Between deceit and confusion
Hichem Karoui | 17.07.2002 12:15
In a few days, the media echoed the dramatic change of atmosphere in the Palestinian political spectrum. Never before the speech of Mr. Bush (June 24) did we see such an upheaval in the attitudes and the positions of some people who were, so far, considered close to the PA, if not to Arafat himself. And though there have always been some internal dissensions, it has seldom taken the abrupt aspect it is taking today.
Between deceit and confusion
By Hichem Karoui, Special to Arab News
PARIS, 15 July — In a few days, the media echoed the dramatic change of atmosphere in the Palestinian political spectrum. Never before the speech of President Bush (June 24) did we see such an upheaval in the attitudes and the positions of some people who were, so far, considered close to the PA, if not to Arafat himself. And though there have always been some internal dissensions, it has seldom taken the abrupt aspect it is taking today. True, some of these outbursts of anger were purported to be reacting to Arafat’s own steps regarding the reshuffle he has undertaken rather than rallying Bush’s call for a change in the leadership. Yet, it is more and more difficult to make the delicate distinction between what is being said as a reaction against Arafat’s acts and what is being said as a reaction against Arafat as a person. For today, there is a problem that has never been so sharp before: It concerns the relevancy or the irrelevancy of Arafat, not much as a leader than as the official representative of the Palestinian people. The fact that the problem has been shaped by Sharon himself did not hinder some Palestinians from acknowledging it, though for quite different reasons indeed.
Yet if we seek the truth, Sharon was far from being the first man who wanted Arafat out of the game. In the Palestinian camp itself, many people have preceded the Israeli prime minister.
If we put aside the critics of some prominent intellectuals like Edward Said, who was perhaps one of the first to call for a change in the Palestinian leadership, for well argued reasons, there is also more a diffuse pressure emanating from the Palestinian Diaspora, in Europe, America, and also in the Arab world. It seems that all those trends coming over from different places, and sometimes for quite contradictory goals, converged and reached a peak with Bush’s June 24 speech.
About twenty years ago, Arafat was neither accepted as an official or unofficial negotiator nor even as the unique leader of the Palestinian people in Washington and Tel Aviv. He was then merely snubbed and considered as a mean terrorist. But he had had a great hope: One day, he was sure, Washington and Tel Aviv were going to deal straightforward with him. And it happened. However, if we exclude King Hussein and Yitzhak Rabin, both dead, many of those who made possible the “meeting” between American and Israeli officials and Yasser Arafat, are still alive and can testify. Some of them see helplessly the awful waste of time and energy the Oslo process finally begot. All those sacrifices, all those efforts consented, just to reach the unbelievable quagmire that is prevailing! What nemesis is this? And why does it sound so fateful and unavoidable?
A first statement about Arafat’s current status in connection with other parties is necessary: The problem is not that he is an old man (there are much older than him still in power). The problem is not even about his autocracy. The problem is that in the remaining years of Bush’s mandate — which can be prorogated if he wins the next elections — Arafat would not be admitted as the respected leader of the Palestinian people, even if he were also to win the next elections. As it is clear at least from the experience with Iraq, the US government, once convinced that Arafat is no longer the required man at that post, will not deal with him even if the peace process would be indefinitely delayed. The ongoing negotiations between Israelis, Americans, Palestinians, and Arab leaders concerned with the Middle East issues, suggest that the next stage is already in gestation.
Some people are now wondering: Is it the end of Arafat’s era?
They are not necessarily enemies or rivals of the old leader.
Let’s take for example Abbas Zaki who served as Arafat’s loyal lieutenant in the Palestinian Legislative Council. But in recent months, as Israeli tanks reoccupied West Bank cities, Zaki lost confidence in his erstwhile comrade in arms. “Wherever Arafat goes, lawlessness, corruption and instability follow,” says Zaki, 60, in his Hebron apartment to Newsweek’s reporter, as Israeli machine guns pummel a nearby government compound. “There should be honor in the battlefield. When you lose, you quit.” (1)
Zaki, adds the same magazine, doesn’t think that Arafat is going anywhere. “The reaction on the street is, ‘Let’s support Arafat with all his ugliness and all his corruption, because the United States doesn’t want him’,” he says. (2)
Hussam Khader, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and an influential leader of Fatah in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, says that Arafat blew his credibility long ago. “I don’t think that Arafat cares about anything other than being in power,” he says. “When Arafat disappears, they will write about him as they wrote about Mao —they will write about his criminality and his catastrophes.” (3)
If these are the declarations of persons who were close to the man, then how about his rivals and adversaries? It is pointless to underline here once again the important divergences between Arafat and other leaders either inside the PLO or in Hamas, because such rivalry has always existed and sometimes undermined any possible entente between the different factions. Yet, it is amazing how fast people change their attitudes!
As to the Israelis, things seem clearer: Arafat’s prestige has been so damaged that there is no need for action on Israel’s part to expel him, writes Ha’aretz. A senior military source told the same paper that “chances are increasing that within six months, Arafat’s standing will have declined so much that he won’t be able to prevent a new, pragmatic leadership from emerging, which will lead the Palestinians to a compromise with Israel.” (4)
Moreover, the internal confusion following Arafat’s last decisions is not helping him make a resounding and credible reshuffle. Some of his acts may even seem as vain as utterly awkward. For if they can add nothing to an already much complicated situation but more ambiguity, Arafat should have spared his friends time and energy. Are these decisions well weighed or taken in the hasty manner that distinguishes all the political impasses?
The example of Tawfiq Tirawi is not the last:
Arafat reportedly fired Tawfiq Tirawi, head of the West Bank intelligence service, on July 7. Israel has accused Tirawi of organizing terrorist attacks.
The same reports say Arafat appointed Brig.-Gen. Sameh Abdel Majid, one of Tirawi’s deputies, to replace him. But Senior Fatah leader Abbas Zaki denied that Tirawi has been dismissed. Speaking in Hebron, Zaki said the reports were, “absolutely untrue.”
Arafat reportedly issued the order after meeting with Egyptian intelligence chief Gen. Omar Suleiman at his Ramallah office on July 7. (5)
Concerning Jibril Rajoub however, the Israelis are not sure about the real beneficiary from his dismissal. There are at least two versions about this question. Curiously enough, Ha’aretz has published both. The first says:
“According to a source close to the Cairo government, the Egyptians were not pleased by Jibril Rajoub’s purge from the head of the Preventive Security Service, regarding Rajoub as a stabilizing factor. Egypt reached agreement with Israel and the US that Cairo would get deeply involved in reorganization of the Palestinian security services, and Suleiman’s visit — one of several he has made in the last few months — was a sign of that growing involvement.”(6)
In another story the same newspaper says that the Egyptians came to Arafat with a security plan as an alternative. He approved the principles of the Egyptian plan, but backed out when it came to its implementation. The appointment of Abdel Razek Yahyeh as PA interior minister was the first significant step in the reforms and it appeared to Egypt that Arafat meant to leave the security forces intact, without changing their structure. Angry messages went from Egypt to Ramallah.
The result of the pressure was the firing of Jibril Rajoub and his replacement as head of Preventive Security in the West Bank by Zuhair Mansara and putting the force itself under the command of the interior minister. Arafat took the step two days before a scheduled visit by Suleiman and it was meant, among other things, to calm the Egyptians. (7)
So, was it to calm the Egyptians or to anger them that Arafat removed Rajoub? The question is still without answer.
But if we want to push the investigation a bit further, we would find even a third Israeli version. It says:
“Jibril Rajoub’s dismissal as chief of the West Bank preventive security apparatus has been forced down Arafat’s throat”. (8)
By whom and for what purpose? — Still, the same puzzle!
In this amazing context, we see the Israelis trying to find out how much of Arafat’s allies would still remain loyal, which is doubtless the most important question for them. Thus, it is said for instance that “two other would-be challengers to Arafat’s authority, Mohamed Dahlan, Jibril’s opposite number in the Gaza Strip, and Mohamed Rashid, his personal financial adviser, have removed themselves and their families to London under the protection of British security”! (9) Which is certainly not the kind of reassuring news for Arafat, if it reveals to be true. Why Dahlan and Rashid chose these hard times for everybody to have a refuge in England? Of course, the PA is entitled to react and give its own version? At least to make people know where is the truth.
Similar rumors are being widespread about Mahmud Abbas: Abu Mazen, Arafat’s veteran deputy and official successor, has gone to ground in one of the Arab-Persian Gulf emirates, it is said. Hundreds of affluent Palestinians have taken advantage of the summer vacation to shut their villas and make tracks for European and American resorts after liquidating their assets in Israeli and Jordanian banks (10).
One can hardly distinguish between the news and the rumors in the present situation. But it is obvious that the lack of clarity would only play to the advantage of Arafat’s adversaries in both camps.
Adding oil to fire Israeli daily Ma’ariv has released a detailed report delineating the involvement of senior members of the PA in acts of corruption and squandering of public funds.
The information was reportedly obtained from PA documents seized during the Israeli army’s incursion into the West Bank in April. While Palestinian officials label the report “Israeli propaganda”, the documents reportedly tell of a $1.5 million villa in Jericho constructed by Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmad Qurei’ (Abu-Ala), using public funds, as well as a $100,000 grant awarded to the Deputy to Information Minister Yasir Abd-Rabbuh for the construction of his private residence.
The report adds that former minister Nabil Amro’s son received a $50,000 wedding gift from the PA. Another generous grant, which followed no formal procedures of approval, was a double living stipend arranged for Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Sha’th’s son, during his studies in France.
A deputy of Abu-Ala is quoted by Ma’ariv as accusing: “Key officials in the PA suffer from a lack of credibility and talent... There is an unnecessary multiplicity of ministries, appointments of relatives, waste, monopolies, bribery, thefts of equipment and money and hidden unemployment.” (11)
If even half of these alleged misdeeds is true, that is not only to make the PA quite corrupt, but also to cast a dark shade on Yasser Arafat’s possible successors from the current team, which is not much to the advantage of the next Israeli government, if it is to seek appeasement and peace after the Sharon’s mess.
***
(1) Newsweek: Mr. Nowhere man. Joshua Hammer.
http://www.msnbc.com (07/08/02 )
(2) Idem.
(3) Idem.
(4) Ha’aretz — Arafat will be displaced...(07/08/02)
(5) Jerusalem Post: Palestinian Authority in disarray. (07/08/02)
(6) Ha’aretz — Op.Cit. (07/08/02)
(7)”Ha’aretz — Suleiman is Cairo’s Tenet. (07/08/02)
(8)”DEBKAfile (07/09/02)
(9)”DEBKAfile (07/09/02)
(10)”DEBKAfile (07/09/02)
(11) Mena report.com: Israeli report: Senior PA officials squandering public money. (07/10/02)
***
(Hichem Karoui is a Tunisian journalist professionally concerned with the Arab-Islamic world, Israel, and the West. He is based in Paris. For more information: http://hichemkaroui.com/)
Email this article Print this article
Features
• Neil MacFarquhar’s hatchet job on life in Saudi Arabia
• Barak: Israel a villa in the jungle
• Bush and corporate responsibility
• Baghdad epistle from the Quaker delegation to Iraq
• Israel is world's last apartheid state
• Between deceit and confusion
• A look at the powerful Jewish lobby in America
• Letter to President Bush from 40 Evangelical Christian Leaders
• My meeting with Congress people
By Hichem Karoui, Special to Arab News
PARIS, 15 July — In a few days, the media echoed the dramatic change of atmosphere in the Palestinian political spectrum. Never before the speech of President Bush (June 24) did we see such an upheaval in the attitudes and the positions of some people who were, so far, considered close to the PA, if not to Arafat himself. And though there have always been some internal dissensions, it has seldom taken the abrupt aspect it is taking today. True, some of these outbursts of anger were purported to be reacting to Arafat’s own steps regarding the reshuffle he has undertaken rather than rallying Bush’s call for a change in the leadership. Yet, it is more and more difficult to make the delicate distinction between what is being said as a reaction against Arafat’s acts and what is being said as a reaction against Arafat as a person. For today, there is a problem that has never been so sharp before: It concerns the relevancy or the irrelevancy of Arafat, not much as a leader than as the official representative of the Palestinian people. The fact that the problem has been shaped by Sharon himself did not hinder some Palestinians from acknowledging it, though for quite different reasons indeed.
Yet if we seek the truth, Sharon was far from being the first man who wanted Arafat out of the game. In the Palestinian camp itself, many people have preceded the Israeli prime minister.
If we put aside the critics of some prominent intellectuals like Edward Said, who was perhaps one of the first to call for a change in the Palestinian leadership, for well argued reasons, there is also more a diffuse pressure emanating from the Palestinian Diaspora, in Europe, America, and also in the Arab world. It seems that all those trends coming over from different places, and sometimes for quite contradictory goals, converged and reached a peak with Bush’s June 24 speech.
About twenty years ago, Arafat was neither accepted as an official or unofficial negotiator nor even as the unique leader of the Palestinian people in Washington and Tel Aviv. He was then merely snubbed and considered as a mean terrorist. But he had had a great hope: One day, he was sure, Washington and Tel Aviv were going to deal straightforward with him. And it happened. However, if we exclude King Hussein and Yitzhak Rabin, both dead, many of those who made possible the “meeting” between American and Israeli officials and Yasser Arafat, are still alive and can testify. Some of them see helplessly the awful waste of time and energy the Oslo process finally begot. All those sacrifices, all those efforts consented, just to reach the unbelievable quagmire that is prevailing! What nemesis is this? And why does it sound so fateful and unavoidable?
A first statement about Arafat’s current status in connection with other parties is necessary: The problem is not that he is an old man (there are much older than him still in power). The problem is not even about his autocracy. The problem is that in the remaining years of Bush’s mandate — which can be prorogated if he wins the next elections — Arafat would not be admitted as the respected leader of the Palestinian people, even if he were also to win the next elections. As it is clear at least from the experience with Iraq, the US government, once convinced that Arafat is no longer the required man at that post, will not deal with him even if the peace process would be indefinitely delayed. The ongoing negotiations between Israelis, Americans, Palestinians, and Arab leaders concerned with the Middle East issues, suggest that the next stage is already in gestation.
Some people are now wondering: Is it the end of Arafat’s era?
They are not necessarily enemies or rivals of the old leader.
Let’s take for example Abbas Zaki who served as Arafat’s loyal lieutenant in the Palestinian Legislative Council. But in recent months, as Israeli tanks reoccupied West Bank cities, Zaki lost confidence in his erstwhile comrade in arms. “Wherever Arafat goes, lawlessness, corruption and instability follow,” says Zaki, 60, in his Hebron apartment to Newsweek’s reporter, as Israeli machine guns pummel a nearby government compound. “There should be honor in the battlefield. When you lose, you quit.” (1)
Zaki, adds the same magazine, doesn’t think that Arafat is going anywhere. “The reaction on the street is, ‘Let’s support Arafat with all his ugliness and all his corruption, because the United States doesn’t want him’,” he says. (2)
Hussam Khader, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and an influential leader of Fatah in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, says that Arafat blew his credibility long ago. “I don’t think that Arafat cares about anything other than being in power,” he says. “When Arafat disappears, they will write about him as they wrote about Mao —they will write about his criminality and his catastrophes.” (3)
If these are the declarations of persons who were close to the man, then how about his rivals and adversaries? It is pointless to underline here once again the important divergences between Arafat and other leaders either inside the PLO or in Hamas, because such rivalry has always existed and sometimes undermined any possible entente between the different factions. Yet, it is amazing how fast people change their attitudes!
As to the Israelis, things seem clearer: Arafat’s prestige has been so damaged that there is no need for action on Israel’s part to expel him, writes Ha’aretz. A senior military source told the same paper that “chances are increasing that within six months, Arafat’s standing will have declined so much that he won’t be able to prevent a new, pragmatic leadership from emerging, which will lead the Palestinians to a compromise with Israel.” (4)
Moreover, the internal confusion following Arafat’s last decisions is not helping him make a resounding and credible reshuffle. Some of his acts may even seem as vain as utterly awkward. For if they can add nothing to an already much complicated situation but more ambiguity, Arafat should have spared his friends time and energy. Are these decisions well weighed or taken in the hasty manner that distinguishes all the political impasses?
The example of Tawfiq Tirawi is not the last:
Arafat reportedly fired Tawfiq Tirawi, head of the West Bank intelligence service, on July 7. Israel has accused Tirawi of organizing terrorist attacks.
The same reports say Arafat appointed Brig.-Gen. Sameh Abdel Majid, one of Tirawi’s deputies, to replace him. But Senior Fatah leader Abbas Zaki denied that Tirawi has been dismissed. Speaking in Hebron, Zaki said the reports were, “absolutely untrue.”
Arafat reportedly issued the order after meeting with Egyptian intelligence chief Gen. Omar Suleiman at his Ramallah office on July 7. (5)
Concerning Jibril Rajoub however, the Israelis are not sure about the real beneficiary from his dismissal. There are at least two versions about this question. Curiously enough, Ha’aretz has published both. The first says:
“According to a source close to the Cairo government, the Egyptians were not pleased by Jibril Rajoub’s purge from the head of the Preventive Security Service, regarding Rajoub as a stabilizing factor. Egypt reached agreement with Israel and the US that Cairo would get deeply involved in reorganization of the Palestinian security services, and Suleiman’s visit — one of several he has made in the last few months — was a sign of that growing involvement.”(6)
In another story the same newspaper says that the Egyptians came to Arafat with a security plan as an alternative. He approved the principles of the Egyptian plan, but backed out when it came to its implementation. The appointment of Abdel Razek Yahyeh as PA interior minister was the first significant step in the reforms and it appeared to Egypt that Arafat meant to leave the security forces intact, without changing their structure. Angry messages went from Egypt to Ramallah.
The result of the pressure was the firing of Jibril Rajoub and his replacement as head of Preventive Security in the West Bank by Zuhair Mansara and putting the force itself under the command of the interior minister. Arafat took the step two days before a scheduled visit by Suleiman and it was meant, among other things, to calm the Egyptians. (7)
So, was it to calm the Egyptians or to anger them that Arafat removed Rajoub? The question is still without answer.
But if we want to push the investigation a bit further, we would find even a third Israeli version. It says:
“Jibril Rajoub’s dismissal as chief of the West Bank preventive security apparatus has been forced down Arafat’s throat”. (8)
By whom and for what purpose? — Still, the same puzzle!
In this amazing context, we see the Israelis trying to find out how much of Arafat’s allies would still remain loyal, which is doubtless the most important question for them. Thus, it is said for instance that “two other would-be challengers to Arafat’s authority, Mohamed Dahlan, Jibril’s opposite number in the Gaza Strip, and Mohamed Rashid, his personal financial adviser, have removed themselves and their families to London under the protection of British security”! (9) Which is certainly not the kind of reassuring news for Arafat, if it reveals to be true. Why Dahlan and Rashid chose these hard times for everybody to have a refuge in England? Of course, the PA is entitled to react and give its own version? At least to make people know where is the truth.
Similar rumors are being widespread about Mahmud Abbas: Abu Mazen, Arafat’s veteran deputy and official successor, has gone to ground in one of the Arab-Persian Gulf emirates, it is said. Hundreds of affluent Palestinians have taken advantage of the summer vacation to shut their villas and make tracks for European and American resorts after liquidating their assets in Israeli and Jordanian banks (10).
One can hardly distinguish between the news and the rumors in the present situation. But it is obvious that the lack of clarity would only play to the advantage of Arafat’s adversaries in both camps.
Adding oil to fire Israeli daily Ma’ariv has released a detailed report delineating the involvement of senior members of the PA in acts of corruption and squandering of public funds.
The information was reportedly obtained from PA documents seized during the Israeli army’s incursion into the West Bank in April. While Palestinian officials label the report “Israeli propaganda”, the documents reportedly tell of a $1.5 million villa in Jericho constructed by Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmad Qurei’ (Abu-Ala), using public funds, as well as a $100,000 grant awarded to the Deputy to Information Minister Yasir Abd-Rabbuh for the construction of his private residence.
The report adds that former minister Nabil Amro’s son received a $50,000 wedding gift from the PA. Another generous grant, which followed no formal procedures of approval, was a double living stipend arranged for Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Sha’th’s son, during his studies in France.
A deputy of Abu-Ala is quoted by Ma’ariv as accusing: “Key officials in the PA suffer from a lack of credibility and talent... There is an unnecessary multiplicity of ministries, appointments of relatives, waste, monopolies, bribery, thefts of equipment and money and hidden unemployment.” (11)
If even half of these alleged misdeeds is true, that is not only to make the PA quite corrupt, but also to cast a dark shade on Yasser Arafat’s possible successors from the current team, which is not much to the advantage of the next Israeli government, if it is to seek appeasement and peace after the Sharon’s mess.
***
(1) Newsweek: Mr. Nowhere man. Joshua Hammer.
http://www.msnbc.com (07/08/02 ) (2) Idem.
(3) Idem.
(4) Ha’aretz — Arafat will be displaced...(07/08/02)
(5) Jerusalem Post: Palestinian Authority in disarray. (07/08/02)
(6) Ha’aretz — Op.Cit. (07/08/02)
(7)”Ha’aretz — Suleiman is Cairo’s Tenet. (07/08/02)
(8)”DEBKAfile (07/09/02)
(9)”DEBKAfile (07/09/02)
(10)”DEBKAfile (07/09/02)
(11) Mena report.com: Israeli report: Senior PA officials squandering public money. (07/10/02)
***
(Hichem Karoui is a Tunisian journalist professionally concerned with the Arab-Islamic world, Israel, and the West. He is based in Paris. For more information:
http://hichemkaroui.com/) Email this article Print this article
Features
• Neil MacFarquhar’s hatchet job on life in Saudi Arabia
• Barak: Israel a villa in the jungle
• Bush and corporate responsibility
• Baghdad epistle from the Quaker delegation to Iraq
• Israel is world's last apartheid state
• Between deceit and confusion
• A look at the powerful Jewish lobby in America
• Letter to President Bush from 40 Evangelical Christian Leaders
• My meeting with Congress people
Hichem Karoui
Homepage:
http://hichemkaroui.com