OVERVIEW
Since U.S. President George W. Bush’s 24 June 2002 statement on the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, Palestinian reform has emerged as a key ingredient in Middle
East diplomacy. In his statement, the president publicly
identified “a new and different Palestinian leadership” and “entirely new political
and economic institutions” as preconditions for the establishment of a
Palestinian state. In early July, the Quartet of Middle East mediators (the
European Union, Russian Federation, United Nations, and United States)
established an International Task Force for Palestinian Reform “to develop and
implement a comprehensive reform action plan” for the Palestinian Authority
(PA). The September 2002 statement by the Quartet underscored reform of
Palestinian political, civil, and security institutions as an integral
component of peacemaking. The three phase-implementation roadmap, a U.S.
draft of which was presented to Israel
and the Palestinians by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns in
October, provided details on this reform component.
During the same period, domestic Palestinian demands for
change were no less evident. Senior officials and legislators, political
leaders and activists, civic organisations, and citizens from across the
spectrum demanded that the PA improve its performance and transform itself into
an effective institution capable of meeting its people’s basic needs.
Responding to the combination of local and international pressure, Chairman
Yasser Arafat approved a series of measures contained in the “100 Days Plan”
formulated by the PA’s Ministerial Reform Committee and formally adopted on 23
June. It proved too little too late. In an unprecedented development, the
entire cabinet was on 11 September compelled to tender its resignation in order
to avoid a parliamentary no-confidence motion whose passage was a virtual
certainty.
While there has been an apparent convergence of international
and domestic calls for reform, there is a distinct gulf between international
and indigenous perceptions of the process. For example, U.S.
officials and the American press have made much of the seeming coincidence
between President Bush’s demands and indigenous Palestinian pressure, leading
many to conclude that Washington’s
insistence on a reform-first sequence was having its desired effect. Similarly,
reform is viewed by many in the West as synonymous both with Arafat’s
marginalisation and eventual replacement and with the emergence of a more
peace-minded Palestinian leadership. A corollary to this view is that the
reform movement is largely spurred by dissatisfaction with Arafat’s failure to
conclude a peace deal with Prime Minister Barak, his perceived decision to
launch the armed uprising, or intifada, and his inability to terminate it.
Taken together, these assumptions lead many to the notion that the lack of
Palestinian reform has been a major impediment to a successful peace process
and that proceeding with the current reform efforts therefore is a key
ingredient of (and important pre-requisite for) a re-energized peace process.
Under such reasoning, reform will come first, discussion of final status issues
will come later, and any earlier talk of final status issues will actually
detract from reform.
Many of these
assertions do not withstand closer scrutiny, and often reflect a
misunderstanding of domestic Palestinian dynamics:
The very notion of a
Palestinian reform movement – as if it consists of a unified coalition of
forces sharing broadly similar interests and objectives – is misleading. There
are a number of reform agendas sponsored by a host of forces for a variety of
motives that have little in common with one another and even less in common
with the vision that the U.S. or Israel has of it. The most widely used
depiction of the domestic Palestinian reform debate – Old Guard versus Young
Guard – fails to do justice to the complexity of the alliances, constituencies,
and agendas involved.
Far from believing that Arafat adopted an excessively hard
line in his dealings with Israel, many in the so-called reform movement fault
the Palestinian leadership for having been too responsive to U.S. and Israeli
demands and, more importantly, for lacking a clear and effective strategy for
resisting Israel’s occupation. Perhaps the greatest impetus behind the reform
movement is the widely shared perception among Palestinians not that the
intifada was a mistake, but that the Palestinian Authority (PA) failed to both
properly manage the conflict and withstand Israeli attacks and international
pressure. As a result, many Palestinians currently support transforming the PA
into a technocratic/administrative body, with political decision-making power
residing elsewhere – or even disbanding the PA altogether.
For a large number
of Palestinians, the idea of modernising the PA and instruments of governance –
while under military occupation is either impossible or meaningless; to them,
the primary goal of institutional transformation therefore should be to
strengthen the Palestinian capacity to challenge the Israeli occupation.
Reform of
Palestinian institutions and politics is a domestic issue, and one that has
wide support within the Palestinian community. Ultimately, Palestinians may
well welcome international assistance in this overall endeavour. But today, the
international community’s insistence on reform as precondition for a peace
settlement is both harming its version of reform and delaying everyone’s notion
of peace.
Amman/Washington, 12 November 2002
