What happened in Gaza and Ramallah during the past few weeks has left many people perplexed. How much was genuine and how much was contrived? And if it was set up, who set it up? For what reason? And for whose benefit? Who are the key players in this political play?

We may be able to see some of the more visible players, but who are the behind-the-scenes actors? Was it simply an internal Palestinian case or were there outside players? What was the role of Egypt, the US and, most importantly, what was the Israeli role? Who made the assassination attempt on the former Information Minister Nabil Amer who is now being operated on in Germany from wounds that will result in the amputation of a leg? Finally, what should the position of the Palestinian public and of the political parties in the Palestinian body politic be?

There is no doubt that what happened in Gaza, and then in Ramallah, is part of an internal Palestinian power struggle, mostly within the ruling Fateh party.

Some of the known players in this struggle are the head of the movement, Yasser Arafat, Fateh’s central committee member Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala’a) and revolutionary council member Mohammed Dahlan (even though he denies having anything to do with what happened in Gaza). Also very obvious is the struggle between older and younger Fateh leaders.

Since its inception in 1966, Fateh has had only five general assemblies, the last one in 1976. Attempts by the young local Fateh leader Marwan Barghouthi to prepare for the sixth congress were dashed by his arrest by the Israelis nearly two years ago.

While the call for internal elections has been the battle cry of many of the young leaders, the older leaders seem to be fighting internally for positions and power rather than favoring a democratic process for the movement as a whole.

The issue of corruption is also a major topic of discussion, although there is disagreement about whether it is a genuine issue of contention or rather an issue that easily generates emotions.

One of the more obvious conflicts has to do with the Palestinian security forces which are largely made up of Fateh cadres. These include many long-time soldiers and officers, as well as young Intifada Fateh cadres. The former are fighting for title, rank and influence, the latter for some influence and, in many cases, a simple appointment that can guarantee them regular monthly salaries.



Hamas and other Palestinian factions and groups have been mostly sidelined. Publicly they have expressed a policy of non interference, but it is clear that they seem worried about the long-term effects of this internal conflict on the overall Palestinian position.

The US, Egypt and even Israel have generally expressed similar positions, although there is no doubt that all are hoping for a weakened Arafat and a more flexible and pragmatic new leadership for the Palestinians.

There are many hopeful voices among Palestinians who are expecting that this internal fight will result in a process that will lead to reform within the Palestinian national movement. Others feel that the main loser in all this fighting is the Palestinian people themselves, who seem to have lost an opportunity to make capital from the historic decision of the International Court of Justice regarding the wall and the following UN General Assembly decision.

The truth about what is happening behind closed doors in the muqata, in Gaza and within the Fateh movement is still far from the ears of the Palestinian people. Since this movement has taken upon itself the daunting task of leading the Palestinian struggle and controlling government and security, the Palestinian public deserves to know the truth about what happened in order to understand the consequences.

Like many other Palestinians, I was glad to hear the news that Ghazi Jabali, director of the Palestinian police, was fired on Saturday. I never met the man, but I did speak to him by phone, and it was not a pleasant conversation. He wanted to talk to me as I was being released in 1997 after seven days of detention in a Palestinian police lockup.

I had been jailed in Ramallah without charge and without any explanation. My imprisonment, which no doubt had been ordered by senior Palestinian political leaders, was carried out after the television station that I run broadcast an unedited version of a session of the Palestinian Legislative Council dealing with corruption.

Mr. Jabali didn’t explain why I was held for a week without due process. He didn’t apologize for my unjust detention. All he wanted to tell me was that I should not talk to the press. Once I was released, I did talk to the press and insisted that the people had the right to hear what their elected representatives had to say, especially when it came to issues such as corruption.

The head of the Palestinian police was not only enforcing the will of the politicians and disregarding due process, but he was also trying to cover up his own corrupt practices by trying to muzzle the media and the right of free expression. I have spoken to many since who have told me other stories about the failure of the police chief to meet their expectations on both the professional and the personal level.

My happiness about the removal of Mr. Jabali, however, was short-lived, as his replacement as overall head of Palestinian security was none other than Moussa Arafat, a cousin of Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat. As head of military intelligence for several years, Moussa Arafat was abhorred by many of the young Fatah cadres who had been active in the occupied territories years before Yasser Arafat and his accomplices returned from exile in 1994. Among other things, these young activists accused Moussa Arafat of undermining their work and even breaking into their offices. For a while, the man stayed away from the public eye because of a number of attempts on his life.

So violent was the weekend response to his appointment that, by the end of the day yesterday, Yasser Arafat had reassigned his cousin to the post only of Gaza security chief, and another Arafat crony, Abdel Razek al-Majeida, was made overall head of Palestinian security in Gaza and the West Bank. Even so, for Moussa Arafat to resurface in Gaza as one of the top three heads of Palestinian security is seen by the new generation of Fatah leaders as scandalous and reflective of a decision to correct one mistake with an even worse mistake.

Of course, the issue goes further than one appointment. It goes to the very issue of how decisions are made in the Palestinian leadership today. While Yasser Arafat is known to have numerous meetings at all levels, it is also known that he keeps important decisions to himself and doesn’t share in the decision-making with the government, the legislative branch or even many in his own Fatah party.

The key body is Fatah. This ruling party has not had internal elections for years. The general assembly that is supposed to elect the 100-strong revolutionary council and the 20-person central committee has not met since the 1980s. Since its foundation, the general assembly has met only five times. Marwan Barghouti, an activist from Ramallah now jailed by the Israelis, was trying hard to organize local elections in the Palestinian territories in order to prepare elected representatives to the sixth general assembly meeting. His arrest cut short this effort and left the arena open for the kind of internal power struggle we are seeing today.

In the past, some of Fatah’s founding members, such as Khalil al-Wazir (also known as Abu Jihad), Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad) and Khaled Hassan, acted as checks and balances within the movement and were often credited with putting a stop to some of the unpopular decisions by the party leader. The demise of these three men (the first assassinated by Israel, the second murdered by the Abu Nidal group and the third felled by natural causes) has left the Fatah movement without any strong leaders who can prevent disastrous decisions such as the appointment of Moussa Arafat.

Of course, the long-term house arrest of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah and his inability to meet Palestinian leaders from Gaza has meant that many of Mr. Arafat’s decisions are based on secondhand information, something that certainly has contributed to the chaos we are now witnessing. As well, the turbulent relationship between Mr. Arafat and Mohammed Dahlan, the former Palestinian security minister whom Mr. Arafat removed for criticizing his slow pace of reform, must also have added to the current situation. Activists loyal to Mr. Dahlan are believed to have been behind many of the strongest protests against Moussa Arafat on the weekend.

But none of this hides the fact it’s time that Fatah, the Palestinians’ ruling party, put its house in order. It badly needs a mechanism by which the people can have a say in their own government. It needs a more equitable approach to power-sharing, and it must have a check on one-man rule. If the party that has brought the Palestinians to the verge of statehood fails to do that, it will find itself completely out of synch with its own people.

It seems, more and more now, that Palestinian municipal elections will take place some time this fall. This was the conclusion stated by Amal Khreisheh, one of the members of the independent elections commission.

The press in Palestine this week was full of reports about the postponement of municipal elections. Khreisheh insists that this is not the case. “No doubt was declared for us to have postponed it,” she said. The Palestinian National Authority had stated, some six months ago, that the municipal elections will take place sometime this summer, but no specific date was set and therefore there is no postponement, she insists.

Municipal elections have been one of the most talked about subjects within internal Palestinian circles. The last time Palestinians chose their mayors, council members and village councils was in 1976. At that time, the elections, held under full Israeli rule, yielded a number of leading national figures who soon thereafter created the National Guidance Committee. Since then, the Israelis and the right-wing settlers tried their best to weaken them through a campaign of deportations, assassination attempts and attempts at exclusion. By the time the PNA was established, most of the leading members elected in the West Bank (no such elections took place in Gaza) were no longer in power. The PNA quickly handpicked mayors and council members on the promise that elections will take place as soon as possible. Since those days, in the mid-90s, the implementation of the elections has waived. First, there was need for a municipal elections law. The newly elected Palestinian legislature solved this problem by passing a law in 1996, which was later signed by the president. Elections were promised thereafter, but then delays set in. At first, the PNA said that elections will need to be delayed until the Israelis carry out the redeployment. This took place under Benjamin Netanyahu. The public was promised by the then minister of local government, Saeb Erekat, that elections would take place by the end of 1998; then it was 1999 and, again, 2000. The delays kept on occurring until the current Intifada broke out, and then the situation became much worse.

When the legitimacy of the Palestinian president and the PNA started to be questioned, there was talk of elections, either presidential or legislative or municipal. The idea of elections was raised and the challenge of dealing with the issue of Palestinian leadership was presented in public statement on many occasions. Somehow, the first two types of general elections were vetoed for various reasons and we were left with the idea of municipal elections as a practical first step towards full general elections. An elections commission was created and the feeling was that at least these municipal elections were a possibility.

What made this possibility look like it could be implemented was the fact that the opposition groups (both the secular nationalists and Islamists) publicly said that they would participate in municipal elections, changing their previous position of boycotting the legislative elections which they felt were the product of the Oslo Accords. The erosion of the Oslo Accords led to the removal of many ideological problems in the Palestinian political arena and this approach seemed like a civilized way of allowing the various parties to participate in the political process.

The situation within the municipalities and villages was also a source of problems. The resignation of the mayor of Nablus, Ghassan Shaka’a, and the death of the mayor of Gaza meant that the two largest Palestinian towns were without a legitimately accepted mayor. Elections were seen as the only way to resolve many of the internal problems.

If elections will take place this fall, a revised municipal elections law will be necessary. A women quota, which has been successfully applied in the appointments for town councils, will need to be included in the legislation. Another issue that needs to be resolved is whether the elections will take place in one day or at different stages (at present, the law is that they should be held in one day). Also the feeling among many in the Palestinian government is that the mayor should be chosen from among the members of the elected council rather than directly from the public. In public statements, PNA officials have said that this would be more democratic and the mayor would be more accountable to an elected council.

Municipal elections in Palestine are way overdue. Since 1976, a new generation of Palestinians has been born and come of age. The continuation of the conflict and the Intifada should not be obstacles to the implementation of such a fundamental right of Palestinian citizens. The sooner a municipal election date is announced the better the lot of the Palestinians.

It can be predicted as accurately the Jordan Valley’s summer heat. Every year the Jordan River crossing point turns into one big human tragedy. And families with children are at the center of this suffering.

My 15 year old son and his cousin spent 11 hours this week just trying to cross into Palestine with the Israelis the major culprits of this unnecessary delay. Much has been written about the Israeli side of this tragedy. It is high time we also face the self inflicted wounds caused by the Jordanian government and its outdated rules and regulations that are causing hardships rather than providing badly needed relief.

A major cause of anger to Palestinians wishing to visit Jordan or travel through Jordan is the special permit called “adam mumana.” For the past three years the policy that has given birth to this dreaded permit has become a major source of problems. To begin with this mandatory permit can only be gotten if the Palestinian wishing to visit Jordan has a first had relative in Jordan that can sign a JD6,000 bond undertaking to make sure that the Palestinian visitor returns to Palestine within a month of his visit. This policy was adopted at the launch of the intifada and just before the American war on Iraq because Jordanian officials feared that Palestinians might leave their country en masse. This mass exit has not happened but as in bureaucratic policies it is hard to reverse a policy once it is enacted.

There are many things wrong with this policy. First the fact that it can be given only to close family relatives means that many Palestinians who don’t have first hand relatives in Jordan, simply can’t get out of Palestine. With the Israelis denying Palestinians the possibility of using their airport, such denial by the only available route to Palestinians is tantamount to imprisoning Palestinians. Those Palestinians with relatives in Jordan also face problems and hardships. The paper work has to be done in Amman, although many wishing to apply for these permits don’t live in the capital. This means that a person from Karak or Irbid has to make the long journey to the capital, wait in line, apply wait a day or two and then return to pick up the permit number.

Palestinians wishing to come or travel through Jordan find themselves in a bind, They may not wish to bother their relatives and many simply choose to stay where they are rather than cause their relatives this hardship.

Once approved, the process is not over. At first the Jordanian Authorities were giving petitioners a copy of the permit, but then they replaced this policy with a number. But this number system has its own problem. Since you are not given a document, you are often unaware of what is written on the permit that correspondence with the number. A doctor friend of mine was forced back after hours of waiting because the clerk who typed his wives’ name made a very minor error omitting one letter. An entire family of four having left their Nablus area home at 4 am was forced back by the Jordanian official at 9pm simply because of the error by a Jordanian clerk.

At the bridge a team of officials have been working in the same job for many years thus becoming too cold to be able to be flexible with cases like the above mentioned.

The return trip of Palestinians is also full of troubles on Jordan’s side which are mostly the result of the inability and of the Israelis to process the summer travelers.

Fate is not a good enough reason for the annual humanitarian hardships that men and women, children and the aged are facing trying to cross this bridge of pain. Government officials, the parliament and the press have failed to do their job in putting an effective end to this human tragedy. Serious effort is needed to listen to the people’s pains and to design effective policies that can address these problems. This might require a revisit to many of the regulations as well as consider the possibility of interventions with the Israelis and their sponsors the Americans. The suffering on the bridges is unnecessary. It is time that it stops.

The Jerusalem-Ramallah road is no longer the same once you get to Dahiyat Al Barid. The return lane is all dug up and huge cement slabs fill the area. For the people of the East Jerusalem suburbs of Al Ram and Dahiyat Al Barid the reality of the Wall has become very concrete. The 30,000 Jerusalemites living in this area have just realized that they are on the other side of the WALL. Their trips to school, business, hospital or to pray in the old city of Jerusalem will now become a major ordeal.

The Dahiyat al Barid junction which has not witnessed much protest has just become a bee hiv. Azmi Bishara the outspoken Palestinian member of Knesset has got everybody running by his decision on Saturday July 3 to declare a hunger strike in opposition to the Wall.

A local recreational center has been quickly converted into a protest tent and plastic chairs fill the tented area. A nearby room has been converted to sleeping quarters. Within days, Azmi Bishara gathered over a dozen activists to join him in the hunger strike and the tent of protest has quickly become the focus of delegations from as far north as the Golan Heights, from Israeli peace activists as well as some press.

Whereas the wall has been the center of much press coverage for its affects on Palestinian agriculture and land the situation in Jerusalem is quadruple what it is in many other Palestinian areas. The wall is doing to East Jerusalem what 37 years of Israeli occupation and annexation policies have failed to do. It is isolating the Arab inhabited sectors of the city from their natural Palestinian neighborhoods in the rest of the West Bank. While Israel is eating up some territory within the West Bank as the wall snakes around the former Green Line, in Jerusalem, the Israelis are building a wall that considers the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem a fiat. The idea of a Berlin like wall might not be so obvious in rural Palestinian areas but in Jerusalem the wall is dividing homes and people with an arbitrary line that will create such long term effects for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians both those in Jerusalem and those who are normally commuting to or through Jerusalem.

The hunger strike, however, is exposing a major problem that has been long pushed under the carpet. Jerusalem’s Palestinian population is apathetic and has little commitment to the national Palestinian cause. While many try to explain this phenomena by stating that the Holy City’s indigenous residents have long left the city to the four corners of the world, it is hard to explain why people whose lives will be adversely affected by the wall are not taking part in various protest activities.

Apathy has a lot to do with the lack of faith that people in Jerusalem have with their national leadership. Most of today’s Jerusalemites are people who came to the city for business or work. Such individuals normally are very individualistic, and have little connections to the city that they are working in. Many East Jerusalemites today are of Hebron origin. Such individuals often consider themselves Hebronites rather than Jerusalemites and thus are not willing to participate in any activities in defense of Jerusalem.

In many such urban situations, even a nomadic type population can be encouraged to get involved if there is a civilized process of choosing their leaders. Elections which are the usual mechanism for determining leadership has been absent from Jerusalem for years. With the East part of the city illegally annexed to the Israeli sector and with the Palestinian population repeatedly boycotting elections of the ‘unified” city a vacuum of leadership has resulted. Even in some of the civil society bodies like unions, chambers of commerce, scouts and religious organizations, internal elections are rarely allowed for a variety of reasons.

For some time the leadership vacuum was filled by Faisal Husseini, but his untimely death from a heart attack while visiting Kuwait has left the city leaderless and entirely incapable of dealing with the huge challenges facing it.

The Azmi Bishara initiated has acted as an important alarm bell. People young and old are meeting under one tent and talking about their own future and that of their beloved city. Hopefully a young committed and effective leadership can emerge out of this latest tragedy that has befallen Jerusalem.

The latest World Bank report about the situation in Gaza is worthy of close attention and scrutiny. While the concentration has been correctly focused on the importance of the Israeli withdrawal and dismantlement of their illegal settlements, many more issues are clearly in need of attention. A World Bank official once told me that the main obstacle preventing Gaza and the West Bank from reaching economic prosperity is bureaucracy. He said he had never seen in any country in which he had served so many bureaucratic restrictions that have such a direct negative effect on the economy.

“You don’t have some of the problems that countries like Bangladesh or India have, with large population and scarce resources. If you can find a way to overcome the bureaucratic obstacles, your economy can improve rather quickly.”

Of course, if you ask the Israelis, everything is centred on security. And when the Israeli security establishment itself is judge, jury and executioner, it is hard to imagine how Palestinians can get out of this quagmire.

While much attention is given to political and security issues, the socio-economic front is almost completely ignored.

A way out of this impossible cycle requires, first and foremost, genuine concern for the people of Gaza. In the political and security battle involving the Israelis, Americans and Egyptians, the welfare of the people of Gaza is clearly short-changed by everyone. Even the media, both local and international, have done little to focus on the human element in Gaza. We always get the story of the numbers of dead and injured, and the tally of houses destroyed, but rarely do we get the long-term effects of the status quo on ordinary Gazans.

I am not belittling the importance of solving the political problems. The Israeli occupation and settlements, as well as the continued tit for tat between the Israeli army and the Palestinian resistance, need to be given priority by all parties. But what is the harm in the key players’ giving more attention and importance to a parallel track which doesn’t hold the people of Gaza hostage to the latest negotiating tactic.

Sources in Gaza, for example, indicate that a major USAID infrastructure projects dealing with wastewater treatment has been suspended for some time. This, of course, on top of the extreme restrictions on the movement of US personnel in the West Bank and Gaza. No such restriction is imposed in Iraq, which is certainly much more dangerous than the West Bank and Gaza.

In its report, the World Bank listed a number of areas in which Israel can make changes without harming its overall security situation. None of these restrictions will be eased while the Israelis have such monopoly over the lives of Palestinians and while Israel’s major patron, the US, is unable to exert serious pressure to make the Israelis change their ways.

Whenever I talk to experienced international officials, the issue of the economic well-being of the Palestinians, especially in Gaza, is often high on their list. Everyone seems to understand the relationship between economic deprivation and political/security extremism. They all speak about the need to create welfare structures parallel to those that have been successfully created by some of the more radical groups.

It would be fabulous if we could find a way to create a way to de-politicise the issues that affect the well-being of ordinary Palestinians. The present situation is a black mark on the countries and groups that should have been doing something in this regard for some time now. The US, the international agencies and Israel, as well as the Palestinian National Authority, are all guilty in different degrees of the disaster that has affected Palestinians in general and the people of Gaza in particular.

An international lobbying group made up of committed individuals should be formed with a clear mandate to put the humanitarian interests of the people ahead of all other considerations. Only with such a strong lobby, focused exclusively on this humanitarian issue, can we guarantee that generals and politicians no longer hold the people hostage to their narrow interests and their zero-sum game.