By Hanna Siniora
Evacuation of
Settlers:
The world media
focused its attention, on the evacuation of Israeli settlers from the 21
settlements in the Gaza Strip, and to a lesser extent on the four
northern West Bank settlements. Wisely the Israeli authority shortened
this traumatic event, although as a Palestinian I felt elated like most
of my country-men, that similar to Yamit in Sinai, with the complete
evacuation of settlers by next week, Ariel Sharon has created a
precedent that eventually will apply in all of the West Bank.
Massacre in
Shillo
The atrocious
killing of four innocent Palestinian workers in Shillo by their Israeli
driver, who boasted that his conscience does not rebuke him, and that he
would repeat his heinous act again, demonstrated to what extent Israeli
terrorists are willing to go. An awful lot of restraint was demonstrated
by all the Palestinian political movements, and despite the pain, the
Palestinian Authority (PA), demonstrated the capability to enforce law
and order.
Kidnapping
Continues
What marred this
capability by the PA was the kidnapping of journalist Mohamed Wadhi, an
Algerian soundman with France3, a French citizens. For the past week,
the security apparatus headed by the Ministry of Interior led a
concerted effort to free Wadhi but until this moment, there is no clue
who carried the kidnapping and what are their demands. Apparently it is
a rogue group that will be caught and punished.
Visit to Gaza
On the same day, I
visited Gaza accompanied by an Israeli Journalist and we both toured the
strip from the Palestinian side, and we felt safe and were able to meet
a variety of people, farmers, businessmen, unemployed laborers, decision
makers, members of the legislative council and a spirit of cautious
expectation for better days was the general trend.
The low threshold
of expectations is a good omen because people were looking for the
ability to move freely, of finding new jobs, a better quality of life,
and the ability of the PA to realize those expectations would either
enhance its credibility or otherwise doom its leadership.
National
Elections
The PA despite its
complete preoccupation with the disengagement process, President Abbas
and the cabinet, present permanently in Gaza, finally, announced that on
January 25, 2006, national elections for a new parliament the
Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) will take place. The basic and the
new election laws were ratified and approved by the PLC, Presidency and
the cabinet. The new system will create an expanded parliament from 88
seats to 132 seats, which will have half the seats elected
proportionally and the other half district wise, similar to the old
system.
In Jerusalem, many
parties and groups are contesting the coming elections, I belong to a
group organized around the theme of social and economic development that
will field a state of candidates to contest the elections in the
district of Jerusalem.
Local Elections
Prime Minister
Ahmad Qurei announced the holding of the third round of local elections
and fixed the date for the 29th. of September 2005. The
nominations for candidates will take place for ten days from the 20th
of August.
Previously similar
rounds for local elections have taken place in many towns and villages
in Gaza and the West Bank
were women took many seats and Fatah and Hamas emerged as the two major
parties.
So far with the
exception of Bethlehem and Qalqilya, the elections in the cities will be
left for later this year. These local elections have demonstrated the
growing power of Hamas.
In Jordan –
Relations
King Abdallah II in
a meeting with his cabinet, and the Jordanian Parliament brought the
issue of the relations between Jordan and the PA, based on the recent
political developments. Foremost, the call by international quarters of
absorption of Palestinian refugees and granting those refugees
citizenship in the Arab countries were they reside, beside discussing
reforms and responsibilities of the cabinet, the parliament and the
crown.
In Jordan, a large
group of what is called Afghani Arabs, Jordanian citizens who were
previously recruited to fight in Afghanistan the Soviet occupation and
later returned to Jordan are suspected behind the Aqaba – Eilat rocket
bombing targeting two American military vessels.
The damage was
limited but a Jordanian soldier was killed and another wounded, as the
attempt misfired. The danger is that groups similar to those that
carried the car bombings in Sharm El Sheikh and Taba have the ability to
destabilize the regimes, and undermine the development of tourism in the
region.
Gaza Economic
Envelope
President Mahmoud
Abbas and PM Qurei joined the masses in rejoicing the removal of the 21
settlements in Gaza.
But many issues
remain pending, the most important is not when the Israeli army will
hand over the area of the Israeli settlements to the Palestinian
Authority., but the economic envelope that will exist following that is
uppermost on the mind of Palestinian officials. If Israel will install a
different regime than the custom union ratified in Paris and still
operational, this will probably doom the economic development of the
strip.
So far all the
efforts of the Wolfensohn group has not clarified this issue, and it
will not be resolved until, the Palestinian, Israeli and Egyptian sides
come to an agreement on the Rafah passageway and what controls are
agreed upon.
What is becoming
clear, Abu Mazen and his team are exerting their full efforts and slowly
improving their control, despite the efforts to undermine the progress. |