Jerusalem Issue Brief

Jerusalem Issue Brief
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Institute for Contemporary Affairs
founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation

Vol. 3, No. 20 - 3 March 2004


What Happened to Reform of the Palestinian Authority?

Dan Diker and Khaled Abu Toameh


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.


Anarchy in Palestinian-Controlled Areas

The latest Palestinian suicide bombings in Jerusalem - one on February 22, 2004,
that killed eight
Israelis and wounded more than 65 others, and one on January 29, 2004, that
killed 11 people and
wounded 50 - are the latest indications of the Palestinian Authority's failure
to reform its
security forces, as called for by President Bush, the Quartet, and the
U.S.-backed road map to
peace.

These terrorist assaults confirm the current anarchy in the
Palestinian-controlled areas and in the
PA security forces, in particular. The terrorists in both bombings were members
of the Al Aksa
Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's PLO Fatah
faction. The bomber
in the January 29 attack, 24-year-old Ali Ja'arah from the PA-controlled city of
Bethlehem, was a PA
policeman and also a member of Hamas. Arafat's continued control of the
Palestinian cabinet,
parliament, and security forces has blocked security and political reforms, as
well as attempts to
create financial transparency in the PA.


Palestinians Support an End to Corruption and Lawlessness

According to public opinion polls, Palestinians support an end to rampant
corruption and
lawlessness.1 The Palestinian street now believes it has the moral high ground
opposite an isolated
Arafat and a failed PA, especially after paying the price of 3,000 dead in the
"Al Aksa intifada."
In an unprecedented move, on February 7, 2004, more than 300 members of Arafat's
own Fatah party
resigned en masse due to the PA's failure to end official corruption and
Arafat's refusal to enact
democratic reforms.2 Furthermore, a Palestinian poll released on February 9,
2004, revealed that
only 27 percent of the Palestinian public expressed "strong support" for
Arafat.3

Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid and West Bank reformer Omar Ibrahim
Karsou (whose
outspoken criticism of Arafat forced him to flee Ramallah in 2001) have even
called for the
deployment of Jordanian, Egyptian, and Turkish troops to exercise security
responsibility for Gaza
and parts of the West Bank until a new, more legitimate, and democratic
Palestinian leadership
emerges.4

One example of what Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie termed "the chaos of
weapons" occurred on
February 18, 2004, when masked gunmen opened fire at PA Health Minister Jawad
Tibi in Jenin.5 In
another incident, in early February 2003, members of the PA Preventative
Security forces stormed the
Gaza City headquarters of the PA civilian police, killing one police officer and
wounding 10 others.
According to Palestinian sources, the attackers, dispatched by former Minister
of Security Mohammed
Dahlan, beat up Gaza Police Commissioner Ghazi Jabali for having publicly
insulted Dahlan.


Arafat Continues to Undermine PA Reform Attempts

It is well known in Palestinian circles that Arafat was responsible for
sabotaging the reformist
former PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned in September 2003 after
only four months in
office. Abbas had committed the Palestinians to ending terrorism as a political
tool and
implementing full political and financial reform. Yet Arafat employed almost
every possible tactic
to undermine Abbas and was intent on proving that Washington's attempts to
sideline him as PA leader
were doomed to fail.

In October 2003, Arafat appointed long-time Fatah loyalist and Palestinian
Legislative Council
Speaker Ahmed Qurie as prime minister. Arafat also appointed long-time confidant
Hakam Balaawi, a
novelist and playwright, as interior minister,6 while simultaneously naming
himself head of the
newly established National Security Council. Balaawi immediately implemented
Arafat's decision to
re-divide control over PA security forces between different commands in Gaza and
the West Bank,
thereby erasing all the security reforms that had been previously ordered by
Abbas and Dahlan.7




Arafat's Strategy of "Organized Chaos"

According to Israeli and American assessments, Arafat has engaged in "a willing
suspension of
control" since 1994. As chairman of both the Palestinian Authority and the PLO
terror organization,
Arafat has played security forces against one another, a move that has prevented
any one group from
becoming too powerful.8 A West Bank Palestinian who recently lost a family
member to factional
violence described the PA as a thousand competing authorities each with its own
militia.9 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.10

While most Israeli and Western media reports have focused on Palestinian terror
and IDF responses,
scores of local Palestinians have also been killed by the reigning anarchy. In
the city of Nablus,
for example, dozens of local residents have been summarily executed as
collaborators or have been
caught in the deadly crossfire of gang feuds over profitable rackets in stolen
cars, drugs, and
extortion.11 The PA has neither prosecuted nor arrested any suspects, who
continue to roam West Bank
streets terrorizing the local population. Despite his declared commitment to the
road map, Prime
Minister Ahmed Qurie said he has no intention of forcibly uprooting Palestinian
terror groups. "We
will not confront, we will not go for a civil war," he said.12


Ongoing Corruption Undermines Palestinian Reform

In November 2003, the CBS program "60 Minutes" revealed that Arafat controls a
secret portfolio
worth at least one billion dollars that has been skimmed from public Palestinian
funds since the
establishment of the PA in 1993. According to the program, whose meticulous
research was assisted by
reformist Palestinian Finance Minister Salim Fayad, himself a former IMF
official, Arafat maintains
secret investments in a Ramallah-based Coca Cola plant, a Tunisian cellphone
company, and venture
capital funds in the U.S. and the Cayman Islands.13 A BBC investigation the same
month revealed that
Arafat was distributing $50,000 monthly to hundreds of members of the Al Aksa
Martyrs Brigade.14
While Fayad nearly resigned on a number of occasions, he has been partially
successful in
implementing a direct deposit system for paying the salaries of thousands of PA
workers, designed to
end the system of cash payments by Arafat through which he had wielded much of
his power.


Bolder Palestinian Calls for Reform

On January 29, 2004, former Arafat advisor Imad Shakur, writing in the
London-based Asharq al-Awsat,
blamed Arafat for "failing to govern, and for turning the Palestinian Authority
into an amalgam of
fronts and militias ruled by extremists."15 Shakur demanded that Arafat end the
intifada and disarm
terror groups such as the PLO's Tanzim. Shakur's article was reprinted by the
PA's main newspaper,
Al Ayam, published in Ramallah; in the competing Al Quds, published in
Jerusalem; and in the
Jordanian newspaper A-Ra'i.16

In fact, 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, including
former cabinet minister Abdel Fattah Hamayel, PLC legislator Husam Khader,
former Minister of
Agriculture Abdel Jawad Saleh, and Mohammed Muqbel, a senior PLO official and
director in the
Ministry of Sport. A number of these reformers and other Palestinians have been
arrested and beaten
for their direct criticisms of Arafat and his loyalists in the Palestinian
Authority.

Palestinian newspapers have publicized reform efforts, albeit carefully, largely
limiting their
reporting to coverage of local NGO-sponsored academic seminars on reform. Local
Palestinian and Arab
reporters are well aware of the dangers of criticizing Arafat and his senior
loyalists by name,
however, resulting in broad self-censorship. But Palestinian journalists have
begun to battle the PA
's muzzling of the local press. On February 15, 2004, 200 Palestinian
journalists marched into the
chamber of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza City and refused to leave
until a senior
Arafat aide promised to launch an investigation into attacks on Palestinian
journalists.17

While some Palestinian leaders have demanded an end to armed militias,
Palestinian reformers have
refrained from demanding the complete cessation of violence against Israel.18
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.19 One Washington,
D.C.-based
Palestinian affairs analyst noted that Palestinian reformers have "disembodied"
political violence
from their corpus of demands for democratic reforms to maintain credibility with
the Palestinian
public that largely supports terror actions against Israel.

Ramallah banker Omar Ibrahim Karsou has called for Arafat's ouster and the
replacement of the entire
PA leadership. According to Karsou, "Arafat's brutal dictatorship, corrupt rule,
and use of terror
and incitment have prevented a democratic Palestinian state from emerging."20
Karsou is part of a
group of West Bankers with strong ties to Jordan who believe that the key to a
stable Palestinian
government is to replace the Fatah-dominated PLC with a broad-based
representative Palestinian
leadership stemming from local democratic governing councils in the West Bank
and Gaza where there
had been strong local leadership before Arafat's arrival in 1994.

Karsou also noted that Israel can do much to advance the interests of local
Palestinian leaders like
himself by making some magnanimous gestures to assuage the overriding fear among
Palestinians that
Israel is still interested in annexing the entire West Bank.

According to Karsou, 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. "Once Palestinians establish and
enforce the rule of
law and create a new sense of trust with Israel, we can move forward in the
democratic
nation-building process and negotiate final status issues in due course," he
said.21

* * *

Notes

1. According to recent Palestinian public opinion polls, 50-80 percent of
Palestinians demand an
immediate "reorganization of the Palestinian Home." Dr. Khalil Shikaki also made
reference to this
in a presentation to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in October
2002.
2. Wafa Amr, "Hundreds Resign En-Masse from Arafat's Fatah Group," Reuters,
February 7, 2004.
3. Poll no. 120, Palestinian Center for Public Opinion (PCPO), prepared by Dr.
Nabil Kukali,
February 9, 2004.
4. Bassem Eid, "The Rule of the Thugs," Ha'aretz, January 28, 2004. These
comments were reiterated
in an interview with Palestinian dissident Omar Ibrahim Karsou, February 3,
2004.
5. Arnon Regular, "Palestinian Health Minister Survives Restaurant Shooting,"
Ha'aretz, February 18,
2004.
6. Arnon Regular, "Arafat Continues to Divide and Rule the Security Forces,"
Ha'aretz, November 13,
2003.
7. Regular, "Arafat Continues to Divide."
8. Ehud Yaari, "The Israeli-Palestinian Confrontation: Toward a Divorce,"
Jerusalem Issue Brief,
Vol. 2, Number 2, June 30, 2002. See also Professor Nathan Brown, "The
Palestinian Reform Agenda,"
Peaceworks, U.S. Institute for Peace Studies, Washington, D.C., December 2002,
p. 36;
http://www.usip.org/pubs/peaceworks/pwks48.html.
9. Mark Heinrich, "Anarchy in Nablus Evokes Disorder of Arafat's Rule," Reuters,
February 5, 2004.
10. Eid, "Rule of Thugs."
11. Heinrich, "Anarchy in Nablus."
12. Mohammed Daraghmeh, "Palestinian Security Nominee Refuses Oath," Associated
Press, October 7,
2003.
13. Khaled Abu Toameh, "Closing the Books on Arafat," Jerusalem Post, November
13, 2003.
14. Abu Toameh, "Closing the Books."
15. Nazir Majally, "Something Important is Happening in the PA," Ha'aretz,
February 6, 2004.
16. Majally, "Something Important."
17. Khaled Abu Toameh, "Arafat Meets the Fourth Estate," Jerusalem Post,
February 20, 2004.
18. Brown, "The Palestinian Reform Agenda," p. 39.
19. Dennis Ross, "Requirements for Reform in the Palestinian Authority,"
Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, October 2002.
20. Interview with Omar Ibrahim Karsou, November 29, 2003.
21. Interview with Omar Ibrahim Karsou, February 22, 2004.

* * *

Dan Diker is a Knesset and economic affairs reporter for Israel Broadcasting
Authority's English
News, and media affairs consultant at the Institute for Contemporary Affairs.
Khaled Abu Toameh
reports on Palestinian affairs for the Jerusalem Post.


This Jerusalem Issue Brief is available online at:
http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief3-20.htm

Dore Gold, Publisher; Lenny Ben-David, ICA Program Director; Mark Ami-El,
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