Our Situation Inside The Small Prison

Nabil Amro     Al-Hayat     2003/10/14

We no longer think about what lies beyond our small prison, dubbed the internal conflict. 

We no longer have our traditional gift, which is the capacity of balancing out the internal conflict with what was called for the longest time in our literature the neighboring challenges.

We fool ourselves, and fool our people, as we wrap our internal conflict with various colorful layers, to give it some sense of seriousness; but the truth is that what lies beneath the layers does not deserve more than mere mockery, for nothing from what is said is real, except the struggle over power… within the logic of division.

The logic of division works for those who feel that they have reached the end of a certain era. All they have before them are remnants of the plunder… And all they can do is pounce down on these remains, without even giving consideration to appearances when carrying out a despicable role… needless to get into details.

The First and Second Ministerial Births

Regardless of whether Abbas took the right decision or not to resign, and regardless of whether Qureih's approval to rush into trying what has already been experienced or his refusal to go through with it in the first place, and regardless of his giving up in the first steps of the road or of his return to the same experience; regardless of all this, the only lesson that keeps repeating itself, without us even taking note of it, is in short, that we all know that we are gradually losing our sense of respect, as we insist on pursuing our work in the same way exactly.

All around the world, there are cabinet changes, and problems in forming the government. But the difference between us and the rest of the humanity is that God afflicted us with a special sense of duality.

Great anxiety regarding the cause, and minor considerations stirring the internal conflict.

If we memorized the circumstances and considerations of the huge anxiety and taught them to the whole world, and scored impressive results until we almost reached our goal, we still seemed, while making the bowl of accomplishments, to be insisting on filling it up with holes, as well as water.

This is our situation in addressing the conclusions of the great anxiety, and the details of the minor concerns.

Where did we go wrong in the second labor? And I won't formulate this question in a way to say that we didn't go wrong!?

The Abbas government fell for logical reasons; had it remained one more month, it would have appeared to be "foolishly clinging to power." Thus, the government said to those who brought it on, "this is your trust, we give it back to you," and left the stage.

Some were delighted. Other celebrated the victory of the independent national will in ending the reign of the 'neo-Karzais'. Some claimed that the Intifada regained its glory, with the departure of those who came to destroy it.

The Abbas government kept silent, for it had nothing much to say after it spared its dissidents the effort of pursuing their efforts to foil it, and left.

That government took itself out of a situation that was forced upon it, which is a hook where all the sins should be hanged. If the Israelis had set another barrier, we ask for the Abbas government. If they were late in releasing some prisoners, we ask the same question.

If Mofaz, Yaalon or Sharon did some muscle-flexing exercices, we would ask Abbas to show us what he's capable of doing.

Abbas stood at a crossroads: he either had to maintain his stand and take full responsibility, including that of what he isn't responsible of, or he would leave and opens the way to those who viewed his act as a sin to be shunned. Thus, he took the better path, and moved from the hook to the "walking away" option.

Qureih's experience wasn't much different from that of Abbas, for he was his partner in Oslo and the first one to support him when he was appointed Prime Minister. Thus, Qureih had the blessing of Abbas and his encouragement, as the latter had no other choice after he resigned (there is no doubt for those who knew Abbas that he was decisive about his resignation).

Qureih's journey started with Abbas' experience. He entered the operation room of Arafat, filled with the legitimate hope of succeeding, at least, in the part concerning the constitution. I say legitimate hope, because Abbas' absence from the position of Prime Minister logically means that Qureih would obtain significant support to avoid the political and moral void resulting from the elimination of an important factor of daily life. I think that Qureih had thought in all good intentions of a different tactic, which he might have seen as innovative, which is to exaggerate in assuaging President Arafat that he would be in complete harmony with him.

Everyone noticed Qureih's obvious moves in this direction, and all those politically oriented understood him. Qureih raised a logical banner: here is the Fatah government to be established; here are Arafat's forces to be united and controlled; here is everybody's cause, so let's cooperate to cross the dangerous roads to lead it to safety.

However, Qureih's good will got him caught in the grip of a very harsh drive regarding the internal conflict, and I mean by here Fatah. It gave its Central Committee the right to form a government getting into all the minor details, and all the Legislative Council had to do was give its approval, and let the battalions, which are "everybody", the freedom to assess and issue resolutions without getting any decisive commitment about which method to follow.

Qureih took that path, and frankly, he had no other choice. However, the ends could be seen in the decisive roads. The Qureih "coercive" tactics led observers of the second birth to see an usual rush in the potential government headlines: crisis government, national unity government, restricted government, regular government, 12-minister government, emergency government and finally regular government with eight ministers who could be joined by others. All this had nothing to do with the core of the problem, as observers understood the situation, by understanding the ways things go when we are forced to form a government, under pressure of successive crises and difficulties.

Still, the main part of the problem is the same that produced the difficulties of the first formation, which is to "create a new system with the people and considerations of the old system."

In the context of this quasi-impossible operation, Abbas knew the fate of his government after four months, while Qureih realized the same thing even before it started.

Tactical mistakes

When we get embroiled in a crisis, quiet thinking will unavoidably be disturbed. And at some stage, the crisis can even completely hinder our ability for such kind of thinking.

I am talking here about the last chapter, which we still haven't gotten ourselves around to giving it a name: is it the chapter of emergency situation, or the emergency government, or the failure of the consensus of the legislative council?

This chapter, regardless of what it is called, is the chapter of "consensual mistakes," or more specifically, that which has nothing right in it, which means that we had to take decisions we don't need, the kind that creates problems and crises we can't solve/ the state of emergency, the emergency government, then eight names, then the oath, then the council's invitation to vote, according to the permanent axiom which states that the council is threatened by putting Fatah in danger along with the national dream and by the political vacuum in case it doesn't vote.

Each member of the council felt that all that happened wasn't necessary. When several members of the council asked to introduce certain changes to save face, it ended in a scandal. We would wait long for this scandal to be erased from the file of our public political actions.

Now, the situation is still confused, between a resignation presented or not, and a government formed or not, and an internal situation that has entered a stage of vacuum or not yet.

There are the surrounding challenges as well; challenges which observers wouldn't believe we had time to even follow up on in the news.

What should we do, not to erase or cover a scandal, but to get out of the swamp we sank deep into.

No one has a preset answer, but we have a suggestion for a general direction to be followed, in which we see better possibilities than to leave the crisis following its natural reactions. Let's try the legislative council once again.

The legislative council

It is something similar to the divine providence that saved the council for a strike that could have been deadly. The best thing in the failure of the council's consensus could be that it didn't start its activities against the backdrop of a crisis that only got more complicated. It wasn't accused of ignoring the state of emergency, as the institution of law, the system and the civil society. It wasn't accused of voting for a government presented to the world as an emergency government.

However, it is still keeping its position, not only at an ethical level but also with regards to procedures. This means it has the right to call for an emergency session to examine the crisis and offer solutions. This council, which we never cease to attack and ignore, is still in charge of the constitutional legitimacy. It still has the political resources allowing it to overcome the crisis.

Finally, I would like to address Qureih and tell him that we still have margin for trying; but unfortunately, we might not be able to give Bush and Sharon the exclusive responsibility for your failure, for what imposes this failure is our entire internal situation… and you know it!

The author is a former Palestinian Minister of Information.