RAMALLAH, West Bank, 2 September 2004 — The Palestinian Parliament suspended work yesterday to press President Yasser Arafat into ratifying an anti-corruption reform package and get a grip on spiraling unrest and disorder. “We have decided to cancel sessions from Sept. 7 to Oct. 7 to await the approval of our (reform) resolutions by the executive authority,” Parliament Speaker Rawhi Fattouh said, referring to Arafat and the Palestinian government.
Parliamentary deputies said the suspension aimed at making Arafat stop stalling on widespread demands that he devolve powers to his prime minister, especially over security services, to help purge rampant graft and make government accountable.
International mediators deem such reforms critical to paving the way for resuming stalled peace negotiations with Israel. They made reforms part of a “road map” plan that envisages a Palestinian state in occupied lands, but has been stymied by violence on both sides and internal Palestinian chaos.
Prominent pro-reform legislator Hanan Ashrawi said Arafat had pledged to ratify the reform package. “But what we need is the follow-up, and that is not happening,” she told Reuters. “The Palestinian Legislative Council has put its sessions on hold for a month in protest at (Arafat’s) noncompliance. The PLC’s position here is to put pressure on the president. We can’t go forever with a situation like this.”
Azmi Al-Shueibi, another lawmaker, said the core of the reform package included measures to put high-level corruption suspects on trial, consolidating 12 feuding security organs into three with defined powers, and restoring the rule of law. There was no immediate comment by Arafat’s office.
Arafat’s critics say he has long specialized in a system of “chaos management” to prevent challenges to his power. But they say such methods have become a crippling burden on Palestinians seeking more international support in their quest for statehood.
The Parliament voted 31-12 on Aug. 25 in favor of a report by a 14-member committee entrusted with overseeing the implementation of reforms approved in July by the body. But while Arafat has admitted to “mistakes” and voiced support in principle for reforms, he has declined to sign a decree to translate Parliament’s recommendations into action.
The report calls for the prime minister and interior minister to be empowered to revamp security services loyal to Arafat and make them answerable to the Cabinet. It also urges new elections - the last were held in 1996 - to weed out an old elite around Arafat that many see as venal, incompetent and out of touch.
Arafat, in a goodwill letter to the Parliament last week, spoke of the importance of reforms including separation of powers and legal pursuit of corruption cases. But he did not commit himself to concrete measures. Analysts say Arafat, 75, has no interest in real reforms for fear they would end his long domination of Palestinian politics.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees protested to Israel yesterday at the ongoing closure of the Erez crossing into the Gaza Strip. It said in a press statement that the closure, which began Tuesday, seriously damages UNRWA’s ability to carry out its humanitarian mandate in the occupied Palestinian territory.
“In an unprecedented and serious development, Israel barred Peter Hansen, UNRWA’s commissioner general from leaving Gaza to carry out his duties in the West Bank,” said the statement. “It is unheard of for the executive head of a UN agency to have his freedom of movement flagrantly curtailed by a member state of the UN in this way,” the statement continued.
According to the statement, Israeli authorities said Erez has been closed because of the discovery of explosives on a Palestinian worker using the laborer’s crossing point there.
In response Peter Hansen said: “I fail to see any rational reason — and we have not been offered any — for this unacceptable disrespect for international law and just common decency.” “As a signatory to specific agreements between UNRWA and Israel, the Government of Israel is again failing to live up to its obligations under international law to allow freedom of movement for U.N. personnel,” said Hansen.
In another development, Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon said yesterday after a twin suicide attack by the hard-line Hamas movement that the Israeli Army will continue its operation against Palestinian militants “on all levels”.
Addressing MPs a day after the simultaneous attacks on buses in the southern Israeli city of Beersheva killed 16 passengers and injured more than 80, Gen. Yaalon said the cell had managed to succeed despite the army’s best efforts. “This time we didn’t succeed in reaching the cell,” he told Parliament.
