Paralysis
Of The Palestinian 'Authority': What's To Be Done?
By Rima Merriman
03 October 2006
The
Electronic Intifada
The paralysis of the present
Palestinian Authority has simply highlighted to the world and to the
Palestinians themselves, who are persistently in denial about this,
the real Wizard-of-Oz nature of their Authority and public institutions.
For over a decade now, since
the Oslo Agreement signed by the Palestinian Liberation Organization
in 1993, the Palestinians, along with much of the world, have been laboring
under a couple of misapprehensions. One is that, with Oslo, Israel had
at long last recognized their aspirations, even if only partially. The
other is that their leaders, as embodied by the presidency and the government
that arose, had the wherewithal to move them towards a full-fledged
Palestinian state on the 1967 borders in the face of Israel's grand
plans and intentions in the region. It's the classic syndrome of desperate
people believing what they want to believe.
The Palestinians and the
international community then proceeded to be hoodwinked by the trappings
they erected -- some of which, like the government buildings in Ramallah,
looked solid and well-furnished enough thanks to foreign aid. But a
few days ago, the government seat, a gleaming white stone building,
was burnt down and looted by the Palestinians themselves, who have been
reduced to worrying not about a state, but about feeding their children.
The media is interpreting
this act of vandalism as the result of the divisiveness between Hamas
and Fateh, but in reality, it is the inevitable result of the political
and economic architecture that Israel had the upper hand in constructing
with the Palestinians since Oslo and that the US has been consolidating
and tightening, as in a noose, rather than honestly brokering peace.
The powers of the Wizard
of Oz, in the well-known American novel by that name, are revealed at
the end to be special effects. In spite of the Wizard's connection with
the Good Witch of the North, he turns out to be a wizened old man with
neither the power nor skill to provide anyone with brains, courage or
heart - let alone a munchkin state.
The current paralysis of
the Palestinian Authority highlights its true nature by showing up its
special effects for what they are, a brave attempt at wishful thinking.
I am referring to things like public institutions, passports, stamps,
country internet domains and car plates; and to gestures like naming
the occupied territories as the occupied "territory" to disguise
the lack of geographic contiguity between the Gaza Strip and the West
Bank; like adding the word "National" to "Palestinian
Authority", to declare that the Palestinian Authority is the embryo
of a future state, like proclaiming "the State of Palestine"
on some government buildings and websites.
But the reality is that the
Palestinian Authority's elected officials at all levels can be kidnapped
by Israel with impunity. The Palestinian authority lacks control, not
only over external borders, but also over movement from one Palestinian
city to another for itself and for its citizens. The Palestinian Authority
has no sovereignty over its borders or over its population registry.
It has no control over whether Israel can establish hundreds of Jewish
settlements in its heart and expropriate Palestinian lands and exploit
Palestinian resources.
The current paralysis of
the Palestinian Authority also shows up the governance structure, as
defined by Oslo to serve the security interests of Israel, to be itself
a problem for Palestinians, and to be, in fact, the primary cause for
the failures in PA governance to date - i.e., lack of democracy, rent-seeking
and corruption.
The economic challenges facing
the Palestinians after Oslo were enormous and were compounded by the
fact that the occupied territories or the "quasi-state" constructed
after Oslo had the economy of a developing country with all the challenges
such an economy faces. The fiscal base of the Palestinian economy was
dependant on income and customs taxes collected by Israel; its trade
was dependent on Israel; the movement of goods and people were dependent
on Israel, and Israel, naturally, took full advantage of these conditions
to serve its interests, riding roughshod on Palestinian aspirations.
What is remarkable, as economists
point out, is that the advent of the PA did usher economic growth and
private investment in spite of the uncertainties, and did reduce dependence
on aid by approximately 10 percent of GDP.
However, just as the PA was
building its administration, financed primarily by aid, Israel was building
its illegal settlements, its checkpoints and its internal borders to
protect its illegal settlements. Israel thus gained the ability to shut
off entire Palestinian cities at very short notice, a power that it
has used since the second Intifada to reduce the Palestinians to a basket
case.
Now that the Palestinians
have been sealed shut and starved, now that they are beginning to kill
one another and to set fires in PA buildings, their representatives
are readying themselves to speak with the enemy again on the enemy's
terms, as they did in Oslo. The chances for a better deal for them are
slim, given that the rosiest scenario on the far horizon, the Road Map,
replicates the Oslo formula.
What is to be done? That's
the million dollar question.
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