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| Purchase by Micah D. Halpern. |
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By Micah D. Halpern
August 20, 2004
Quote: "The main reason for the failure of the Palestinian security forces and their lack of restoring law and order is the lack of a clear political decision and no definition of the roles, either for the long term or the short."
That is the conclusion reached in an official study conducted by the Palestinian Legislative Council, the PLC. By the people, of the people, for the Palestinian people.
The report, in effect, is a clear condemnation of the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. It is a public critique of "the man" and his style of leadership. The irony is that among the dozens of Palestinians interviewed for this study - journalists, activists, security forces personnel, even Fatah leaders and the Palestinian Prime Minister, Abu Ala (aka Qurei) - Yasser Arafat, himself, was interviewed.
It has come to the point where the people closest to Arafat, the people on his payroll, his loyalists and entourage, are ready to, almost openly, question his leadership. They are articulating a frustration over the current state of affairs in the almost-but-never-quite state of Palestine, with the anarchy and the crisis boiling over in their midst.
The Palestinian people wanted to understand how such a crisis could arise and to determine if their government could do anything to prevent it or resolve it. Things are out of hand in the Palestinian Authority. Kidnappings. Lawlessness. No judicial process. No economy. A society dependent on the kindness of strangers facing a world that is becoming less and less interested in them, their plight and their future, than ever before. And across the board, everyone believes that the reason for their problems and the reason they have not and are not brought under control is Arafat. He does not give clear instructions. He has no clear rules of operation. He will not control his people!
At this stage it would behoove veteran leader Yasser Arafat to steal a move from the playbook of the new interim leader of Iraq, Aya Allawi.
Allawi is taking a stand. He is committing himself. He is taking a risk. He is threatening the terrorists. Allawi is doing everything that Arafat has never done. He is making enemies of those who are threatening to take over his country and turn it into anarchy. He is willing to bring about, and unafraid of, change.
The Iraqi leader is doing things that are normally not done, not just by Yasser Arafat, but by most leaders in the Arab world. Most leaders impose their will with brute force and then use terrorists to achieve other goals. Allawi and his interim government are attempting to institute a series of democratic values - or at least to create the semblance of pseudo-democratic values. If only more Arab leaders behaved that way, our world would be a very different, more pleasant place than it is today.
Has Allawi been empowered by the presence of the United States. Has he been cowed by the United States? It really doesn't make a difference. All that counts is that Allawi is putting it all on the line.
He is making a bid for the masses. He is convinced that the majority middle, regardless of their religious and political perspective, want to live in security and prosperity. Allawi knows what the people instinctively know, that terror and instability stand in the way of the betterment of their society. That is why he is so willing to take the terrorists head on.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the realization that he is about to embrace a very Western system of governing, Allawi is also prepared to embrace the greater Arab world. He has even agreed to allow, even invited, other Muslim and Arab countries to come and replace U.S. forces - with the caveat that these countries not be directly neighboring states. Is this a culture clash in the making? Not really. It is a gargantuan step forward.
For the first time since the U.S. invasion into Iraq, other Arab nations are realizing that the instability in Iraq could spill over into their society. They are realizing that Muslim Fundamentalism, religiously and politically, is approaching their borders and can as easily insinuate itself into their societies as it did in Iraq. Allawi is leading the pack, other Arab leaders must prepare to follow.
And Arafat. That Palestinian still clings tenaciously to his desire to maintain disorder and anarchy. He thinks it keeps him strong. He believes in rule through division, through distrust, through chaos. If everyone and everything is in disarray, he thinks, then his role is all the more important.
He's wrong. Just ask Allawi.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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