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May 10, 2002/Iyar 28, 5762, Vol. 54, No. 34
Palestinians registering dissent
GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - With the month-long Israeli siege over, life seems to be returning to normal in Ramallah - but beneath the surface, Palestinians are questioning their regime in unprecedented ways.
Dissent, which Palestinians usually keep to themselves because of threats to their livelihood or, indeed, their lives, is being heard after a wave of Palestinian terrorism in March brought a fierce Israeli reprisal that left Palestinian areas of the West Bank in ruins.
Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat may be out of his besieged headquarters, angrier and more militant than ever. But people in the streets, trying to cope with the aftermath of the fighting, increasingly are asking: was all this misery really necessary?
One message that Israel's Operation Protective Wall has conveyed to the Palestinians is that they paid dearly for the fact that their government left every Palestinian militia free to engage in terrorism against Israel.
Few Palestinians say that suicide bombings are immoral, but they do talk about their "ineffectiveness."
Only a month ago, such statements were rarely heard - at least not openly on the street - and suicide bombers were considered martyrs to be envied.
But the shock caused by the Israeli military operation has changed moods and opinions, not only of the man in the street, but also among Palestinian politicians, who are calling on Arafat to reform his government.
"One must begin discussing a reform in the institutions of the P.A.," said Nabil Amer, a member of the Palestine legislative council who resigned from Arafat's Cabinet on May 4.
"Everybody feels that an earthquake has taken place in Palestinian society. So the changes must be equal in size to what happened," Amer told journalists in Ramallah. "I say the change must come from within the Palestinian Authority."
According to a classified report reaching the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, the P.A.'s minister of international cooperation, Nabil Sha'ath, told Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov that the Palestinian leadership committed many mistakes, particularly in its attitude toward suicide bombers.
He said the phenomenon had caused considerable damage to the credibility of the Palestinian leadership, and should be stopped at all costs.
Hussein A-Sheik, a leading official of Arafat's Fatah faction, urged that a party conference be urgently convened for the first time in 13 years.
"One must discuss the strategy of the Fatah and elect a new leadership - except for Arafat, of course," A-Sheik said.
Even Arafat's top lieutenants say the disastrous events of the past month can not be allowed to pass without comment.
"The establishment must learn the lessons of what happened," said Col. Jibril Rajoub, head of the once-powerful Preventive Security Service in the West Bank. "One must learn the lessons to bring about change, because what happened was a national disaster."
The Palestinian political arena may be ready for a drastic change. Yet so far, Arafat has said nothing to indicate that he is ready to reevaluate his politics.
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