ebrei contro l'occupazione

OPINION
On July 6, the Palestinian-owned Al-Quds al-Arabi daily carried the following opinion piece by Chief Editor Abdel-Beri Atwan: “In all his meetings with the press, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas insisted on confirming that he will not head toward direct negotiations with the Israelis unless there is progress in the indirect negotiations sponsored by the United States through its Peace Envoy to the region George Mitchell. As for Chief Palestinian negotiator Dr. Saeb Erekat, he said more than once that indirect negotiations have not made progress, and that the Israelis refused to respond to proposals put forward by the authority via the American mediator regarding the acceptance of understandings reached during the term of Olmert’s government over the border of the independent Palestinian state.

“This is beautiful talk but how can President Abbas, his chief negotiator and all the leaders of the authority explain the meeting that took place yesterday between Palestinian Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in occupied Jerusalem? Was this meeting not one of the links of the direct negotiations which the two sides are rejecting in public and conducting in secret? When the Israeli sources confirmed the occurrence of this meeting, the authority in Ramallah hesitated to do the same but recognized it later on saying it had nothing to do with negotiations and that it was limited to the discussion of the daily living conditions of the Palestinians in the West Bank. It also stressed that Dr. Fayyad was prevented from addressing political affairs because that was the prerogative of Fatah.

The Middle Est Channel, July 1, 2010

[T]hese efforts take place in an authoritarian context that robs it of domestic legitimacy. Palestinian democracy has died, and Fayyad could not operate the way he does (and would probably not be prime minister at all) if it were still alive. The president's term has expired, the parliament's term is also expired, no new elections are in sight, elected local officials have been selectively dismissed, and local elections have been cancelled. Opposition supporters have been ousted from the civil service and municipal government and their organizations have been shuttered. Activists are detained without charges; court orders have been ignored; and the broader citizenry is increasingly administered according to laws that are drafted by bureaucrats out of public view. This is not the "rule of law" if the phrase is to have any meaning.

(...) Since Hamas' January 2006 electoral triumph, and the Israeli arrest of several Hamas deputies later that year (paralyzing the parliament), that legislative process has come to an end.  (...)

Structures that were launched or knit together over the past two decades (professional associations, NGOs, political parties) are hardly being built or improved; they are decaying. Some are being actively squeezed and even suppressed, such as Islamist NGOs in the West Bank or non-Islamist ones in Gaza. (...)

It is not clear if Fatah really remains a political party in any meaningful sense; instead it consists of an aging old guard monopolizing top positions, a middle generation that stands in the wings (and is no more unified than the old guard), and a host of local branches whose links to the center are tenuous. The recent debacle of local elections -- in which Fatah leaders forced Fayyad's cabinet to cancel them just as candidate registration was closing because of the movement's inability to assemble electoral lists -- shows the extent of the disarray. (...)

Fayyad is not building a state, he's holding down the fort until the next crisis. And when that crisis comes, Fayyad's cabinet has no democratic legitimacy or even an organized constituency to fall back on. What he does have -- contrary to those who laud him for not relying on outsiders -- is an irreplaceable reservoir of international respectability. The message of "Fayyadism" is clear, and it is personal: if Salam Fayyad is prime minister, wealthy international donors will keep the PA solvent, pay salaries to its employees, fund its infrastructural development, and even put gentle pressure on Israel to ease up its tight restrictions on movement and access.