Palestinians could transcend the US's demand to remove Arafat by initiating a genuine process of democratic reform, Mohamed El-Sayed Said, in Washington, writes Click to view caption Four men, two Americans and two Palestinians, spoke to an anxious audience at the Centre for Policy Analysis and Studies in Washington last Thursday. A strange scene quickly developed. The two Americans, who had served as ambassadors for their country, were the ones who spoke with the most palpable fury regarding the speech that President George W Bush gave last week on the Middle East. The two Palestinians who spoke did so with passion, but kept their tempers firmly in check. Nabil Ziad Abu Amr, a former Palestinian cabinet minister who had resigned his post in protest against the reform plan proposed at the first cabinet meeting following the end of the Israeli siege on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, outlined a picture of a doubly aggrieved people. The Palestinians were upset that Bush would take a stance so clearly calculated to humiliate them. Second, they feel that the disdain Bush evidenced for Arafat undermines the criticism and calls for democracy made by Palestinian and Arab intellectuals. Abu Amr joked about the appointment of a 75-year-old man as minister of youth in the last cabinet shuffle. "It is said that he was appointed to head the ministry because his younger brother played in a soccer game 40 years ago." Those sentiments are shared by democratic forces across the Arab world, not to mention in Palestine. Indeed, those forces have consistently argued that democracy is a tool in the Palestinians' national struggle. What Bush has done, is to try to exploit to the full the Palestinian Authority's (PA) mistakes in the domestic political arena in order to morally justify the US administration's support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's atrocities in the occupied territories. The PA's actions have, tragically, provided ammunition to those who would attack the Palestinian national struggle for their own interests. Practically no one in Palestine, or elsewhere in the Arab world, believes that the Bush administration cares about the Palestinians' democratic welfare, or about democracy in the Arab world, in general. The American media seems to be following the president's lead, having launched a chorus of disenchantment over democracy in the entire region. However, the American and European media's sudden affinity for the word "democracy" appears somewhat disingenuous. For years, neither mentioned the term in relation to the Palestinians, suggesting that it is now being used to give the appearance of including a constructive element in what is clearly an ugly argument about "Palestinian terrorism". The speech itself betrayed its true purpose when Bush spoke of a "new and different leadership" made up primarily of people "who do not compromise with terrorism". Bush wants Arafat out, in the view of the Arabs, because he needs people who can secure Israel without it having to show a minimum of respect for Palestinians' human and national rights or their individual and collective security in return. The fact that Bush never rebuked Israel for its state- sponsored terrorism and war crimes committed against the Palestinians, remains puzzling for international public opinion. Unfortunately, the Arabs failed to impress this self-evident truth on the mainstream of the American political intelligentsia and media. Even if Bush's argument that Arafat has "compromised with terrorism" is accepted, Sharon is simply seen by all outside this administration, as at least a warmonger, not to mention what is already very well documented in terms of his record as a war criminal. While ignoring the Israeli leader's history and the horrifying behaviour of the Israeli army in the West Bank and Gaza, the American media could not escape the conclusion that Bush has placed the burden of ending the stalemate that he created solely on Palestinian shoulders. If President Arafat does seek re-election, he will be re-elected with a landslide majority, perhaps primarily in a show of defiance by the Palestinian people against the intervention by the US administration in their domestic affairs. The deal presented by Bush appears calculated to blame Palestinians for the US's failure to fulfil its own international responsibilities. In this context, the only way out for the Palestinians is resistance, and accordingly more victimisation. Observers on the ground wonder how long Palestinians can endure the destruction brutally inflicted on them by the enormous Israeli war machine. What other means are available to get beyond the impasse? And who would be willing to shoulder their burdens? Other major world powers seem to have reconciled themselves to their impotence in international affairs and in the Arab-Israeli arena, more specifically. It is true that world leaders who took part in the G-8 summit in Canada last weekend refused to endorse Bush's call for ousting Arafat, but they did not offer an alternative way out from the present stalemate. In fact, last weekend witnessed a panoply of statements by US administration officials made specifically to block any attempts to get around the obvious in the speech, namely, Arafat's removal as a condition for statehood. The Arab world was crystal clear about its position on this issue. Both Egypt and Saudi Arabia endorsed the leadership of Arafat, on the basis that he is democratically elected leader of the Palestinian people. Elections are the arbiter, not Bush, nearly all Arab governments said publicly. Nonetheless, standing firmly by Arafat is no way out of the stalemate, at least in the short run. If all other actors fail to hint at an alternative strategy, then the burden falls on either the Americans themselves or, in the final analysis, the Palestinians. Americans said they have already started to "help" find alternative leaders. Names are being tossed about and put on the table. But observers agree on the futility of such an exercise. The Palestinian case is in no way similar to previous successes the Americans may have achieved in changing regimes in other countries. The model of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, for example, is different in every respect. Besides the US military campaign and international opposition, Milosevic was indeed overthrown by a popular uprising. Popular will in Palestine obviously goes counter to a regime change. Experts believe that the Palestinians have two options. The first is to challenge the American stand, and prove that insisting on removing Arafat is, from a political standpoint, irrelevant. The second option is initiating a genuine process of democratic reform in the occupied territories. According to this option, political reforms would be adopted based on their own merits. If the Palestinians were to accomplish a thorough democratisation of their society, Americans would be obliged to act to the letter on their commitment for Palestinian statehood. For example, building a parliamentary, rather than an excessively centralised presidential system, would allow the Palestinian political community to keep Arafat as a symbol of the state, while bringing a new set of leaders onto the stage through party competition for executive offices. The party or coalition of parties that wins parliamentary elections will have the mandate to negotiate independence. Such a model requires a complete overhaul of the Palestinian political and legal systems. Arafat himself may eventually be persuaded to lead this complete shift in the political direction of the governance of the Palestinian people simply because all other alternatives imply greater risks and losses. But this scenario necessitates the development of consensus among the Palestinian political elite on an overall strategy for the liberation of Palestine.
