8 - 14 November 2001
Issue No.559
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 8 - 14 November 2001 Issue No.559 |
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In one ear
On Israel's military radio on 1 November, Ahmed Qure'i made the astounding announcement that the time was ripe for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and called on the US, Britain and Israel to recognise it. Qure'i also called for the creation of a "flexible mechanism" to address issues relating to repatriation and the question of Jerusalem.
As a principal architect of the Oslo accord, a member of Fatah's central committee, a major player on the Palestinian scene and the chairman of the legislative assembly in the self-rule areas, Qure'i is the most eligible of Arafat's potential successors. In other words, self-interest clearly motivates him. Palestinian sources offered no support for his statements, making it imperative to inquire further whether they were a personal impulse, a signal of some redistribution of roles in the making, or merely a testing of the water. Whatever the motives, however, the proposal deserves further investigation in its own right.
A state established on the present self-rule "areas" -- fragmented microcosms that lack any of the attributes of a state -- would have only the power to repress its own people.
Qure'i could not have been carried away by Bush's vague words of sympathy for Palestinian aspirations, relevant only for consumption by Arabs and Muslims to cement the coalition against "terrorism." Blair sought to clarify what Bush had meant, and Sharon took it as an invitation for the two parties to revert to negotiations -- nothing more.
Qure'i, on the other hand, took Bush's words at face value. He was wrong. As the secretary-general of the Arab League warned at the foreign ministers' meeting in Damascus, we must not take such US statements seriously.
*This week's Soapbox speaker is a Cairo- based Palestinian political analyst.
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