Baptism by fire
The Palestinian Authority has finally replaced Ahmed Qurei's emergency government, but the new leadership will quickly be tested by aggressive Israeli policies. Khaled Amayreh reports
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Palestinian youths throw stones at an Israeli tank during a demonstration in the West Bank refugee camp of Balata, near Nablus, on Monday 10 November
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This week, the Palestinian Authority formed a new government made up of 24 ministers, including many Oslo-era figures such as Nabil Shaath, Sa'eb Ereikat, Jamil Tarifi and Yasser Abed Rabbo.
One of the most prominent of the new faces is Hakam Balawi, a known Fatah loyalist, who was appointed interior minister. However, it is still unclear how much autonomy Balawi will be granted in the security sector.
Sources close to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat suggested that Balawi's authority would be confined to the "civilian spheres", saying that security problems will be dealt with by the National Security Council (NSC), headed by Arafat himself and comprised of the prime minister, the interior minister, and the heads of police and security agencies.
In other words, the NSC has apparently become the highest decision-making body in the PA. This means that many of the powers that should technically be in the hands of the prime minister will now be shared with Arafat.
One can now safely say that the ongoing power struggle in the PA has been contained, "with everyone winning", in the words of PA official Sa'eb Ereikat.
The new government's internal harmony will be tested in the weeks and months ahead as it tackles the political-security impasse with Israel. It is clear that the Palestinians, exhausted with the endless bickering and political paralysis of the PA, are seeing a glimmer of hope that the new government may succeed where the former government failed.
At the very minimum, ordinary Palestinians expect the government to tackle the real problems facing the Palestinian people; including first and foremost, Israel's wanton mutilation of the West Bank through the construction of the apartheid wall deep into Palestinian territory.
Israel this week declared that the apartheid wall, which effectively reduces most Palestinian population centres to large detention camps, would be extended deep into the eastern West Bank, nearly bisecting it, leaving the regions north and south of Jerusalem barely connected with each other.
According to maps published by the Israeli press, the wall will extend eastwards to the outskirts of Jericho, near the borders of Jordan, incorporating Ma'ali Adumim and other smaller Jewish settlements.
This means that Palestinians travelling between Bethlehem and Ramallah -- which should be a 40-minute drive -- would have to detour east to the Jordan valley before turning sharply westward toward Ramallah simply to circumvent the planned wall.
Some Israeli observers and journalists have described the new wall plan as "foolish" and "ghoulish" and "unbelievable". However, in the absence of any real opposition to the wall from the Bush administration, it is very likely that Sharon will have his way.
It is not certain, though, how the Israeli government will deal with the new Palestinian government. Some Israeli officials, including Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, have indicated that Israel might deal with Ahmed Qurei "despite his ties with Arafat".
However, it is far less clear if that would signal a policy change toward the Palestinians, or be a mere change of tactics aimed at deceiving international public opinion.
Qurei said this week he would be holding a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Sharon if he believed that such a move could help end Israel's daily killings and home demolitions throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
It was this Israeli policy of extra-judicial executions and home destructions that eventually bought about the collapse of the Abu Mazen government.
That policy has been criticised recently by senior figures in the Israeli army, including Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon who suggested that Israel caused the collapse of the Abu Mazen government by refusing to moderate its draconian repression of ordinary Palestinians.
Hence, the key factor for the success, if not the very survival, of the new Palestinian government is going to be Israeli self-restraint in the occupied territories. If the present Israeli policy towards the Palestinians persists, the Qurei government would lose its raison d'être and eventually meet the same fate of the previous government.
The chances of the Sharon government relenting in their hard-line policy are slim to none. This week alone, Israeli troops killed as many as 15 Palestinians, most of them innocent civilians, including at least three children and an elderly Palestinian.
As usual, the killings failed to elicit any meaningful American or international reaction, further exacerbating Palestinian bitterness and indignation and consequently driving more young Palestinians to fight terror with terror.
The latest victims of Israeli violence include a Nablus woman who bled to death at her home after being shot by Israeli troops and then denied medical care, and an engineer who was murdered by soldiers as he drove by the Tulkarm checkpoint.
Moreover, as many as 50 Palestinians, nearly all of them innocent civilians, were also wounded or maimed by indiscriminate Israeli bombardment of Palestinian population centres, particularly in the Gaza Strip.
The killings, coupled with unabated home demolitions and other forms of repression, underscore the mendacity of Israeli claims that the occupation army was easing up "restrictions" on Palestinians.
PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina described Israeli statements as "lies and half-truths intended for media consumption".
Moreover, the Israeli army this week deported a Palestinian civilian from Hebron to the Gaza Strip in a brazen violation of international law and human rights.
Israeli soldiers drove Kamal Idris, 27, to the edge of a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, deposited him unceremoniously, and told him to walk southward and not to look back.
The army said Idris, who was neither tried nor charged of any wrongdoing, was affiliated with an unnamed "terrorist group" and euphemistically labeled the deportation a "residency demarcation" and "preventive measure".
Human rights groups were blunter, condemning it as "flying in the face of international law and fundamental human rights".
Nonetheless, this criticism will mean virtually nothing to Israel as long as the US continues to acquiesce to Israel's illegal behavior.
