 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
In the face of these difficulties Egypt and Saudi Arabia (who don't really want an Arab democracy), and interest groups who value stability above all else will try to shift the focus to merely maneuvering Arafat out and replacing him with some more palatable figure. But the Palestinian leaders best placed for such a coup — Mahmud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen), Ahmad Qurai (also known as Abu Alaa), Nabil Shaath, Jibril Rajoub, and Muhammad Dahlan — would be little more than old wine in new bottles. Palestinian politics are dominated by three entities with interlocking leaderships. Presently Arafat is the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), chairman of the PLO Executive Committee (PLOEC), and head of the Fatah Central Council. Abu Mazen, Abu Alaa, and Nabil Shaath are all members of the Fatah Central Council. Abu Mazen is the most senior of the three and he is also the secretary of the PLOEC, effectively number two in the PLO. Abu Alaa is the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and would serve as interim president of the PA if something happened to Arafat. Nabil Shaath is the PA's minister for planning and international cooperation (effectively the minister for foreign affairs.) All three figures helped draft the Oslo Accords and have international reputations as moderates. Rajoub and Dahlan are the heads of the Preventive Security Force in the West Bank and Gaza respectively. Both were imprisoned by Israel during the first intifada, and learned fluent Hebrew. Because of their role coordinating security affairs with Israel and CIA, Rajoub and Dahlan have frequently been cited as potential successors to Arafat who are pragmatists that could control the Islamist opposition. These five men have cooperated with each other, but they are not popular among the Palestinians and all of them are tarred with accusations of corruption. Abu Mazin has been criticized for his mansions in Gaza and Ramallah. In 1997 the PLC demanded Shaath's resignation for embezzlement. Rajoub and Dahlan profited from monopolies over the importation of oil. Rajoub and Dahlan's Security Forces also became notorious for torture, and several people have died in the custody of the Preventive Security Forces. They will also be no more able to make peace than Arafat. They supported Arafat's rejection of the Israeli offer at Camp David. Each of them has insisted that peace can only be achieved when Israel completely withdraws to the 1967 borders and permits a complete return of the Palestinian refugees into Israel. Both of these conditions are impossible for Israel to fulfill. The refugee issue would mean millions of Palestinians moving into Israel — effectively the end of Israel as a Jewish state. The 1967 borders are strategically untenable for Israel and would require Israel to give up any presence at Temple Mount, the holiest site of the Jewish people. In fact, despite their reputations for moderation, each of these figures adheres to a radical line. Abu Mazin wrote his Ph.D. at Moscow University on using a peace process to exacerbate social and ethnic tension within Israel. Nabil Shaath, Abu Mazin, and Abu Alaa have all questioned Jewish claims to Temple Mount and expressed doubts as to the existence of the ancient temple. However, Abu Alaa granted that Jews would be permitted to hold ceremonies there when the site was under Palestinian sovereignty. In 1999, while advocating international intervention on behalf of the Palestinians, Nabil Shaath mused that maybe one day the world would bomb Israel, the way it had bombed Yugoslavia in 1999 for its ethnic-cleansing campaign. Dahlan and Rajoub's security forces have both been linked to terrorism in the documents captured by the IDF during Operation Defensive Shield. (Statements in Arabic by Abu Mazin, Abu Alaa, Nabil Shaath, Jibril Rajoub, and Muhammad Dahlan were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.) Expending the political capital to remove Arafat, only to replace him with PLO holdovers, would be a pyrrhic victory and a betrayal of American values. Fostering a Palestinian democracy will be a major investment in American time and prestige. But it will have enormous dividends, striking a blow for freedom that will be felt throughout the Middle East. — Aaron Mannes is a Washington-based writer and Middle East specialist. |
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
<% dim printurl
printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%>
n Monday President
Bush courageously called for a real Palestinian democracy. But to achieve
this goal, the present governing structures, including the well-armed
security services staffed by terrorists, will need to be removed. This
endeavor will entail risk and require resolve.
