Ayoon wa Azan (Hopeless Case)

Jihad Al Khazen     Al-Hayat     2003/09/20

The Arab cat has seven lives, the English one nine, whereas Arafat has 90 lives or more, because we have often buried him but then he would rise again and the tomb would vanish.

He is now living a special Intifada, knowing that Americans attacked him and Israelis threatened him with murder. Hence, Palestinians rebelled to defend him and we all saw what happened over the past few days.

Still, despite Arafat's regained, or new, popularity, the Palestinian situation is extremely bad and Qureih is facing nothing but failure no matter how hard he tries; he has failed forming a government, but he probably will form one that the Legislative Council would give the trust vote, only to fail in its mission.

I don't see how Qureih will succeed where Abbas has failed, because the truth of the matter is that Ariel Sharon's government does not want peace and has hindered the Roadmap. As for the Bush administration, it settles with speeches about how interested it is in working towards finding a solution, while its interest turns gradually towards the upcoming American presidential elections.

If the reader thinks otherwise, he does not need to continue reading because Yasser Arafat was never the problem, although he had many problems himself. Neither is Abbas, nor is Qureih. The problem lies in Israel and the gang of war criminals in its government.

This was my personal general conviction when Mohamad Dahlan called me from Gaza.

Dahlan says that Qureih will be facing three major issues following the formation of his government. The first one would be the position from Hamas, the second the stance from Israel, and last the internal reforms.

He believes that Abbas's government tried to create a balance between internal and external commitments, but everyone plotted against it and the situation will be no better for the new government.

The head of security in the resigning government says that the new government needs to either make an alliance with Hamas or go into conflict with it, or even both. It will find that Arafat will resist the reforms, because the current situation serves his interests, knowing that Abbas's government had managed within four months to stop devoting 15% of the employees' salaries for the Intifada, as well as gaining back $6,000,000 per month from the oil committee. However, the security reform remains the greater problem, because if Qureih were to follow this path, he would get into a conflict with Arafat. If he doesn't, then he would be responsible before his people.

Dahlan says that Abbas's government and his role there, "were the most important political attempt that the national movement and the Islamic resistance had ever made in years, knowing that it greatly succeeded in creating a balance between internal and external commitments, without any conflict, until there was truce, which Israel opposed from the very beginning."

Dahlan also accuses Israel of shattering the truce, but does not rule out Hamas. I told him that Sharon's government had maintained its assassinations policy and invasions, and he replied that it only aimed at provoking the Islamic resistance, and the latter made it succeed in its attempt by retaliating.

Then he said that Hamas' situation these days was extremely hard, because it's a people's organization spread everywhere, but that the Israelis' situation was no better, as they thought that Abbas and Dahlan had come to end the resistance, "but we didn't do anything against the resistance, hence the vandalism."

Mohamad Dahlan believes that the timing of the resignation was accurate and right, because it was meant to prevent the explosion of the Palestinian situation, and to clear the government from taking responsibility for it. He adds: "We threw them the fireball and we shall see how they'll handle it."

Moreover, Qureih's government has no program to end the crisis, he said, and it needs Palestinian, Israeli and American support to succeed, none of which is available.

Dahlan complains from the fact that Arafat had sent Abbas's government to negotiations, saying that the Roadmap had died and when the Palestinian negotiators came back to him with an agreement according to which Israel would withdraw from four Palestinian cities, he said it was not enough.

Hence, he might deal with the new government more openly, because he does not consider it as a threat to his position, the way he did with Abbas's government. However, his famous stances from the negotiations with Israel and the internal reforms will not change, leading to the failure of the government before it even starts working.

All this, and we still haven't mentioned Ariel Sharon and his vandalism, knowing that he refused Jibril Rajoub's offer for a ceasefire, then refused a similar one made by Arafat. Sharon insists on "dismantling the terrorist infrastructure" before making any other move, but the expression has too many meanings, and Sharon will interpret it the way he wishes, because it is nothing like arresting a certain man or releasing him as a term for negotiations.

Israel is the major terrorist infrastructure in the region, and Sharon is an excellent terrorist, not to mention that the U.S. supports his terrorism and accuses Palestinians. This is why it is kind of absurd to talk about the Roadmap, or peace, whether the Palestinian Prime Minister is Abbas, Qureih or even Hanan Ashrawi.