MIDDLE EAST: Palestine Unreformed

Analysis

The Palestinian National Authority's (PNA) second 'new' cabinet in as many months was approved at a meeting of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in Ramallah on October 29. The reshuffles are the result of US, EU, Arab and Israeli insistence that Palestinian reform is now a precondition for any return to negotiations with Israel (see MIDDLE EAST: Palestinian reform is stillborn - June 20, 2002 ).

Roadmap. This sequence has been enshrined in the US-drafted 'roadmap' which charts a course to a 'provisional' Palestinian state being established in 2003 and a fully-fledged peace agreement by 2005 (see MIDDLE EAST: Gaza attack compounds 'quartet’s' task - July 23, 2002 ). As a first stage, the roadmap requires the PNA to appoint a new cabinet, "consolidate" the PNA's security forces into "three services reporting to an empowered interior minister" and effect "an immediate end to the armed intifada and all acts of violence against Israelis everywhere". The PNA has given preliminary approval to the plan, subject to reservations, while Israel has raised objections. A final, amended roadmap is supposed to be finalised by December 20, but this is now unlikely.

Palestinians have greeted their new cabinet with indifference and Israel views it with scorn. The United States pronounced itself "underwhelmed" by the new executive and has since said there has been little or no progress toward Palestinian reform, especially in the political and security spheres (it is less dismissive of the changes introduced by the new PNA Finance Minister Salam Fayyad). The rapid replacement of Interior Minister Abd al-Razzak al-Yahya (who tried but failed to appoint his own choices to key posts) by Fatah veteran Hani al-Hassan played particularly badly with Washington.

Arafat manoeuvres. Five months after US President George Bush called on Palestinians to elect a "new and different leadership" (see US/MIDDLE EAST: Bush plan disappoints Arab allies - June 26, 2002 ), PNA President Yasser Arafat has shown himself adept at turning a reform process aimed at diminishing his powers into a 'referendum' strengthening his leadership, at least within his dominant Fatah movement. His initial response to Bush's decree was to sideline potential domestic challengers to his throne, particularly the PNA's West Bank and Gaza security chiefs, Jibril Rajoub and Mohammed Dahlan, long touted by the United States and Israel as future Palestinian leaders.

In July, Arafat sacked Rajoub as head of the West Bank Preventive Security Service, replacing him with the more pliant Zuhair Manasra. He also stifled Dahlan's ambitions to be the "empowered interior minister" by making it a condition of the appointment that the incumbent was denied the right to select senior security officials, which stayed with Arafat. While swearing fealty to Arafat's leadership, Dahlan resigned as head of the Gaza Preventive Security Service and has since given up his post as Arafat's national security adviser. Like Rajoub, he is now waiting for new PNA elections to win a seat in the next PLC.

Arafat has also faced down a challenge from veteran leaders in his Fatah movement, mobilised around the demand that he reduce his executive powers by appointing a new Palestinian prime minister. Their preferred candidate was PLO General Secretary Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). The call was buried after Israel's assault on Arafat's Ramallah headquarters in September, during which thousands of Palestinians briefly rallied to his defence. Arafat used this temporary rise in his popularity to convene a meeting of the Fatah leadership. It unanimously decided there would no new prime ministerial position "until after the establishment of a Palestinian state".

He used a similar tactic against the young Fatah leadership affiliated with the imprisoned Marwan Barghouti (see MIDDLE EAST: Palestinian radicals to succeed Barghouti - April 26, 2002 ), whose parliamentary revolt in September had forced the resignation of the PNA's first 'new' cabinet on September 11. Waving the first draft of the roadmap's demands for an "empowered prime minister" and parliamentary -- but not presidential -- elections by May 2003, he portrayed the attempt to create a premier -- but deny Arafat himself the chance to prove his legitimacy in a presidential election -- as a US/Israeli ruse to remove him.

He succeeded in framing the October 29 PLC vote on his cabinet as a confidence vote in his leadership. The appeal to loyalty worked: the new cabinet was approved by 56 to 18 with many of the young Fatah deputies voting in favour, at enormous cost to their political credibility and future claims to leadership. They came under huge pressure from Fatah (and its Al-Aqsa Brigades militia), including in some cases attacks on their property in advance of the vote.

Hamas. Arafat has been less successful in brokering a Palestinian ceasefire, another key roadmap demand. Last month, he dispatched Fatah leaders to Cairo to discuss a new relationship between the PNA and Hamas, after recent confrontations between the two movements in Gaza. Arafat's main aim was to win Hamas backing for a moratorium on attacks on civilians inside Israel, at least for the duration of Israel's election campaign. In Cairo, Hamas stuck to its position that there would be no ceasefire unless Israel withdrew from the recently reoccupied West Bank Palestinian cities and ended its assassinations of Palestinian militants. To Arafat's chagrin, it further used the meeting to burnish its political legitimacy by presenting itself as an authentic Palestinian representative not only with the PNA, but also with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the EU, all of which had been instrumental in arranging the meeting. The suicide bombing on November 21, which killed eleven Israelis and wounded 40 in a bus in West Jerusalem -- Hamas' latest act of revenge for Israel's assassination in July of its military leader in Gaza, Salah Shehada -- has set back these attempts further.

Dented credibility. Both the strong-arm tactics over the cabinet reshuffle and the bombing have further eroded Arafat's status both internally and externally, with the latter demonstrating that Hamas simply ignores him. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and, to a lesser extent, the United States have essentially ruled out negotiations with a Palestinian leadership headed by Arafat. However, Washington also wants to keep the Israeli-Palestinian front relatively quiet during any action against Iraq. It has thus made it clear to Sharon that it will not countenance proposed moves to expel Arafat. At present, it suits Sharon to keep Arafat enfeebled but still in charge of the remains of the PNA, since it removes most of the pressure to make progress on the roadmap while keeping US relations smooth.

Arafat's main hope is a revival of the Israeli 'peace camp' bolstered by the election on November 19 of Amram Mitzna as Labour Party leader. Mitzna has declared Arafat a "terrorist" but has also said he will negotiate with any leadership chosen by the Palestinians, including Arafat (see ISRAEL: Mitzna heads for defeat - November 25, 2002 ). The polls, however, suggest Mitzna's chances of being Israel's next prime minister are remote.

Outlook. The roadmap is thus unlikely to make progress as long as the PNA has an 'unreformed' Arafat at its helm and suicide bombings continue. Washington has in effect given up on PNA reform following Arafat's manoeuvres to exploit it. The immediate outlook is for stalemate, with a weakened Arafat facing no immediate internal or external challenge and likely to win any presidential election. New dates for PNA presidential and parliamentary elections are due to be revealed in the revised version of the roadmap due to be unveiled on December 20, but they are most unlikely to be held in January as originally planned, in view of the continuing Israeli occupation of most West Bank cities.