Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 7, September 8, 2003

Subscribe

Change Address

Unsubscribe

Comment

So Abbas has quit a difficult job as Palestinian Prime Minister. What does this mean?

I don't have any insight into his motives, I just hope it means that one person decided not to play the impossible game any longer. By that I mean that there has been this long parade of envoys to the region and regional leaders who participate in the farce that there is a negotiation, that there is a give and take in a process headed for resolution.

Perhaps one person decided that he would no longer contribute to the illusion that the Israeli government and Arafat are, either one of them, seriously interested in a solution.

That I question the sincerity of the Israeli government comes as no surprise. Since this new roadmap was adopted, how many actual, inhabited settlements has Israel dismantled? I think the answer is zero. How many prisoners, held without convictions in any court, did they release? Some, but mostly those about to be released anyway. How many targeted assassination did they commit, including the killing of civilians? Just as many as they did before the roadmap. How much did they slow down the building of their wall with Palestine? Not a bit. How many curfews, restrictions, roadblocks did they dismantle? A few, but then re-imposed others. How much did they bend to US wishes? Not a bit, indeed they ordered Bush to call the "wall" a "fence" and Bush complied.

But those of us who know those facts about Israel that the US media cannot allow be printed also need to make a final break with Arafat, a man once described as "the most useless leader of a national liberation movement in the history of the world." For too long his absorption in retaining power at the expense of his people has been tolerated. He has articulated no vision of resistance for his people at all, allowing an immoral, ineffective and soul-destroying campaign of terror against civilians to continue. He has failed to use modern media to induce the sympathy for the Palestinian that exposure to their daily life would create. Rather than create an effective guerilla force, he has divided their military and security forces to ensure his own political survival. He presided over a wave of corruption in the Palestinian Authority. He has never cultivated others for leadership nor tolerated leaders when they appeared. He is no Nelson Mandela and his rule is so ineffective that one can't help wondering if Israel doesn't work to keep him in power.

But the fiction continues that if one more outsider just comes in and negotiates that whoever is prime minister of Israel and Arafat will divide up their final differences and peace with honor will be at hand. It is an illusion. Israel's goal is the destruction of the Palestinian people and the absorption of their land. Arafat's goal is to stay in power. And the result their mutually disastrous leadership is the death of more civilians, the grieving of more families and sinking of the entire region more deeply into moral decay. Perhaps Abbas decided not be associated with this any longer.

"Sharon has locked himself into a number of rigid positions that are getting us nowhere. The main one is cultivating the hawkish U.S. administration as a bosom buddy. The events of September 11 and the Bush family dream of settling scores with Iraq have strengthened the political common denominator between Sharon and Bush and turned terror into the bull's eye they are both aiming for.

But Sharon has no iron-clad theory apart from
his idee fixe of getting rid of Arafat and
pushing through an agreement in stages that
will ultimately allow the settlements and the
settlers to stay put, keep Israel away from the
1967 borders, and insure terror for eternity." -- Yoel Marcus, columnist, writing in Haaretz, (Israeli newspaper), Sept. 9th.

"Israel and the US need to do some soul searching. While there was hardly any popular base for Abbas, he was making a genuine effort towards peace. It is basically Israel's repeated violations of the road map that made it impossible for Abbas to succeed as Prime Minister. Israel's antagonism towards Arafat would seem to defy logic and the same applies to its refusal to co-operate with the US-backed Abbas. The reason given by Israel is that the Palestinian authorities are not doing enough to curb the extremists. But the fact is that Israel has rendered the Palestinian authority impotent through its repeated military excursions."
-- The Independent (Dhaka Bangladesh), Sept. 9th.

"It is the first time that the Palestinians had a leader who approached Israel with what seemed like a realistic attitude about the future between the two peoples, and he was undermined from the start.

No Arab country or territory has ever been cohesive enough to support a leader who was ready to deal with Israel. Even the best of the Arab world's leaders, notably the late King Hussein of Jordan and Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt, got their positions in authoritarian manners and nonetheless ran their countries in top-down fashion.

Sadat, of course, sacrificed his life for peace and Hussein witnessed his grandfather's murder a half-century ago because of his willingness to work with Israel.

Rather than spend the last four months to better the lot of the average Palestinian, Abbas and Arafat ended up squabbling over power.

The Palestinian populace has always constituted such a diffuse society that they could never produce leaders who can be taken seriously. Terrorist leaders like Arafat filled such leadership voids.

It likewise did not surprise me that Abbas would be sabotaged in his efforts to make peace. The Arabs have such a conflicted society that I came to believe that any creation of a Palestinian state would be disrupted by a power struggle - if not an all-out civil war.

It is understandable why Abbas refused to crack down on Hamas and other terrorist organizations. He probably cannot do it successfully with his own security forces."
-- Bruce S. Ticker, columnist, IsraelInsider website, Sept. 7th. (excerpted)