her appointment in the new cabinet. Former agriculture minister Abdul Jawwad Saleh also resigned. But Arafat, employing his usual carrot-and-stick methods of persuasion, got a PLC majority of 55 out of 88 to approve the new government.
The latest PLC initiative started with a letter drafted in Gaza, and circulated to council members in the West Bank, by Ziad Abu Amr, Deputy PLC Speaker Ibrahim Abu Naja and others. The authors declared that they were going to issue a statement calling for Arafat to set a date for elections, and for the government to resign in the interim. The letter reached Arafat�s office, and spurred him to convene a council session in order to avoid individual moves that could be perceived as a challenge.
The Gaza members, unable to travel to the West Bank because of Israeli restrictions, participated in the May 15 session by videoconferencing. In his address, Arafat tried to regain the initiative by announcing his own intention to hold elections in the coming months and to overhaul the PA.
Arafat, no fan of democratic elections, since declared that a ballot can only be held once Israel has withdrawn to the 1967 borders, a remark modified by his aides who said that for free elections to take place, Israel would have to pull back to the positions it held in the territories prior to the outbreak of the intifada in September 2000.
Under U.S. pressure, however, Arafat has approved a plan for streamlining his security services. It allows for the merging of the dozen or so separate security services into four new departments, including an internal security force, an external security force, a civil police force and a national security force. The West Bank and Gaza branches would be unified, and all would work under a national security council headed by Arafat. In addition, Arafat has accepted the PLC demand that the terms of security force heads should be limited.
While Israel�s leaders have made no secret of their desire to see Arafat consigned to history, or at least to a ceremonial role, they are being careful publicly not to be seen as meddling in internal Palestinian affairs. "A change of power within the PA is the right and privilege of the Palestinian people," David Chacham, the Arab affairs advisor to the Defense Ministry, said in late May. "We can�t decide who is going to lead them in the future," he said, speaking at a Jerusalem conference on terrorism sponsored by the U.S. Embassy, the ADL and the Herzliyah-based International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism.
But he went on to indicate who the Defense Ministry is putting its money on. If two years ago the top candidates to succeed Arafat were PLO veterans Abu Ala and Abu Mazen, he said, today those names are "pass�." Among the new forces emerging, he saw fit to mention only one name: that of Muhammad Dahlan.
Although Dahlan, currently the strongest security chief on the Palestinian scene, is also calling for reassessment and change, pro-democracy advocates note wryly that the security heads ought to regard themselves as prime targets for being reformed, rather than as reformers.
Indeed, the Palestinian pro-democrats have little truck with Israel�s zeal for reform. "Sharon�s motives are, to put it mildly, suspect," says Ashrawi, who sniffs a delaying tactic to put off any meaningful Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
The U.S.-Israeli call for streamlining the Palestinian security forces is only meant to serve Israel�s security interest, she goes on. "We want reforms that suit our agenda, our interests," she says, "and they might well contradict those of Sharon."
Adds Abu Amr: "Our agenda is to strengthen the Palestinians to stand up to the pressures of Sharon." Indeed, Ashrawi asks, "Where were the Israelis for years? They wanted a PA that could deliver." In her view, the peace process has been detrimental to Palestinian nation-building. "Israel�s security was always put first," she says, even if for the Palestinians that meant arbitrary detentions and arrests.
ONE GRAPHIC EXAMPLE OF where the two agendas are likely to clash is already taking shape. On May 22, Abu Amr convened a conference in Gaza that brought together all the PA political factions, senior officials from the security services including Dahlan�s deputy Rashid Abu Shabbak, and all the political leadership of the fundamentalist opposition Hamas. Sheikh Yassin couldn�t attend for practical reasons, but heavyweights Mahmud Zahhar, Ismail Abu Shannab and Abd al-Aziz Rantisi all came.
According to Abu Amr, Zahhar brought with him a groundbreaking initiative -- a proposal for Hamas participation in a collective leadership body and in national elections. Hamas boycotted the 1996 elections on grounds of its opposition to the Oslo agreements. It has also been excluded from the PLO, having demanded a 40-percent quota in the past as a condition for its participation in PLO bodies.
Abu Amr suggests that a reform process bringing all Palestinian groups and factions together under one national umbrella, including proponents of terrorism like Hamas, would have a moderating influence on the opposition and would not lead to radicalization. "They would be getting into a partnership, and would become liable and responsible to comply with whatever has been decided by the leadership," he argues.
Abu Amr doesn�t know where Arafat stands on such a proposal, but assumes the Palestinian leader would be reluctant to go with anything that would restrict his ability to move freely in negotiations.
Zahhar, for his part, is circumspect in describing his own initiative. "We didn�t speak about elections, but about under what framework we would participate in elections," he told The Report. "It�s quite simple: We don�t accept Oslo, or the continuation of the so-called interim agreement, and we won�t run in any elections under the Oslo title."
If the Palestinians are ready to establish a political state that is not under the Oslo aegis, he goes on, while refusing to elaborate on what kind of state he would like to see, "then we will participate in elections."
That is hardly likely to be music to Sharon�s ears.
l
Palestinian Affairs
|
 |
|
© The Jerusalem Report 1999-2004 |  |