Monday, Jul 19, 2004
As Gaza slid into near anarchy at the weekend, one image above all seemed to encapsulate the territory's hapless state. It was the sight of masked, gun-toting, hostage-taking militants on rooftops joining ordinary Palestinians on the streets in calling for an end to the corruption and abuses that have plagued the Palestinian leadership for years.
The finger of blame was being pointed decisively at Yassir Arafat, the Palestinian president, who has been a virtual prisoner of the Israelis at his compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah for nearly three years.
The veteran leader's staying power has been questioned many times before. But the frustration with his leadership and the paralysis of his Palestinian Authority appeared to reach a critical point in Gaza this weekend.
His most immediate task is to retain his prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, who handed in his resignation on Saturday only for Mr Arafat to turn it down. Mr Qurei, who is in office but not really in power, described the situation in Gaza as "a real disaster, a real catastrophe".
Hani Masri, a political commentator and analyst in Ramallah, said: "The prime minister has had no role so far (since his appointment). His resignation is really a demand for a role" in running the government of the Gaza Strip.
The turmoil in Gaza also reflected the troubles within Mr Arafat's Fatah movement, struggling to compete with the radical Islamist Hamas movement, which has widespread support in Gaza. The breakdown of law and order in Gaza may be part of a power struggle within Fatah for control of the Gaza Strip if Israel carries through with its plans to withdraw from most Jewish settlements in the territory - in effect ceding control of much of the area to the Palestinians.
Israel and the US are believed to want Mohamed Dahlan, former Palestinian security chief, to take over after the withdrawal - a move that is strongly opposed by Mr Arafat.
Diplomats and analysts said, however, that the onus was on Mr Arafat finally to implement the reforms he has long promised but so far failed to deliver. These include an end to nepotism and corruption in the Palestinian Authority, integration of the many feuding security forces charged with implementing law and order in the Palestinian territories, and cracking down on suicide bombers and terrorist activities.
Mr Arafat took one step forward on these demands at the weekend when he cut the number of security services from 12 to three. But he then took one step back, by appointing his nephew, Musa Arafat, to be the new security chief. That was too much to stomach even for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the radical offshoot of Mr Arafat's Fatah movement, which said the appointment "will not pass".
The mounting protests against corruption, which included the kidnapping of the Gaza police chief on Friday, followed stinging criticism of the Palestinian Authority last week by Terje Roed-Larsen, the chief United Nations envoy on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Mr Roed-Larsen told the UN Security Council that the authority was on the verge of collapse and was presiding over the gradual descent into chaos of the Palestinian territories. Mr Roed-Larsen's comments infuriated some Palestinians' leaders.
The sense of crisis now enveloping the Strip, which is home to 1.3m Palestinians, may encourage opponents of the withdrawal inside Israel, even as Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, moves to bolster his shaky government by inviting the opposition Labour party for talks on forming a new coalition.
But it remains unclear what Mr Sharon's plans for the withdrawal would be if there were no proper government in place in Gaza to whom to hand power. "The Palestinian Authority is collapsing by default," Mr Masri said. "What is preventing its total demise is that the Israelis and the international community probably want it to continue." www.ft.com/arabisrael
By VINCENT BOLAND
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