Will he just fade away?
RICHARD GWYN
There is far more than Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's notorious inefficiency, authoritarianism and tolerance of corruption behind the violent protests against him that have just taken place in the Gaza Strip.
The 1.2 million Palestinians in Gaza live in the equivalent of an open-air jail that is grossly overcrowded, scandalously underfunded, and where the jailers are harsh and often brutal. Their already low living conditions have declined by a full one-third during the three years of the second intifada. Israeli reprisals regularly kill civilians and destroy their houses.
As if all of this were not enough, the Palestinians of Gaza can daily compare their pitiable conditions with those of normal people by staring through the barbed wire at the lush fields of the Jewish settlers who, even though there are only 7,000 of them, occupy one-quarter of Gaza's land and consume one-third of its water.
For Palestinians, whether in Gaza or in the West Bank, to openly protest against Arafat is almost as difficult as protesting against their Israeli jailers.
That Arafat can punish and jail dissidents and has done so often, matters. The crucial factor is that he is the father of the Palestinian nation. Turning against Arafat openly is almost the equivalent of patricide. It is as difficult for Palestinians to do this as it is for Cubans to turn on Fidel Castro, his faults and failures not withstanding.
Beneath the surface, though, anger, resentment and outright despair have been building up in Gaza against Arafat for a long time.
Perhaps the most telling illustration of this attitude was a poll reported last month by the well-respected Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah. It found a widespread demand for democracy. More revealing, the kind of democracy that people of Gaza most want to copy, according to the survey, is that of the Israelis. In this sense, they admire their enemies more than their own leader.
A few days ago, this suppressed demand for democracy and openness — and simply for ordinary decency in government — found its rallying point. Word spread through Gaza City and through the refugee camps of an example of governmental corruption that this time involved an unrestrained contempt for the Palestinians by their own leaders.
Palestinian legislators, usually a pretty docile crowd, have uncovered evidence of what has to be by far the worst scandal during the 10 years of Arafat rule. It turns out that Gaza-based companies have supplied huge amounts of cement — some 400,000 tonnes — to Israeli contractors to be used to construct the controversial wall now being built between Israel and the West Bank.
The legislators have concluded that Palestinian officials accepted bribes to issue import and export licences to move the cement to Israel through Gaza from Egypt. Cairo cancelled all export permits once the destination of the material was discovered.
When the legislators — led by former senior Arafat cabinet minister Abdel Jawad Saleh, who had resigned to protest the scandal — attempted to start a public debate, they were silenced. Saleh was ejected from the meeting when he tried to raise the matter. He then gave a television interview in which he called for "peaceful demonstrations to bring down the legislative council."
The discovery of this trading with the enemy was the trigger that finally brought the people of Gaza out into the streets against Arafat. Sensing the magnitude of the change of attitude, Prime Minister Ahmed Qureira resigned.
Arafat, who is the great survivor, has apparently survived this crisis. He has persuaded Qureira to withdraw his resignation by promising greater power over the security services. In typical Arafat style, there are 13 of these security agencies, all fiercely competing.
Other crises are inevitable. Sooner or later, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will implement his plan to withdraw the Jewish settlers from Gaza. Most, in fact, will be resettled in the West Bank.
Once the Israeli army withdraws, an all-out struggle for power will break out between the Islamic fundamentalists of Hamas and Arafat's officials, and his now dwindling number of supporters there.
An actual civil war, although often predicted, in fact isn't likely. Neither will Arafat himself ever step down.
The probability instead is that, increasingly, Arafat's authority will dwindle to the symbolic and the ceremonial.
He is still the father of his people. But, for the first time, they have shown they are ready to tell him openly that it's time for him to go.
Whether the democracy Palestinians have shown they want, or a religious dictatorship will come after Arafat goes, will determine whether Gaza's sickness will continue indefinitely, or begin, at last, to heal.
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