Haggai Huberman, PA affairs correspondent for Arutz-7 and HaTzofeh newspaper, is optimistic: "Israel's political and military situation of Israel is better than it was a year ago, better than it was at the beginning of the Oslo War, and generally appears to be going in a positive direction. Last summer, for instance, Israel was not able to take military action in Area A [areas handed over to the PA], and the IDF was very restricted in its responses to terrorism. Today, we act freely in these areas, with barely any international pressure. We have taken over almost the whole of Judea and Samaria , and the world barely says a thing. The American president calls for Arafat's ouster - who would have contemplated such a thing last year at this time?
"Arafat started this war - almost everyone now agrees - almost two years ago when he was just a handbreadth's away from a state. The PA had offices, institutions, 42% of the territory, the beginning of a constitution, a phone system, and many other trappings of a state. All he had to do was make one last concession and he would get his state - but he decided not to do that. Instead, he decided to start a war that would bring in international forces to take away the rest of Judea and Samaria from us.
Arafat wanted international intervention - and he got it in his face; the whole world is screaming for reforms in the PA, i.e., the end of his career.
"His situation now is that all the institutions that he built up are totally destroyed and no longer exist. They are further away from a state now than they were even at the beginning of the Oslo process in 1993. The PA's institutions don't function; the cabinet and the Legislative Council can convene, but they control nothing. The only systems that work to some degree are their health and education systems. Not only has he not gained any territory, but he has lost much of it. The Palestinian public realizes that they have lost everything. Now it is harder for them to build up all their institutions from scratch; when they did it eight years ago, there was an orderly transfer of power from the IDF's civil administration, which gave them all their lists - but now it has to be built up from nothing. Israeli Yesha, on the other hand, has grown, both in population and in area - the outposts, etc.
"In short, it appears that we are returning to Eretz Yisrael..."
"Arafat started this war - almost everyone now agrees - almost two years ago when he was just a handbreadth's away from a state. The PA had offices, institutions, 42% of the territory, the beginning of a constitution, a phone system, and many other trappings of a state. All he had to do was make one last concession and he would get his state - but he decided not to do that. Instead, he decided to start a war that would bring in international forces to take away the rest of Judea and Samaria from us.
Arafat wanted international intervention - and he got it in his face; the whole world is screaming for reforms in the PA, i.e., the end of his career.
"His situation now is that all the institutions that he built up are totally destroyed and no longer exist. They are further away from a state now than they were even at the beginning of the Oslo process in 1993. The PA's institutions don't function; the cabinet and the Legislative Council can convene, but they control nothing. The only systems that work to some degree are their health and education systems. Not only has he not gained any territory, but he has lost much of it. The Palestinian public realizes that they have lost everything. Now it is harder for them to build up all their institutions from scratch; when they did it eight years ago, there was an orderly transfer of power from the IDF's civil administration, which gave them all their lists - but now it has to be built up from nothing. Israeli Yesha, on the other hand, has grown, both in population and in area - the outposts, etc.
"In short, it appears that we are returning to Eretz Yisrael..."