Yasser Arafat showed once again this month that he is absolutely opposed to expanding Palestinian democracy. Since the Clinton administration has been silent on what happened, here is a brief account.
The elected 88-seat Palestinian Legislative Council did an audit of Arafat’s administration and found that nearly half his $ 800 million budget was being lost to graft or waste. The council demanded a cabinet shake-up and recommended that three ministers be prosecuted for corruption. A cabinet shake-up there has indeed been. All three ministers accused of corruption have been kept in office. Two critics of corruption were demoted and resigned in protest. To buy off other critics, Arafat appointed 10 new ministers, most without portfolio but with the usual perks — car and driver, for starters.
As reported in the Ferusalem Post, the departing minister of agriculture Abed Sallah summed it all up: “This is a new government in which the effective ministers have been kicked out and the corrupt ones have remained.” It is, moreover, an Arafat kick in the teeth to the council and to the very notion of accountability. Palestinian tax revenues go directly to Arafat, but where they go after that appears to be anyone’s guess.
Why hasn’t the administration done anything about this? The policy mindset that wants a strong Milosevic to do business with, and fears deposing Saddam Hussein because there might be instability in Iraq, is at work here, too. The “peace process” is thought to require a strong Arafat as a “partner” in “building peace and democracy.” Some democracy. Some partner.
