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Update
from AIJAC
Why Arafat
cannot implement real reforms
August
3, 2004
Number 08/04 #01
Today's Update
continues the focus on the current unrest between different Palestinian
factions, and especially why no one really expects Arafat will acquiesce
to genuine reforms, with even the diplomatic Colin Powell saying in regard
to Arafat's promises, "President Arafat is a master of the ambiguous statement
or the statement with the yo-yo string on it. It gets pulled back."
We open with
some analysis of why Arafat is constitutionally incapable of reform from
Haaretz Palestinian affairs reporter Danny Rubinstein. He says Arafat's
life is politics, losing power is worse than dying to him. For his full
analysis, CLICK HERE.
Haaretz also
produced a good pocket guide to the corruption that is driving much of
the popular opposition to Arafat. To read it, CLICK HERE.
Finally,
former Israeli military intelligence officer Lt. Colonel Jonathan Halevi
has some more general analysis about what is driving the unrest, and what
lessons Israel should learn. For his full analysis of the situation, CLICK
HERE.
Yes,
yes, yes, yes - but no
By Danny
Rubinstein
Ha'aretz, July 26
Can Yasser Arafat survive the current crisis? The turmoil surrounding him
comes entirely from within the upper ranks of the Fatah movement. This is
the Palestinian ruling party, and all the people involved in this turmoil
are members of Fatah's leadership - both Mohammed Dahlan, who is leading
a quasi-rebellion in Gaza, and his rivals in the Strip, Mousa Arafat, Ghazi
Jibali and others.
Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala), his predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu
Mazen), and former minister Nabil Amr, who was seriously wounded in an attempt
on his life, are all from Fatah. The other Palestinian factions, Hamas and
the leftist organizations, are not involved in the severe crisis.
What is being asked of Arafat is seemingly not much - no one is asking him
to resign and give up his seat to a different chairman. What they are asking
of him is to implement reforms in the Fatah movement and give more governing
powers to his comrades in the movement. For instance, cabinet member Jamal
Shubaki (from Fatah, of course) proposed over the weekend that all the problems
be resolved by convening a general assembly of the Fatah movement and holding
new internal elections for the movement's institutions. There has not been
a Fatah general assembly in 16 years, and the discontent among movement
activists is great. In addition, Shubaki argues that the government should
simply adhere to Palestinian law, which precisely defines the division of
authority within its top echelons.
Thus Yasser Arafat could resolve the problem relatively easily by transferring
powers to the prime minister and the other ministers, and ordering the necessary
changes in the security services. He could also approve new elections within
Fatah and call a general assembly to elect new people to its institutions.
But based on past experience, there is no chance at all that he will do
this. He might pretend that he is transferring governmental powers and implementing
reforms in the Fatah movement, but in practice, nothing will change.
All of Arafat's acquaintances would presumably agree with this statement.
The reason is his unique character as head of the Palestinian movement,
which is expressed in the fact that Arafat essentially has no private life.
In other words, his entire existence revolves solely around political activity.
He has never had a family life. It is also possible to say that he has never
had a home. Family, home, social life, earning a living, entertainment,
culture - all are connected to his political work and take place within
the confines of his office, 24 hours a day. This is not only true now, when
he is under siege in the Muqata, but has been true virtually ever since
he decided to become active in Palestinian politics.
For Arafat, giving up his authority does not merely mean giving up political
power; it means giving up his life. Without exaggerating greatly, it is
possible to state that he would prefer physical death to political death.
In other words, he would rather die than implement any reforms that would
mean giving up his powers.
The few powers that have been taken away from him recently have not really
hurt him. Responsibility for some of the Palestinian Authority's financial
affairs was indeed taken from him and transferred to his finance minister,
Salam Fayyad, and the diplomatic sphere is also being handled primarily
by others: Abu Ala, Nabil Shaath, Saeb Erekat and Jibril Rajoub. But when
one examines the matter closely, one sees that he still controls all of
these areas. He still personally signs checks in every sphere that is not
subject to external supervision by donor nations. He decides who will travel
abroad and when, and who will meet with foreign diplomats. He continues
to manipulate all the people around him. He allows them to run around, to
make decisions, to set up committees - but in the end, he continues to rule,
just as he did in the past.
© Copyright 2004 Haaretz. All rights reserved
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Background/
A Who's Who of corruption in Arafat's Palestine
By Bradley
Burston, Haaretz Correspondent
Haaretz, July 29
From the start, the intifada was an uprising with two targets.
The first goal, that of winning Palestinian statehood by force, now seems
more distant than at any time in more than a decade.
The second, that of rooting out pervasive corruption within Yasser Arafat's
Palestinian Authority, may yet prove even harder to attain.
In the eyes of much of the world, the long spasm of Palestinian violence
was fueled solely by fury over occupation. But the bottomless well of rage
also tapped years of grass-roots resentment over graft in the Authority,
which in the eyes of its constituency had sapped, diverted, misspent and
squirreled away fortunes; funds which could have helped meet the humanitarian
needs of more than three million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip.
How widespread is corruption in the PA, and how deeply rooted?
Murky overlays of complex and questionable bookkeeping have stymied efforts
to follow the money trails that crisscross Arafat's Authority.
There is also a firewall of secrecy shielding Arafat's much-rumored Second
Treasury, or slush fund, believed to be the central vehicle for largesse
and the loyalty it underwrites.
The fund, said to total nearly a half billion dollars, is thought to be
used to pay senior PA officials multiple salaries for non-existent government
positions; to finance villas, vacations and even lavish weddings for PA
brass and their children; and, through intermediaries, pay for the violent
operations of the Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs and other armed groups.
The same lack of transparency that has made it all but impossible to prove
allegations of graft, has also reinforced the popular perception that the
entire senior leadership is on the take, with the signal exception of one
man whose ascetic, breathing-martyr lifestyle has no room for mammon, Yasser
Arafat himself.
The picture is further darkened, and Palestinian ire deepened, by the fact
that in several cases, the closer the contact that PA officials have had
with Israel, the wider their range of options for graft, including bribes
paid to lubricate the process of obtaining crucial permits from both the
Jewish state and the Palestinian state in the making.
The following is a selected Who's Who of perceived corruption in the Authority.
GENERAL MUSA ARAFAT
Cousin of the PA chairman, Musa Arafat is seen by many Palestinians as one
of the two most corrupt officials in the Authority.
Much of the current rage at Musa Arafat stems from his past association
with Kamal Hamad, once considered the most senior collaborator with Israel
in the Gaza Strip.
The charges recall allegations that Musa Arafat collaborated with Jordanian
officials during the Hashemite kingdom's bloody1970 Black September operation
to drive out the PLO.
In apparent exchange for a pardon Hamad received from Yasser Arafat over
collaboration charges, Hamad is reported to have given land to the early
Palestinian Authority. Hamad is also believed to have given Musa Arafat
a free apartment in one of the buildings Hamad owns in the Strip.
Later, Hamad is thought to have returned to aiding Israeli security authorities,
particularly in the 1996 killing of Hamas suicide bomb mastermind Yihyeh
Ayyash.
According to Hamad's nephew, Osama, a Hamas activist who had been sheltering
the bombmaker in his apartment at the time of the assassination, Kamal Hamad
had given him the cellular phone packed with explosives that blew up when
Ayyash answered a call, decapitating the man Palestinians had hailed as
the Engineer.
This month, Yasser Arafat touched off a brushfire revolt in Gaza when '
in a move ostensibly made for the sake of reform ' he responded to the brief
kidnapping of Gaza's police chief by naming Musa Arafat as head of General
Security, a new agency which put Musa in charge of the PA's 23,000-25,000
armed regulars, in effect, the Palestinian army.
PRIME MINISTER AHMED QUREIA
A cement company owned by Qureia's family is alleged to have sold large
quantities of cement for use in construction of West Bank settlements as
well as for wall segments of the separation fence, including the tall concrete
slabs which cut through Qureia's home town ' and the company's base ' Abu
Dis.
Shortly before the allegations were made public, Qureia had transferred
ownership of the company to a relative - a move that only deepened suspicions
among his accusers.
The Palestinian cement industry has come under particular scrutiny by PA
legislators attempting to probe corruption suspicions.
Israel has imposed tough restrictions on the cement trade in the territories
- but has relaxed the curbs for a select number of businessmen. In Gaza,
for example, cement merchants close to ex-security official Mohammed Dahlan
- the highest-profile voice for PA reforms - are said to receive preferential
treatment by Israeli authorities, thus ensuring vastly enhanced profits.
BRIGADIER GENERAL GHAZI JABALI
Chief of Palestinian Police in the Gaza Strip since 1994. Viewed by some
as Arafat's 'enforcer' to curb dissidents. Fired several times, for corruption
among other charges, repeatedly reinstated by Arafat.
Trusted by the PA chairman but by few others, Jabali is profoundly unpopular
among Palestinians and is viewed as one of the most corrupt of all PA officials.
This month, in the latest of a series of attacks against Jabali, armed militants
fought a gun battle with his bodyguards, kidnapping him briefly. Parading
him through a refugee camp, they publicly accused him of stealing as much
as $22 million in PA monies.
FOREIGN MINISTER NABIL SHAATH
Shaath is suspected of having used his position, mobility, and contacts
as the PA's longtime minister of planning and international cooperation
in order to increase his sizable wealth and his business interests across
the Arab world.
As early as 1997, the Palestinian Legislative Council took the rare step
of publicly demanding that Shaath be sacked, brought to trial for gross
corruption, and sentenced to prison. The PLC was acting in response to a
report by the Palestinian State Controller, who found that nearly half of
the PA's $326 million 1997 budget had been 'lost through corruption or financial
mismanagement.' The next year an official PLC commission of inquiry into
Shaath's dealings declared that it had found evidence of criminal corruption.
In the end, Shaath, a key peace negotiator, stayed on in his post. Last
year, when Mahmoud Abbas became prime minister, he promoted Shaath to foreign
minister.
SUHA ARAFAT
In February, French prosecutors said they had opened an investigation into
millions of dollars in transfers from an unnamed 'Swiss institution' into
two separate Paris bank accounts held by Yasser Arafat's wife Suha, who
lives in the French capital with the couple's daughter and Suha's mother,
Raymonda Tawil.
The location of Suha Arafat's residence has been kept secret, but media
reports have said the three occupied an entire floor at the posh Bristol
Hotel. The hotel has denied the reports.
Apart from the alleged transfers, she reportedly receives some $100,000
a month from the Palestinian Authority treasury.
The French investigation is focusing in its initial stage on transfers totalling
nine million euros, or $11.5 million, to accounts at the Arab Bank and the
Banque Nationale de Paris in the name of Suha Arafat, made over the period
of a year beginning in June 2002.
In September last year, the International Monetary Fund made public the
results of a special audit of PA financial practices. IMF senior auditor
Karim Nashashibi charged that as much as $900m had been diverted between
1995 and 2000 into "a special account controlled by Yasser Arafat".
The IMF report also found that a total of $74 million had been earmarked
for Yasser Arafat's office, but that there was no explanation for the intended
uses of the allocation.
REFORMERS UNDER SUSPICION
There are also indications that several Palestinian figures in the forefront
of demands for PA reform have in the recent past been on the receiving end
of substantial sums of a questionable nature.
One of the two men often cited in this regard is Dahlan, the sharply tailored
national security chief under Abbas, who had extensive contacts with Israeli
officials in his former roles as a lead peace negotiator on security issues
and as head of the Preventative Security Service in the Gaza Strip, the
agency charged with heading off terror attacks against Israelis.
Asked where he obtained the wherewithal to purchase the luxurious home of
onetime Gaza City mayor and wealthy landowner Rashid Shawwa for a reported
$600,000, Dahlan told a reporter that the price had actually been $400,000,
and that the funds had all been granted him according to bylaws set down
by the Fatah movement.
There is also the case of former negotiator and ex-PA minister of information
Nabil Amr, shot twice in the leg at his home in Ramallah last week, minutes
after having returned from a television interview during which he criticized
Arafat's Authority for unwillingness to reform.
Commented one Palestinian source, comparing Amr's spacious residence to
the small, spartan apartment of jailed Fatah West Bank leader Marwan Barghouthi:
"Amr waited until he built his villa and married off his daughter, all on
funds given him by Arafat, before setting out on his crusade against corruption."
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The
Palestinian Rebellion in Fatah
Foreshadowing
the Politics of the Post-Arafat Era
Lt.
Col. Jonathan D. Halevi
JERUSALEM ISSUE BRIEF Vol. 3, No. 30 - 2 August 2004
Jerusalem
Centre for Public Affairs
For the first
time since the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994, popular
rage aimed at the "corrupt leadership" enjoys the backing of the most
powerful militia in Gaza - the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
Arafat's opponents support the holding of municipal elections and elections
to the Palestinian parliament in order to remove the Old Guard from power.
In this way, the leaders of the intifada hope to receive the share
of power they feel they deserve, and this would also improve Mohammad
Dahlan's chances of succeeding Arafat.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which continues to express its commitment
to the armed struggle, is striving to upgrade its status from an armed
militia under the command of the political leadership of Fatah to become
a central political element, controlling the mother movement by force
and playing a major part in the decision-making process.
Thus, this is not an ideological struggle between old Arafat-Tunis hardliners
originating from outside the territories and young moderate insiders,
but rather a power struggle involving a broad spectrum of Arafat opponents,
many of whom are no less inflexible and militant.
The probable takeover of Fatah by its militia will create a more radical
and hard-line movement with regard to settling the conflict with Israel.
In light of past operational cooperation between the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
and Hamas, under the "Nationalist and Islamic Forces" umbrella, Hamas
could become a stronger factor at a later stage by cooperating with these
Fatah militants.
A Significant Challenge to Arafat
The organized protests that have recently erupted in the Gaza Strip represent
a significant challenge to the leadership of Yasser Arafat. For the first
time since the Palestinian Authority (PA) was established in 1994, popular
rage aimed at the "corrupt leadership" enjoys the backing of the most
powerful militia in Gaza - the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - which is the
military wing of the Fatah movement headed by Arafat himself. Moreover,
the criticism is being directed specifically toward Arafat for his lack
of openness and his despotic way of running the PA. By late July, the
revolt had spread to the West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus.
The sequence of events in Gaza began as follows: On 16 July 2004, armed
Palestinians belonging to different factions within the Fatah movement
abducted and then released police commander Razi Jebali, the head of the
coordination office with Israel Khalid Abu Olah, and four French humanitarian
activists in Khan Yunis. A PA military intelligence facility was also
set on fire by Palestinian mobs. During the next two weeks, groups of
armed Palestinians rallied against the corrupt leadership of the PA, burned
down a police station in the village of Zawaidah, and briefly took over
the governor's office in Khan Yunis, retreating only after Arafat yielded
to their demand to reinstate eleven dismissed officers. 1The escalating
struggle with Arafat was also evidenced by the attempted assassination
in Ramallah of former PA cabinet minister Nabil Amr, who was targeted
by forces loyal to Arafat (that had threatened former PA Prime Minister
Mahmud Abbas [Abu Mazen] in the past.)
The Hidden Hand of Mohammad Dahlan
Behind the rage in the Palestinian street stands the home-grown, local
leadership, the Young Guard within the Fatah movement, as opposed to the
Old Guard who had returned to the territories with Arafat from Tunis and
elsewhere in 1994 after the Oslo Accords. Mohammad Dahlan, former head
of the Preventive Security Service (PSS) in Gaza, is considered to be
the hidden leader of the dissidents who defines the goals and targets,
and orchestrates the rebellion by remote control. 2Dahlan appears to have
successfully gathered to his side a strong coalition comprised of loyal
officers in the PSS, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades operatives, the Popular
Resistance Committees (a terrorist militia headed by former PSS officers),
the Abu Rish militia in Rafah, and the Fatah leadership in the Gaza Strip.
3
As the riots persist, more and more Palestinian politicians have dared
to join the public demand for political reforms and the criticism of Arafat.
Former Palestinian cabinet minister Rafiq al-Natshe said Arafat "runs
a dictatorship," operates "gangs" to stay in power, and "oiled parliament
members with twelve million dollars" in order to depose him from his former
position. 4Hannan Ashrawi, a prominent Palestinian spokeswoman and parliament
member, called for the end of Arafat's "one-man-show" and accused him
of unlawfully holding control of the security forces. 5The PA Minister
of Housing, Abd al-Rahman Hamad, called on Arafat to give up a portion
of his security powers and appoint a strong minister of interior.
In an interview with the Beirut daily Al-Hayat (25 July 2004), Mohammad
Dahlan denied any connection to the revolt in Gaza, emphasizing that his
dispute is with Arafat's corrupt assistants and advisors and not with
Arafat himself, whom he called the "symbol" of the Palestinian people.
However, Dahlan did not hesitate to express his sympathy for the Al-Aqsa
Martyrs Brigades. "I am proud of defending them [Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
operatives] every time it was necessary. They are familiar [to the Palestinian
people] and are proud of their heroic operations, which brought dignity
to the Palestinian people." 6
Despite his public denials, this is not the first time Dahlan has challenged
Arafat in the past year. He has often criticized Arafat's ruling style
in closed sessions, diplomatic meetings, and even in briefings with Western
journalists. 7In recent months, Dahlan has urged Fatah leaders in Gaza
to invigorate political life within Fatah by beginning an electoral process
to select the local leadership after years of organizational stagnation
- ignoring Arafat's strong opposition to such moves. 8Dahlan has also
begun to go public with his criticism, charging in an interview with the
Kuwaiti daily al-Watan (1 August 2004) that Arafat is sitting on "the
bodies of the Palestinians and on "their ruins." He also revealed that
five billion dollars in financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority
over the last number of years has vanished, and that he has no idea what
happened to the money. 9
The initial goals of the current "rebellion" were the removal of Razi
Jebali and Moussa Arafat (Arafat's nephew) from their positions of power
as commanders of the Palestinian Police and the National Security Forces,
respectively. Both long-time Dahlan rivals were blamed for corruption
and cronyism. However, the criticism against them is only the tip of the
iceberg and serves as an indication of deeper aspirations by the intriguers.
Dahlan and his counterparts, backed by Prime Minister Ahmad Qurei and
parliament members, are demanding that Arafat implement comprehensive
security reforms, which primarily include the reorganization of the security
services under a defined hierarchy and the transfer of Arafat's security
authority to the prime minister. In addition, Arafat's opponents support
the holding of municipal elections and elections to the Palestinian parliament
in order to remove the Old Guard from power. In this way they hope to
further weaken Arafat's influence and pave the way for the leaders of
the intifada to receive the share of power they feel they deserve. This
would also improve Dahlan's chances of succeeding Arafat.
"The Dream of the Martyrs"
On 15 July 2004, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades published for the first
time a detailed political platform under the name, "The Dream of the Martyrs,"
which reveals their future aspirations. The Brigades cast responsibility
for the dire straits of the Palestinians on all levels of the PA leadership
who were involved in corruption or in the "fruitless" peace negotiations.
Defining "corruption and the [Israeli] occupation" as "two sides of the
same coin," they call for establishing a judicial committee with authority
to investigate all suspected Palestinian officials without any restrictions.
Even more interesting from the Israeli perspective is the Brigades' political
vision. The Brigades express their commitment to the same outlook represented
by Yasser Arafat, namely, the establishment of a Palestinian state up
to the 1967 borders, evacuation of all Israeli settlements in the West
Bank, and implementation of the "right of return" of millions of Palestinian
refugees to Israel's sovereign territory. Following the Fatah ideology
consistently, they announced their total commitment to pursuing the armed
struggle against Israel until all Palestinian national objectives are
realized, including the return of the refugees, which means the destruction
of Israel by demographic means. 10 Thus, this is not an ideological struggle
between old Arafat-Tunis hardliners originating from outside the territories
and young moderate insiders, but rather a power struggle involving a broad
spectrum of Arafat opponents, many of whom are no less inflexible and
militant.
Arafat is fully aware of the severe and unprecedented challenge to his
leadership. Under growing domestic pressure, he consented to dismiss Razi
Jebali and appointed Abd al-Razeq al-Majaidah as supreme commander of
Palestinian forces in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. He also canceled
the new appointment of Moussa Arafat and ordered a reduction in the number
of security services to three. 11
Finally, in response to broad public pressure, he appeared to acquiesce
to a broad reshuffle of the Palestinian cabinet and to transfer some of
his own security powers to Prime Minister Qurei, who then withdrew his
previous resignation. 12 But this time, it seems that Arafat's tactics
are not as effective as they were in the past. Arafat is finding it more
difficult to please his opponents without taking into consideration their
demands and giving up his security powers.
Lessons from the Current Crisis
The major lessons to be learned so far from the current crisis in Gaza
are as follows:
- The rebellion
against Arafat serves the interests of the moderate Arab states (Egypt
and Jordan) as well as Israel, the U.S., and the EU, all of whom desire
to see the end of Arafat's political role or at least a significant
decrease in his influence on the decision-making process.
- Dahlan
has strengthened his position as a national leader and as a would-be
successor to Arafat. He has become identified with the reformers rather
than with the old, hated regime of which he was a part for many years.
- Arafat's
opposition is heterogeneous and includes moderate Fatah leaders alongside
the armed militias, although the two groups represent completely different
political agendas. While the moderate reformers are finding in this
course of events a political opportunity to promote democracy and to
renew negotiations with Israel, the militias, which continue to express
their commitment to the armed struggle, are striving to gain political
power at the expense of the Old Guard. Thus, a victory over Arafat in
this round will not necessarily lead to a new and pragmatic Palestinian
line.
- Israel's
planned unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip has accelerated
the struggle over future Palestinian rule. In this context, the Al-Aqsa
Martyrs Brigades is striving to upgrade its status from an armed militia
under the command of the political leadership of Fatah to become a central
political element, controlling the mother movement by force and playing
a major part in the decision-making process.
- The probable
takeover of Fatah by its militia will create a more radical and hard-line
movement with regard to settling the conflict with Israel. However,
the moderate leaders of Fatah, reading the political map, prefer to
side with the rebels and lash out at Arafat in order to clear themselves
from possible accusations of corruption and connection to the "old regime."
- Gaza's
slide into chaos, the crumbling of the Palestinian Authority, and even
the eruption of a limited Palestinian civil war have all become real
and possible. The current crisis, even if contained, foreshadows the
likely scenario to be expected on the day after Arafat leaves the scene.
- Meanwhile,
Hamas and Islamic Jihad are out of the game. At the same time, they
are taking advantage of the rivalry inside of Fatah in order to emphasize
their anti-corruption agenda and to demand the establishment of a supreme
joint Palestinian leadership. In light of past operational cooperation
between the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas, under the "Nationalist
and Islamic Forces" umbrella, Hamas could become a stronger factor at
a later stage by cooperating with these Fatah militants. It is not surprising
that Palestinian political observers from Mustapha Barghouti to Khalil
Shikaki envision a unity government that integrates Palestinian Islamists
into the political system. 13
The Twilight
of Arafat's Rule
In short, the revolt against Arafat originated from his own Fatah movement
and signals the twilight of Arafat's rule. The Young Guard in Fatah is
striving to force a change of generations in the leadership of Fatah and
the Palestinian Authority, keeping Arafat only as a "symbol" and a "spiritual
leader" for the Palestinian people.
Surprisingly, at this historical junction, the interests of Israel and
the new Palestinian leadership coincide, although from different approaches.
The new Palestinian leadership sees in the proposed reforms and elections
a golden opportunity to take over Palestinian rule. Israel, for its part,
is interested primarily in stability in the Palestinian territories, in
toppling Arafat, and in the establishment of a new Palestinian Authority
capable of taking responsibility for security issues. Yet, after the dust
settles, a Palestinian political outlook based on a "zero-sum game" may
be expected to once again dominate Palestinian-Israeli relations.
* *
*
Notes
1. http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART/756/345.html
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART/757/057.html
http://www.nrg.co.il/online
/1/ART/759/463.html
2. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/700/re3.htm
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/
ShowFull&cid=1090045862446
3. Ibid.
4. http://www.alhaqaeq.net/defaultch.asp?action=showarticle&secid=5&articleid=21142
5. http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-2952802,00.html
6. http://www.daralhayat.com/arab_news/levant_news/07-2004/20040724-25P01-03.txt/story.html
7. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,747635,00.html
8. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/447971.html
9. "Dahlan: Arafat is Sitting on the Bodies of the Palestinians," Voice
of Israel Radio, 1 August 2004 (Hebrew).
10. http://www.alhaqaeq.net/defaultch.asp?action=showarticle&secid=5&articleid=21138
11. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=6422
12. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=6667;
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=1386
13. Khalil Shikaki, "Let Us Vote," Wall Street Journal, 30 July 2004.
* *
*
Lt. Col. Jonathan D. Halevi is a researcher of the Middle East and
radical Islam. His previous writings include "Is Hamas Preparing to Inherit
the Palestinian Authority?" Jerusalem Issue Brief #3-14 (January 7, 2004);
"Al-Qaeda's Intellectual Legacy: New Radical Islamic Thinking Justifying
the Genocide of Infidels," Jerusalem Viewpoints #508 (December 1, 2003);
"Who is Taking Credit for Attacks on the U.S. Army in Western Iraq? Al-Jama'a
al-Salafiya al-Mujahida," Jerusalem Issue Brief #3-3 (August 5, 2003);
and "Understanding the Breakdown of Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations,"
Jerusalem Viewpoints #486 (September 15, 2002). The views expressed here
do not necessarily reflect those of the IDF.
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