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Dry Bones
ere's the central truth about
the Palestinian Authority: It
doesn't exercise much author-
ity over Palestinians.
That doesn't mean that last Sunday's
election of Mahmoud Abbas as the
new president of the P.A., succeeding
the late Yasser Arafat, isn't significant.
But his victory in an election that was
not particularly contested does not
automatically put him in a position to
deliver either a better life for the 3.6
million Palestinians of the West Bank
and Gaza or a permanent
peace with Israel.
Part of the problem he
faces is inherited; another
part stems from the cam-
paign he ran.
Since its inception as a creature of
the Oslo Accords, the P.A. was run by
Arafat, and he used it to funnel
money to his cronies rather than to
build a better society for his people.
As a result, the institution is both cor-
rupt and inefficient.
One of the first tasks Abbas must
complete is to purge the old-line
Arafat henchmen and to bring in a
younger generation of officials. But
Abbas himself was a creature of the
bureaucracy, and it is not clear that he
realizes the importance of houseclean-
ing or that he knows talented people
to recruit as agency heads and
deputies. His campaign mentioned,
but did not stress, the need for inter-
nal reform.
Part of that reform must include
bringing the security forces under real
control. Arafat allowed more than a
dozen separate guard forces to operate
under the P.A. aegis while other
groups — Islamic Jihad and Hamas
prominent among them — organized
their own squads of goons both to
attack Israelis and terrorize each other.
Even Fatah, the ruling party
of Arafat and now Abbas,
tolerated its own Al Aqsa
Martyrs Brigades that was
separate from the nominal
Palestinian "police."
But Abbas promised that he would
not use force to try to stop the terror-
ist groups from attacking what he at
one point called "the Zionist enemy."
He said the violence against Israel was
counterproductive to Palestinian aspi-
rations for a formally recognized state,
an improved economy and a resolu-
tion of border and refugee issues with
Israel. But he stated that he would
only try to persuade the terrorists to
lay down their arms; he would not try
to confiscate the weapons with his
own forces.
That played well with some of those
groups; he got heavy
voting support in
THE NEW PLO CHAIRA7
Hamas strongholds,
IS PROMISING TO MOVE
for instance. But until
ISRAEL BACK TO THE
he starts tossing some
'67 BORD ERS!
of the really bad guys
back into the jails from
which Arafat released
them at the start of the
intifada four years ago,
it will make it almost
impossible to convince
Israel that he is com-
mitted to the security
4.11
of the Jewish state and
ITS LIKE AN
THEY WOULD IF THEY
Israel can afford steps
AMERICAN CANDIDATE
COULD BUT THEY
PROMISING TO MOVE
such as dismantling the
CAN'T!
THEIR EMBASSY TO
security barrier that so
SERUSALkk/4
disrupts the lives of
many Palestinians.
Abbas is going to
have to work at creat-
ing a government of
laws, not of favoritism,
while trying to repair
an economy with one
www.mrdrybones.com
in four Palestinians
unemployed and a per
ernment the Palestinians will have. If
capita income of $1,100 a year, down
they can organize themselves to
a third since 1999. Donor nations are
behave like a state with enforceable
ready to help with extra aid, but he
and enforced laws, then they will
has to spend it wisely and in ways that
deserve to be treated like one. Until
the donors can actually track.
then, Israel and America should think
While Sunday's presidential vote
of the Abbas election- as preliminary
was technically very smooth, the par-
gesture toward democracy, with the
liamentary elections in July will be the
real substance yet to come. E
better indicator of what sort of gov-
Useful Idiots
Some of these academics are Jewish.
What can be going on here?
Horowitz explains that the hard left
of his generation cannot forgive
America for winning the Cold War
and proving them wrong on virtually
everything they ever said about the
Soviet Union. Even now they attrib-
ute it to sheer dumb luck by President
Ronald Reagan.
They still believe that socialism is
the shining path of history. They also
believe the only reason Islamists hate
us enough to fly airplanes into our
buildings is because they are poor and
we are rich. That makes it all perfectly
understandable.
What we must do then is redistrib-
ute our wealth, either by severe
restrictions on our productivity
(through vehicles like the Kyoto
Treaty, which purports to rescue the
environment but doesn't touch mas-
sive polluters such as China) or by
direct transfers of funds to poor coun-
tries via the United Nations. That,
supposedly, would solve everything.
eagerly embraced the Soviet
The idea that wealth can be
Union in the 1920s without
created, and that poor coun-
having the slightest clue about
tries who adopt free markets
its real goals. He called them
can share in it, is incompre-
"useful idiots." Whenever a
hensible to socialists. Besides,
communist takeover occurred
that distracts from hating
in some country, they were
America, which is their main
among the first who were
scholarly pursuit.
rounded up and shot.
It didn't take much for the
GEORGE
Their intellectual descen-
Islamists to dope this out. They
CANTOR
dants argue in one compart-
have eagerly made their alliance
Reality
ment of their minds that
with the left by embracing the
Check
America must stop supporting
anti-globalization movement,
despotisms like Saudi Arabia.
made up of deep thinkers who
Then they march alongside those who
demand that all the laws of economics
think the Saudis aren't doing nearly
be repealed immediately. Especially
enough to purify the faith.
those that give any advantage to the
Horowitz can touch off demonstra-
United States.
tions by merely scheduling a speech at
When this doesn't happen they
one of the elite campuses. He is hated
smash windows, lie down in the
there for pointing out such contradic-
streets and conduct themselves like
tions and, therefore, must be silenced.
spoiled ninnies. In their spare time,
Most of those who do the silencing
they help out their new allies by
also swear unyielding devotion to free-
marching against Israel and its "ille-
dom of speech and every voice being
gal" occupation of Palestine.
heard. But only as long as their hands
Lenin was vastly amused by the
are on the microphone cord. EJ
forebears of these demonstrators, who
Abbas Takes The Helm
13
EDIT OIIIAL
D
avid Horowitz was a Red diaper
baby, the child of political radi-
cals, who took a leadership role
in the New Left commotions of the
1960s.
In recent years, however, Horowitz
has written a series of books attacking
the prejudices and follies of his former
colleagues. His latest, Unholy
Alliance, "is a masterful explanation of
a phenomenon that has puzzled me.
Why are Islamists winning such
wide support at American universities?
Most major campuses have become
places that are hostile to Israel.
Individuals who earnestly support gay
rights, feminist empowerment, the
removal of any whiff of religion in
political life, rush to support the
Islamists — who are violently opposed
to all these things.
George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor@thejevvishnews.com
,
2005
27