Reforming the Palestinian Authority will prove a difficult task because of opposition from entrenched interests and corruption, writes Michael Jansen
The 100-day plan for reforming the Palestinian Authority was bound to provoke trouble as soon as implementation began.
Firstly, the external powers demanding reform have a very different agenda than that of the Palestinians. As a result, the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, has had to respond to conflicting pressures from Israel and the international community, on one hand, and his own people, on the other. While both parties insist that priority should be given to security, they have very different interpretations of what this entails.
Israel and the US say his dozen-plus security agencies have failed to prevent or halt terrorist attacks against Israelis. Palestinians complain that these agencies have failed to defend them from the Israeli army which has been invading and occupying Palestinian cities and towns since the end of March.
If Mr Arafat succeeds in unifying his security agencies and placing them under the control of his new Interior Minister, Gen Abdel Razzak Yehya, he will have to balance Israel's need for security with the Palestians' demand for protection. If he fails Israel, Gen Yehya will be accused of incompetence, if he gives Israel what it wants but fails the Palestinians, he will be called a "collaborator".
Secondly, Mr Arafat has encountered instant resistance from key figures representing deeply entrenched political and financial interests who were removed from powerful posts. Mr Muhammad Dahlan, head of preventive security in the Gaza Strip, stepped down several weeks ago and pledged to promote reform.
But Mr Jibril Rajoub, his counterpart in the West Bank, and Mr Ghazi Jabali, head of intelligence in Gaza, initially rejected dismissal. When both men finally accepted their dismissal, Mr Rajoub's followers demonstrated against his replacement by a civilian, the former governor of Jenin, Mr Zuhair Manasra, and Mr Jabali said he would challenge Mr Arafat for the presidency in next January's election.
Mr Arafat has also, reportedly, signed the order to remove the West Bank intelligence chief, Mr Tewfiq Tirawi, accused by Israel of aiding terrorists. As many as 20 senior security officials could lose their jobs.
However, with the aim of softening the blow to Mr Rajoub's following within the 4,000 strong preventive security agency, Mr Arafat is said to have offered him the posts of chief adviser or deputy interior minister. But giving in to Mr Rajoub's backers would wreck the entire reform endeavour.
It is hardly surprising that these men should be the first to go. The Palestine Authority's (PA) security chiefs and many of their officers are renowned for abuse of authority, corruption and racketeering. Mr Rajoub's men have been accused of running protection operations,involvement in car-theft networks and other criminal activities. Although Mr Dahlan has a better record, one Palestinian informant remarked: "While he did not have the price of tennis shoes a few years ago, he recently bought the massive villa of a former Gaza mayor [the late Mr Mansour Shawa]."
Ironically, Mr Rajoub and Mr Dahlan, who have closely co-operated with the US Central Intelligence Agency and Israel's Shin Bet, have been named by Washington as possible successors to Mr Arafat.
Neither would be likely to defeat Mr Arafat in a free and fair election because ordinary Palestinians, who have had enough of authoritarianism and abuses by the security apparatus, want democracy and clean government.
Thirdly, most of Mr Arafat's immediate entourage and many of the civilian fixtures in his cabinets stand accused of mismanagement and corruption. The latest major scandal is the malfunctioning Gaza power plant which was meant to replace expensive electricity imported from Israel which rations supplies to the Strip because of non-payment of fees.
Although last month Mr Arafat reduced his cabinet from 32 to 21 ministries and introduced five new faces, Palestinian analysts agree that this is not the radical reformation needed to transform the desperate situation in the West Bank and Gaza where half of the population depends on international aid for basic necessities.
The key finance portfolio went to Mr Salem Fayyad, a former high-flyer with the International Monetary Fund, who is determined to wipe out corruption in the PA's finances. But he will have to contend with Mr Arafat's determination to retain control as well as the secretive and mysterious practices of his chief economic adviser, Mr Khaled Salam, also known as "Muhammad Rashid".
Finally, on Sunday the new Minister of Justice, Mr Ibrahim Dughmeh, announced that the PA had begun to implement the provisional constitution, or basic law. This document was drawn up and approved by the Palestinian Legislative Council in 1997 but Mr Arafat refused to sign it into law until May this year.
According to an authoritative source involved with the international consortium of 27 countries and aid agencies advising the PA, the authority, formally established in 1996, evolved as a corrupt and inefficient entity because "no pressure was exerted" on Mr Arafat to form a democratic, accountable, transparent administration. Instead, the US and international donors ignored and undermined the efforts to secure reform undertaken by the Legislative Council and the democratic opposition.