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Palestinian leaders grapple with Arafat
President accused of 'drowning' struggle in political discord
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
San Francisco Chronicle
Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service
Ramallah, West Bank -- Incoming Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia was meeting with his future Cabinet Thursday when a fierce argument erupted between Interior Minister-designate Gen. Nasser Yousef and President Yasser Arafat.
Qureia had asked Yousef to take the key post of deputy prime minister responsible for security forces, charged with uniting the 40,000 Palestinian police officers in 14 separate paramilitary units into one force under Cabinet control.
But Arafat was having none of it. Instead, he insisted that a proposed national security council, which he would head himself, would control the police and determine security policy.
"All revolutions in the world have succeeded, apart from the Palestinian revolution -- and that's because of your incompetence," Yousef told Arafat angrily.
According to witnesses at the meeting, Arafat rose, cursed and spat at the general.
Yousef spat back, adding: "I am a man of his word who respects agreements and doesn't lie."
The rancorous exchange revealed the deep fissures splitting the Palestinian Authority as it struggles to grapple with a conflict that has spun out of control since both Israel and the Palestinians abandoned a three-month truce and effectively shunted aside the U.S.-backed "road map" to peace.
Mohammed Dahlan, security chief under outgoing Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, said in an interview that the Palestinians are "drowning" in political infighting, and he laid the blame at Arafat's feet.
"Our Cabinet faced difficulties from the political leadership of the Palestinian Authority, in addition to the opposition factions and Israel," said Dahlan. "If this internal strife continues and if this political vacuum goes on, no one can predict what will happen."
The rancor over the Arafat-Yousef spitting match was overshadowed only minutes later when the Israeli Cabinet labeled Arafat "an obstacle to peace" and said he should be "removed" -- by means that could include expulsion and even assassination.
Now that the dust has settled, Qureia is once more trying to finalize his Cabinet. But judging by the experience of his predecessor, it will not be an easy ride.
Arafat beat back similar efforts by Abbas to wrest control of security forces from him, triggering the collapse of Abbas' government after only 100 days.
When Abbas announced his resignation on Sept. 6, he spelled out for shocked Palestinian legislators just how difficult it was to be Arafat's prime minister.
Two days earlier, masked members of Arafat's Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades -- dispatched from the Palestinian leader's compound -- had attacked the Palestinian council building and spray-painted slogans on it branding Abbas a traitor.
"Those who did so were incited against us and paid to brand us as collaborators," Abbas told the council in comments that were supposed to remain confidential but were leaked by council members.
The Al Aqsa rampage was the final straw for the proud Abbas, who said he was fighting a war of political attrition from the moment he took office.
Arafat blocked financial reforms, he said, because they threatened illegal slush funds Arafat was using to pay for the intifada.
Palestinian Authority officials' salaries are paid by the European Union, but Arafat or his cronies were skimming off up to 15 percent in income taxes and using it for their own causes, Abbas suggested. "Personally, I don't know where those funds go," he said. "When we wanted to cancel them, they said: 'You're harming the intifada.' "
Abbas also said that Arafat opposed efforts to stop paying thousands of police officers in cash -- a system that encourages corruption and the siphoning off of funds for undercover groups, such as Al Aqsa, the military wing of Arafat's Fatah organization.
Arafat objected to introducing a statutory retirement age, fearing his loyalists would be replaced. He also insisted on maintaining control over regional governors, foreign embassies and the civil service.
"A minister cannot appoint a deputy or director-general without Arafat's approval," Abbas said. "The ministers have no control over who is hired and who is fired; it all reverts to the president."
In fact, Abbas said Arafat had done everything he could to keep the spotlight off him when he was prime minister, even ordering Palestine TV to run cartoons instead of broadcasting the prime minister's meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell. Instead of covering his historic White House meeting with President Bush, Palestine TV aired a movie about a popular Egyptian dancer.
Early signs indicate that Qureia is not faring much better as he tries to form a government.
Members of the Fatah Central Committee -- the Arafat-dominated panel that has been invited by Qureia to nominate 16 of his 24 ministers -- said Tuesday that the discussions about the new government had been concerned only with personalities, not with policy.
"There is no plan, no discussion about the program of the new government," said one senior Fatah insider.
Saeb Erekat, a prominent Palestinian negotiator and likely minister in the new Cabinet, disputed that, saying the new government does have a vision, but he refused to specify how it would differ from its predecessor.
.5 "We have a security and political plan to resume the peace talks with Israel and organize our security forces," said Erekat. "We are also working to achieve a cease-fire that would allow the two sides to return to the negotiating table. I can't outline the security plan because the national security council is still working on it."
Dahlan insisted, however, that the national security council was simply a tool for keeping power in Arafat's hands.
"It has no practical program," he said. "What we need on the security level is to unite security efforts . . . and to organize the work of the security forces."
The adoption of the road map for peace and the appointment of a Palestinian prime minister were designed by the international community to sideline Arafat and reduce his central role in Palestinian politics.
But Israel's threat to remove Arafat has returned the Palestinian leader to center stage, stronger than ever. Persuading him to give up control of the police and paramilitary forces is thus likely to be even more difficult for Qureia than it was for Abbas.
"Yasser Arafat is the elected leader of the Palestinian people -- he cannot be removed by outside interference," said Arafat spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh. "Nobody could fill the vacuum."
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