Not A Hopeful Start

.

Terrorist attacks and general Palestinian confusion
have cast doubt over the PLO's ability to rule.

INA FRIEDMAN ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

N

ew governments are tradi-
tionally accorded a certain
"grace period," but the
Palestinian Authority in
Gaza and Jericho is clearly not
going to be one of them.
Just hours after the last of his
troops had pulled out of the towns
and refugee camps in the Gaza
Strip, Israeli Chief of Staff Ehud
Barak and other senior officers
reported to Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin that the area "is
on the brink of chaos."
The next morning that point
was underscored — at least as far
as the functioning of the Pales-
tinian police is concerned — by
the murder of two Israelis sol-
diers and the wounding of two
civilians by Muslim terrorists
(both Hamas and Islamic Jihad
claimed responsibility) terrorists
at opposite ends of the Gaza
Strip.
That the Palestinian Authori-
ty has been born with a case of
rickets is disappointing to Israel

In Jericho a citizens' commit-
tee was quickly formed to feed the
newcomers, and municipal lead-
ers in Gaza began fundraising to
cover the policemen's salaries —
which is almost grotesque con-
sidering that, with unemploy-
ment running at over 50 percent,
most residents of the Strip are
barely subsisting as it is.
Neither, the IDF reported,
could the police afford to pay for
gas for their jeeps, which had de-
layed the initiation of the joint pa-
trols called for in the Cairo
agreement.
Last Friday, Nabil Shaath
brought into Gaza $5 million se-
cured from USAID, and the joint
patrols began the next day. But
it was predicted that this infusion
would last no more than a few
weeks.
The PLO blamed the donor
states, which are prepared to fi-
nance only specific projects, not
the Authority's ongoing needs. Is-
rael, grasping the gravity of the

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but hardly unexpected. All the problem, sent Foreign Ministry
problems it would face have been Director-General Uri Savir off to
rehearsed in the press for a donor's meeting to urge a lift-
months. Yet now that these pre- ing of this restriction, lest the au-
dictions are coming true, leaders tonomy dissolve into anarchy
in both camps have fallen into a before it even gets started.
round of finger-pointing.
But even if he succeeds, the fi-
Take, for example, financing, nancial crunch is expected to re-
which is the Authority's most main chronic for a long time to
pressing need, especially for the come. The current forecast is that
police force. Hardly had the first the Palestinian Authority will
policemen entered Gaza and Jeri- end its first year approximately
cho than they revealed that they $175 million in the red.
were owed seven months' back
Lack of funds is only part of the
pay and lacked money even for problem, however.
food.
Among the many colorful ban-

(