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Arabic press on the Gaza power crisis |
Current rating: 0 |
by BBC via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
19 Jul 2004
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A BBC summary of world press reaction to the power crisis in Gaza. |
The internal Palestinian crisis is neither new nor surprising. Everyone knows that the Palestinian arena is in need of reform... The Israeli occupation will not allow any Palestinian government to perform its duties..., but this does not negate the need to deal with our internal conditions in parallel with our struggle for liberation from occupation.
Palestinian Al-Quds
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The unfortunate incidents in Gaza have revealed the great damage caused by lawlessness, the absence of a unified national leadership... and widespread corruption and mismanagement. The struggle for authority in the Gaza Strip in these conditions is nothing more than a competition to play the role of a policeman in a prison run by the occupation.
Mustafa al-Barghuthi in Palestinian Al-Quds
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We urge President Arafat to quit protecting corruption and the corrupt, get rid of them all and seek assistance from young Palestinians with a clean record... What is happening in Gaza is a healthy phenomenon because it is a revolution against corruption and the corrupt, and a rebellion against any plot to sabotage the reform process. This is a warning not only to Arafat and his administration, but to all Arab regimes which subjugate their people by turning a deaf ear to their calls for comprehensive change and reforms.
Abd-al Bari Atwan in London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi
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All Arabs and their leaders, in particular, should tell Arafat that the issue is bigger than him and that the Palestinian people are more important than Abu-Ammar [Arafat]. Abu-Ammar's strategy is not a good one for liberation, but a selfish manoeuvre to enable him cling to power.
Mamun Fandi in London-based Al-Sharq al-Awsat
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Whenever there was a strong storm, Abu-Ammar always reiterated his famous expression that a mountain cannot be shaken by the wind. However, this time the wind is coming from within, and it is strong, and all are following the fate of the wind and mountain.
Ibrahim Bin Abdallah al-Muamari in Oman's Oman
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The Palestinian nation is currently facing a serious crisis... What should be proposed is an emergency meeting between Palestinian factions in the quickest time possible.
Egypt's Al-Ahram
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What is currently happening in Gaza, arising from inter-Palestinian conflict, will negatively and dangerously affect the unity of Palestinian resistance against the arrogant Israeli occupation.
Egypt's Al-Jumhuriyah
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Sharon is the only one who benefits from the chaotic insecurity in the Palestinian territory. Bloody Sharon is happily celebrating what is happening in Gaza... If this crisis persists, it will worsen the situation or bring down the Palestinian Authority altogether.
UAE's Al-Bayan
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The rebellion and revolts currently taking place in the West Bank and Gaza Strip... did not happen in isolation, they are part of the general plot against the Palestinians by invaders and colonialists... It is a crisis brought about by the Israeli occupation.
George Hadad in Jordan's Al-Dustur
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The kidnappings and their link to three important events, i.e. the imminent decision to be adopted by the UN General Assembly against the Zionist regime, the stance against Arafat taken by the UN secretary-general's envoy, and the Zionists' decision to withdraw from Gaza in the near future, show that the Palestinian people are in the grip of an organised conspiracy that has the support of Israel, America and their affiliates at the UN.
Iran's Jomhuri-ye Eslami
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What happened in the Palestinian territory was overwhelming chaos... and it is an indication that something will happen in Gaza and the rest of Palestinian territory in the wake of any Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Saudi Al-Watan
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Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
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Re: and one Israeli one |
by haaretz via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
19 Jul 2004
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Utter chaos and its aftermath
By Danny Rubinstein
Yasser Arafat and his fellow leaders in the Palestinian Authority are now paying the price of the wanton rule they imposed on the West Bank and Gaza. The events in Gaza attest to the crumbling of their regime, and not solely because of the Israeli policy that obliterated the Palestinian security system and administration. The Palestinian leadership is also at fault for having instituted reprehensible governing methods in the territories. The years in question are 1994-2000, during which the peace process was ongoing, though cumbersomely, and the Palestinian leadership had sufficient means to build apparatuses for the state in the making.
Whoever glances through writings during those six years about the manner in which the Palestinian government apparatuses were established will find plenty of criticism, by Palestinians, as well. In 1995, for example, the Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said wrote: "Arafat is building in the territories a government that is a combination of Lebanon's chaos and Saddam Hussein's tyranny in Iraq." Said was opposed to the Oslo Accords, so perhaps his words are particularly harsh, but there is no shortage of criticism by others who saw what was happening in the territories.
Almost from the day the Palestinian government institutions were established, there was talk of corruption. We're familiar with the shoddy method of PA economic monopolies (on fuel, cement and more), which became a regular money machine for squeezing the population dry. The distribution of franchises and assets to cronies was also common. Arafat and his cohorts managed bank accounts without any oversight. Salaries were transferred en masse to the heads of security services, instead of into the employees' personal bank accounts.
Whoever walked into a Palestinian government or public office always encountered relatives of the person in charge. They received the jobs and accompanying perks (car and phones). A lot of money flowed into the PA from the donor countries (by a per capita calculation, no people in the world received such sums at that time), and despite the stringent monitoring by donor countries, quite a few became rich in the process.
Much was also said about the failed Palestinian judicial system. It would not be much of an exaggeration to state that the PA failed to establish a judicial system. Most conflicts and disputes did not reach court because the rival sides settled on their own, through power brokers, like arbitrations among mobsters. Occasionally, even when a verdict was issued, it wasn't enforced. We know of the case of Tawfik Abu Rahma, briefly Gaza's attorney general, who went to the prison and personally saw to the release of 10 prisoners, following a court order. A few hours later, police rearrested them. Abu Rahma was summoned before a Palestinian parliamentary committee and questioned as to why he did nothing when the 10 were rearrested. He burst out laughing. When asked what was so funny, he replied: Be grateful that 11 weren't arrested, in other words that I wasn't arrested, too.
The ineptitude of the Palestinian leadership ought not to absolve Israel's governments from responsibility for the deterioration of Palestinian rule. Since the outbreak of the intifada's bloody clashes, Israel has done everything to bring about the collapse of the PA. But even beforehand, it cultivated Palestinian corruption. The Israeli policy benefited Palestinian cronies and senior officials, imposed economic limitations and mobility limitations on the general public, which created hardship, and doubled the number of settlers, who are perceived by Palestinians as having come to plunder them.
Thus arose in the West Bank and Gaza a questionable Palestinian rule, hated and alienated, which the State of Israel has in recent years helped to undermine without knowing what the chaos that replaces it will lead to in the near future.
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