19 - 25 July 2001
Issue No.543
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 19 - 25 July 2001 Issue No.543 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Wanting to be one
Two weeks ago news of a Palestinian cabinet reshuffle designed to achieve national unity reached the press. The specific purpose, journalists reported, was to include representatives of the Palestinian groups that had opposed the Oslo accords and refused to participate in the cabinet: Islamists (Hamas and Jihad), leftists (the Democratic and the Popular Fronts) and nationalists (the Palestine and Arab Liberation Fronts). The last two categories enjoy representation in the PLO's executive committee but not in the cabinet itself.
Yet the national unity Arafat hopes to achieve will remain meaningless since the cabinet still has no decision-making power -- a prerogative that remains exclusively Arafat's -- and continues to be governed like a tribal council. The new opposition ministers, whose stand on Oslo has proved well founded, will consequently be unable to act effectively, and the unity thus achieved will be nominal, rather than reflecting the full range of viewpoints, let alone expressing itself.
Even the Intifada has failed to produce unity, since solidarity has been restricted to the two follow-up committee statements issued in Gaza and the West Bank and signed by representatives of the 13 resistance factions divided between the two locations, including Arafat's own Fatah. This weak framework left actual decision-making unaffected.
Perhaps what is needed is collective rather than individual leadership, emanating from true national unity, capable of confronting the crisis head-on and possessing a long-term strategy of resistance. Israeli citizens, after all, voted for Sharon simply to destroy the Palestinian Authority, and thereby eliminated the possibility of reaching a resolution with it.
*This week's Soapbox speaker is a Palestinian political analyst.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page