The Palestinian Authority
When two Palestinian suicide
bombers killed 15 Jews in a Jerusalem market last week, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the president of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser
Arafat. Netanyahu condemned Arafat as irresponsibly soft on terrorism, withheld
millions of dollars Israel owed to Arafat's government, and ordered the
blockading of the Israeli-Palestinian border. The Israeli sanctions came the
same week that 16 of Arafat's ministers tendered their resignations. What is
the PA? Why does everybody agree that it is in crisis? What is the future of
the peace talks that established the PA?
The PA
was born out of the 1993 Oslo Declaration of Principles . Israel promised
the Palestine Liberation Organization--the self-styled Palestinian
government-in-exile--that it would withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
territories captured from Jordan and Egypt respectively in the 1967 Six Day
War. The Oslo accord also established a timetable for negotiations that would
lead to Israel's departure from the territories. First on that timetable was a
plan for Israel to leave Gaza City and Jericho (the cities with the largest
Palestinian populations), then other major population centers, then the
remainder of the two territories. Under the plan, an interim government
organized by the PLO was established to assume control of internal security and
civil administration--education, garbage collection, etc. The Oslo accord
predicated progress on the PLO holding democratic elections . May 1999 is
the deadline for an agreement over Jerusalem, a city that both parties claim as
their capital and which neither wants to share. May 1999 is also the deadline
for negotiations over full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and West
Bank, as well as for what is ambiguously called the "final status" of security
and border arrangements.
The first two stages of the withdrawal were completed
before negotiations stalled in March after Israel broke ground for a
housing project in Arab East Jerusalem. The PA controls the security and civil
government of nine cities, in which about 90 percent of the 2.4 million Arabs
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip live. The PA has no jurisdiction over the more
than 150,000 Jewish settlers living throughout the two territories. Their
future will probably be decided by the "final status" negotiations.
Yasser
Arafat's cult of personality guaranteed that nobody would challenge his
initial un-elected rule of the PA. Following the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, a
coalition of disparate guerrilla groups, labor unions, and political parties
gradually coalesced into a single opposition organization, the PLO. A trained
engineer and longtime guerrilla, Arafat came to fame when he led a band of
Palestinians to victory over the Israeli army in a minor battle at al-Karamah
in 1968. He rose to the helm of the organization later that year. In 1974, the
PLO renounced its support of terrorism, causing the Arab League, a council of
the governments of 20 Arabic-speaking countries, to deem it the official
representative of the Palestinians.
In his self-imposed exile in Tunisia, Arafat
was joined by thousands of Palestinians. When he returned to Gaza and the West
Bank in 1994, these "Tunisians" received the most important appointments
within the new bureaucracy. Wealthy enough to have had the means to flee Israel
in 1967, they began building villas and buying fancy cars upon their return,
provoking resentment among the thousands of Palestinians who have lived for
decades in U.N.-run refugee camps.
Recent
studies corroborate widespread suspicions of PA corruption . In March,
the PA's comptroller concluded that millions of PA dollars had been siphoned
off for private use by officials. Several ministers have been blamed for
egregious abuses, leading the Palestinian Parliament to call for the
resignation of the entire Cabinet. Last week all but two ministers agreed to
step down, though many say it is unlikely they will ever actually do so.
Arafat, notorious for his scruffiness, has a reputation for eschewing wealth,
and he has not been accused of personal wrongdoing. However, his undemocratic
attitude and predilection for political patronage are seen by many Palestinians
as the ultimate root of the malfeasance.
Oslo makes Arafat dependent on Israel.
He has much to gain from the peace process: more power and land for his
government, for one. Also, under the accords, Israel annually gives the PA
nearly $500 million in taxes collected from Palestinians who work and buy goods
in Israel. This is the money that Israel withheld last week, and it accounts
for more than two-thirds of the PA's budget. The balance of the budget comes in
the form of donations from foreign governments. Netanyahu's government also is
supporting several major public-works projects in PA territory, including the
construction of an airport and seaport in Gaza. These projects are crucial to
an independent Palestinian economy. Currently, more than 37,000 Palestinians
commute daily to jobs in Israel.
The
Israelis intend to withhold funds in the hopes that the PA will crack down on
the Islamic militant terrorists. Specifically, the Israelis want Arafat to
shut down Hamas , Arafat's most powerful domestic opponent, which is
purportedly responsible for the suicide bombing. Hamas has a strong
organization. It controls mosques, schools, and a political party, all of which
predate the organization of its terrorist arm in the late '80s. Most
Palestinians reject Islamic fundamentalism. According to polls, only about 25
percent of Palestinians "support" Hamas, but they and Arafat alike avoid
criticizing the group's political leaders, as doing so would be considered
kowtowing to the Jews.
Conditions are ripe for discontent. The
Palestinian economy has deteriorated during the PA's reign. Unemployment in
the West Bank and Gaza is at 30 percent, up from 19 percent when Arafat took
over. Palestinian per capita income has fallen to $1,400 per year, one-tenth of
Israel's. These economic casualties are Arafat's most vocal critics. They
support the argument that the peace process is a failed experiment that should
be scrapped.
Yet
Arafat remains popular --he won 88 percent of the vote in last year's
presidential elections, and recent polls estimate his public-approval ratings
at about 65 percent. He quashes opponents with brutal force, arresting Islamic
militants and left-wing secularists who oppose him and shuttering newspapers
and television stations when they criticize him. Human-rights organizations
roundly criticize the PA, citing the 14 prisoners who have been tortured to
death in the last three years while in police custody.
The Palestinian Authority's massive security
apparatus --more than 80,000 strong--appears to be somewhat out of Arafat's
control. PA security has resisted Israeli demands that it take action against
Hamas and refused, on occasion, to cooperate with the Israeli Defense Forces.
When Israel began constructing apartment buildings in Arab East Jerusalem last
March, PA security stopped relaying intelligence about the operations of Hamas'
terrorist wing. This breakdown of PA-Israeli cooperation is the basis for the
Israeli complaint that Arafat is culpable for last week's Jerusalem bombing.
Last week Israel also ordered the PA to arrest one of its high-ranking police
officers for planning an attack on a Jewish settlement.
Last year, Arafat cracked
down on Hamas after a string of bombings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, arresting
more than 1,200 suspected terrorists, destroying Hamas safe houses, and
confiscating its weapons caches. Arafat is reluctant to reprise that police
action, observers say, because he believes that the threat of terrorism
is the only way to force Netanyahu to restart the peace talks. Meanwhile,
Israeli closure of the PA's borders further punishes the Palestinian economy.
And Israel has threatened to send troops into PA-controlled cities and crack
down on Hamas itself. Arafat's aides say this would be akin to an act of
war.
