| Submit your comments on this article |
| Middle East |
| An Arab assessment... |
| 2002-04-20 |
We suspected as much. Yasser's spinning his wheels furiously, expending money and blood, and he has no idea what he's going to do next... The price now, as in Beirut two decades ago, is very high. But, âthe Palestinians have no other choiceâ  in the words of poet Mahmoud Darwish Â- but to stand fast. âIn the face of the political genocide being offered by the American-funded Israeli occupation of their land, they offer their steadfast resistance no matter what the cost,â Darwish wrote. âBacks against the wall, their eyes fixed upon hope, they show strength of spirit for which there can be no easy explanation.â Sooner or later, the world will come to their rescue. That's what they're counting on. Personally, I would't count real heavily on the Euros, but maybe they know something I don't... Sharon may not emerge on top when he finally announces the end of Operation Rampart. His ultimate undoing may be the horrific accounts of atrocities committed by his forces, especially in the Jenin refugee camp. These, together with his role in the massacres at Sabra and Shatila, will continue to hound Sharon until he finally faces the recently instituted International Criminal Court. There are already those pushing for just that very thing. It's doubtful the Euros can bring it about, and the process of trying to makes the International Criminal Court look just like what it wasn't supposed to be: a political bludgeon. And putting it down to personalities isn't going to help. If Sharon drops dead today, Netanyahu's PM tomorrow. The full picture of what happened in Jenin has yet to emerge. Reports speak of hundreds killed and thousands wounded, of the Israeli Army barring medics and ambulances from evacuating the injured and burying the dead. Even Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres reportedly fretted about the likely international reaction once the world learns the details of what he privately described as a âmassacreâ in Jenin... They're hoping against hope that there's more there than just propaganda. Anything that is there, they'll try and blow up (yeah, bad choice of words!) into something more than it is, but there are already motions toward an "impartial inquiry." I dunno who that'll involve - the Chinese, or Fiji Islanders, maybe. Even before launching Operation Rampart, Sharon had already made significant progress in his ânonmilitaryâ campaign against the PA. Some of his achievements were illustrated in a recent World Bank report assessing the economic impact of the first 15 months of the Palestinian intifada. Yup. Palestinian inability to make their ministate work is Israel's fault... The report showed that the Palestinian economy was already in severe recession. Per capita real income declined by 12 percent in 2000 and by a further 19 percent in 2001. An estimated 40-50 percent of Palestinians were living below the poverty line ($2 per person per day), and average per capita real income was 30 percent down on 1994 levels. That has nothing to do with the fact that their main industry is making bombs, and their main employer is Hamas. The report clearly identifies âthe proximate causes of the Palestinian economic crisisâ as Israelâs closure of the Palestinian territories and the drastic reduction of the number of Palestinians allowed to work in Israel Â- leading to the loss of over 130,000 jobs since September 2000. "Why, sure we'll give you jobs. We don't mind if you explode without warning." Perhaps if there was someplace to work within Palestinian territory doing something other than polishing bullets they wouldn't be dependant on being employed by the Israelis. Israeli military checkpoints on all main and most secondary roads, combined with the periodic prohibition of all traffic from and within the territories, raised the occupationâs economic toll by hugely restricting the flow of goods and people... That's because Palestinians keep exploding. What're they supposed to do? Not notice? The PA coffers were also empty long before Sharonâs military blitz began on March 28. Tax revenues had dwindled to one-fifth of previous levels, not least because two-thirds of these were collected by Israel on the PAâs behalf and have been withheld since December 2000. Surely they could manage to come up with their own tax collectors? Seems like if you're going to run a ministate that'd be one of the first things you'd do. And if Israel is The Enemy, why the hell would you rely on them to collect your taxes for you, when you know that they know you're going to send the money to Iran to buy heavy weapons to use against them? Is it just me, or is this not making any sense? The PAâs financial woes were compounded by the rising cost of providing basic services to a population, some 30 percent of whom are unemployed. Alleged corruption within the PA and the absence of accountability has not helped improve the situation... If you build a Fried Chicken joint to give the rubes jobs they're qualified for, some other rubes will blow it up. Because of the alleged spectacular corruption among Yasser's cronies and the extortion rings run by the gunnies, the joint won't make a profit because of the continuous rake-offs. But that's not the Palestinians' fault; it's those damned... Fiji Islanders? Eskimos? No! It's the Jews, dammit! Arab countries must go beyond the usual rhetoric of support and solidarity  and definitely beyond the limited financial aid they provide, a monthly $45 million to cover the PAâs payroll. The Arab states must give serious consideration to various other options, including the imposition of a 5-10 percent surcharge on Arab oil exports, or a similar levy on arms imports. That could raise between $8 billion-$15 billion annually and make a major contribution to the enormous task of rebuilding the Palestinian infrastructure destroyed during the past 18 months of Sharonâs merciless war of attrition. In other words, put the ministate on welfare. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |