The Failed State of Palestine

a review by Jerry Gordon (November 2013)

State of Failure: Yasser Arafat , Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State
by Jonathan Schanzer
Palgrave Macmillan, October 2013
ISBN 978-1-137-27824-1

 

 

 

 

tragic possibility of the US relenting on tough sanctions while he contends that the Islamic republic is on the ropes economically. During the press conference, Netanyahu and Kerry made statements regarding the final status agreement peace process discussions between Israel and  the Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas. Few details emerged about progress in the final status talks. The US is monitoring those talks through the efforts of former US Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk and Phillip Gordon, the National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and Persian Gulf. Those talks are fragile at best given an increase in low level violence in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria and entreaties by PA President Abbas to EU companies to boycott Jewish businesses located there.

UNESCO in 2011, and non member status on November 29, 2012 when the UN General Assembly voted 138 to 9 to raise the status of the Palestinian Authority. Abbas demanded in memos to UN Secretary  General  Moon that the PA should be referred to the State of Palestine. The status at the UN brought recognition of the PA as a virtual state with upgrades in diplomatic recognition by a host of countries as a result of an intensive two year lobbying campaign by Abbas across the globe.

State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State,  Dr. Jonathan Schanzer shows how the dysfunctional Palestinian terrorist movement of the PLO was incapable of morphing into a state. That Abbas’ unilateral action at the UN met with indifference and skepticism by the international community. Schanzer’s book is timely as it raises questions whether the current peace process is fallacious, as the pre-conditions for being considered a state under the Montevideo Convention of 1933 are absent. He suggests that the focus should be on fiscal and economic institution building, centralization of competing internal security arrangements and replacing decades of corruption. Schanzer’s new book recounts the history of evolving US policy leading up  to current  peace discussion endeavoring to achieve a conclusion to the 64 years of conflict  between Israel and the Palestinians. He addresses the heritage of ‘guerrilla governance’ of the PLO-Fatah and its opaque funding. Schanzer discusses the UN Resolutions that led to recognition of Palestinian autonomy, the diplomacy that paved the way for the Oslo Accords, return of Arafat from Exile in Tunis and series of interim agreements negotiated with Israel. He uncovers the seminal role of Salam Fayyad, a US trained economist and ex-World Bank official and his auditing team who  established  fiscal reforms, gathered purloined funds and created the Palestinian Investment Fund. These  fiscal and institutional reforms pursued by Fayyad, dubbed “Fayyadism,” had beneficial side effects of the reining in PLO violence and assisting in ending  the Second Intifada. The irony is that upon the death of Arafat and the ascension to PA Presidency by Mahmoud Abbas, Fayyad’s pursuit of further transparent government institution building was stymied. 

“The Brothers Abbas: Are the sons of the Palestinian president growing rich off their father's system?” Yasser Abbas brought suit in the DC Federal Court against Foreign Policy, (FP) FDD and Schanzer in a baseless SLAPP suit. The younger Abbas was seeking to intimidate FP, FDD and Schanzer. He alleged that the charges in Schanzer’s article were baseless and sought $20 million in economic damages and a retraction. FP is a publication of the Washington Post. As noted by FDD President Cliff May, “United State DC Federal District Court  Judge Emmet Sullivan struck down this meritless libel suit.”

post on the dismissal of the Abbas suit by Judge Sullivan noted:

May cited the Lawfare undertaken by the younger Abbas seeking to intimidate other media for alleged defamation:

, listen to this presentation by The LawFare Project with Nathan Siegel, Esq. counsel for Schanzer, et.al., in the matter brought by Yasser Abbas, “Abbas’s Son Loses Predatory Libel Lawfare Suit.”

article, “Palestinian Authority – Billions in Aid Go Missing”:

[. . .]

Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle For Palestine:

Fayyad noted the daunting aspects that Schanzer contends dogged his efforts under both Arafat and Abbas:

Schanzer cites Elliott Abrams, Bush National Security Advisor saying:

Mohammed Dahlan and Arafat’s economic  adviser and CEO of the PIF Mohammed Rachid. Schanzer notes that in June 2012 Rachid and “two associates . . .were convicted of taking a total of $33.5 million from the PIF. Rachid got a 15 year jail term. Rachid protested his innocence and using an Arabic language website, inLightPress.com, countered with charges of corruption leveled at Abbas, his family and inner circle.”   

Schanzer notes the irony of Abbas leading the charge to close down the PA:

He cites a New York Times editorial comment:

Condition aid on achieving state institution building, transparency, good governance and achieving a peace agreement.

  • Leave Economics out of the peace process which led to corruption arising during the Oslo Accords.
  • Consolidate all security forces to afford peace with Israel and stability for donor funding.
  • Develop a private economy supplemented by both private and public foreign aid.
  • Foreign aid should flow through a single Treasury account.
  • Establish and maintain an independent judiciary for checks and balances and prevention of abuses of power.
  • Establish the basis for a multi-party system.
  • cross fertilization of high tech incubators might trigger a mini-high tech boom in the PA. This will not occur without reaching the conditions expressed by Schanzer and others. It is probably not lost on Palestinians and Israelis that the former have been called the Jews of the Arab world. Abandoned by their Arab brothers at the conclusion of the 1948/49 they were left to languish as festering eyesores in UNWRA refugee camps. Over 200,000 were expelled from Kuwait as a result of Yasser Arafat’s support for the late Saddam Hussein during the First Gulf War. The Christians among them fled abroad to their Diaspora as evidenced by more than 300,000 of them in Chile. The reality is until Hamas is crushed and their Islamic hatred of Jews is abandoned, even with Schanzer’s thoughtful suggestions, we see little prospect for lasting peace in the foreseeable future. Palestinians cannot form a viable state that meets the criteria of the 1933 Montevideo Convention: (1) a permanent population, (2) a defined territory, (3) government and (4) the capacity to entire into relations with other states. Perhaps they could, as others both Palestinians and Israelis have suggested, achieve this in a country where Arab refugees comprise the bulk of the population and have the space, natural and human resources to establish a viable state, Jordan.

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    The West Speaks.

     

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