Deep-rooted
Corruption In Palestine
By Hasan Abu
Nimah & Ali Abunimah
24 June 2004
The Electronic Intifada
In
February, press reports that cement imported from Egypt through Palestinian
companies and ready-made concrete manufactured in the Palestinian village
of Abu Dis were being used to build Israeli settlements and the apartheid
wall provoked outrage among Palestinians. Israeli television showed
trucks transporting cement from a factory originally owned by Palestinian
Prime Minister Ahmad Qureia to the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Adumim,
east of occupied Jerusalem. Qureia reportedly had transferred ownership
of the plant to other members of his family.
In an attempt to
mollify public disgust, the Palestinian Authority (PA) ordered an investigation,
even as the accusations were vigorously denied. The committee charged
with the job, headed by Palestinian legislator Hasan Khreisheh, has
now completed its work, according to a June 14 report in the Jordanian
daily Ad Dustour.
The investigation
was focused on three Palestinian companies owned directly by influential
Palestinians or their family members. Two were operating in the West
Bank and one in Gaza. Khreisheh said that his committee spent seven
months collecting facts and that "compelling evidence and documents
adequate for indicting those involved were referred to the public prosecutor".
He also said that "major responsibility in this misconduct lies
mainly on the Ministry of National Economy which issued the necessary
importation licences without conducting any follow up on where the cement
was destined".
Khreisheh blamed
the whole Palestinian Cabinet, on the grounds that it is collectively
responsible to monitor the imported cement and its use, and prevent
the import of quantities exceeding agreed-upon quotas.
Judging from previous
cases, however, there is little hope that this latest investigation
will lead to any real accountability. Six years ago, a Palestinian parliamentary
panel conducted an investigation into the shocking fact that almost
half of the PA's budget $300 million was unaccounted for,
but no action was taken as a result of the panel's recommendations.
Again, the tendency
to cover up wrongdoing continues. Khreisheh was quoted by Ad Dustour
as saying that his committee was subjected to intense pressure to close
the case. Khreisheh said that "threats were present all along while
investigations were under way during a period of seven months".
He did not reveal the sources of the threats, saying: "Any price
we pay for ending corruption, and specifically in this case, will be
a price worth paying." Khreisheh also revealed that Israel applied
pressure on some members of the committee to keep a shroud over the
affair.
From its inception,
the PA has been marked by corruption, incompetence and mismanagement.
For years, top officials enriched themselves through deals and monopolies
negotiated with Israeli companies on such essentials as gasoline and
other consumer goods. Some of the dozen or so Palestinian "security
forces" that sprouted in the heyday of Oslo, existed primarily
to protect and enforce these corrupt monopolies.
While Palestinians
at the grassroots always protested this phenomenon, much of the world
community, including the United States and the European Union (the PA's
main financial sponsor) were willing to turn a blind eye to it as long
as they thought that the PA was willing to play along with a "peace
process" that literally cemented the status quo and provided a
cosmetic solution to the deep problems and conflicts that Israel's establishment
had created. In fact, for the principals in the Oslo adventure, corruption
was the main reward for going along with a plan that has impoverished
the Palestinians' society, doubled the number of Jewish settlements
on their land and pushed them further from freedom than ever before.
The main victims
of this collusion between certain Palestinian officials and a silent
world were ordinary Palestinians, who saw their hopes and dreams dashed
as their ostensible rulers' luxury villas sprouted across the landscape.
Corruption and "reform" only become an international cause
celebre once the PA had outlived its usefulness and revealed itself
to be incapable of making the Palestinian people swallow unjust and
unworkable Israeli-American diktats specifically giving up the
right of return and accepting a "state" on a fraction of the
West Bank, with virtually all the Jewish colonies remaining in place.
Perhaps the one
positive element of the repeated investigations is that they demonstrate
that Palestinians, like any other people, are capable of harsh self-examination
and criticism. But in their current situation, where they live under
Israeli military dictatorship, on the one-hand, and a moribund regime
whose only goal is its own self-preservation, on the other, this self-criticism
can hardly be translated into effective action.
Corruption and war-profiteering
are the hand-maidens of military occupation. It is clear that ending
Israeli military rule also means pulling out from the roots the Palestinian
structures and attitudes that have made the grim suffering of the vast
majority a chance to get rich quick for a shameless and unprincipled
few.
Ambassador Hasan Abu Nimah is director of the Royal Institute for Interfaith
Studies in Amman. Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada.
This article first appeared in The Jordan Times on 23 June 2004.