If the Bush administration was as interested in furthering the Palestinians? socio-economic condition, as it is about ?reforming? the 17 Palestinian Authority security forces, the West Bankers and Gazans could look forward to a much brighter future. One wonders if anyone in the US Administration, the Palestinian Authority (PA), the United Nations, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), or the Arab world is at all interested in the problem of economic corruption in the PA and how such corruption stifles socio-economic development.
What are the major factors leading to corruption?
Bi-lateral aid to the Palestinians is a major one. According to the World Bank sources, since the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993, the PA has received nearly $4 billion in the form of direct aid. According to Patrick Clawson, the deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, on an annual basis, the Palestinians received $161 a year per capita. In 2000, West Bank and Gaza residents received $636 apiece in foreign aid- the highest in the world- with Bosnia coming in second at $185 and Israel at $128. The average for Africa is only $210 and for South Asia- $3. Ethiopia got the same amount of aid as the Palestinians but has 20 times the population. In 2000, the combined foreign aid that went to 43 million of the world?s poorest Arabs, living in five different countries, was less than what the West Bankers and Gazas received.
Where did all that money go? What did it fund? It certainly did not go to build any new homes to get refugees out of the camps, since not one refugee has been rehabiliated since the Oslo agreements were signed. Nor was it invested in factories or economic initiatives, as the unemployment rate of the Palestinians is much higher today than it was in l993.
So where did the billions go- a reasonable question for Palestinians, their supporters, and the major donor countries to ask?
The answer is political corruption in the PA.
It is not new to Israeli readers of the daily press. The first reports on the under-the-table deals between certain individuals in the Palestinian Authority and Israeli cement and petrol companies surfaced in the early part of 1994. From 1994-2000 there were regular reports both in the Israeli and Palestinian press on the enormous problem of corruption in the PA.
One has to believe that as the donors have people on the ground to monitor the allocation and use of the foreign aid that they too knew of this problem.
But instead of stopping the problem- they gave Arafat a Nobel Peace prize.
In short, economic development became subservient to Arafat?s fiefdom. For example, back in the early days of Oslo, in early 1994, PEDRA, the Palestinian Economic and Development Authority, headed by Abu Ala, oversaw Palestinian financial affairs. This orientation, however, was too independent for Arafat?s tastes. Says Pinchas Inbari, author of the book, The Palestinians: BetweenTerrorism and Statehood: ?The PEDRA concept of a financial bulldog was derailed and in its place came a political poodle called PECDAR- the Palestinian Council for Development and Reconstruction. The difference between ?authority? and ?council? speaks for itself.?
So how much did Arafat skim off the top?
According to the director of Israel?s military intelligence, Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze'evi, Arafat's personal fortune is estimated to be $1.3 billion. Ze'evi claims that Arafat's new economic adviser Muhammad Rashid has managed to make some degree of order in the Palestinian Authority finances, but was unable to touch the monopolies controlled by Arafat, which are the main source of his personal revenue, generating unofficial cash flows.
"Rashid has been unable to halt the underground flow of money," claims Ze?evi. ?As Arafat tries to maintain his old mechanisms of control, he is actually losing influence. Waves of criticism and even demonstrations and protests are growing, such as the marring of his pictures on billboards.?
One such critic is Palestinian Legislative Council member Mu?awiya Al-Masri, who recently leveled an unprecedented critique against corruption in the Palestinian Authority, and Chairman Arafat and his advisors. In an interview published in the Jordan-based Muslim Brotherhood weekly, Al-Sabil, Al-Masri said that Arafat ?has a superb ability to bribe people with money and jobs in order to use them for his own personal interests, not for the good for the Palestinian people. No one in the PA, neither the ministers nor the Legislative Council chairman or members- knows how economic affairs are run under the PA, including the treasury minister.? Al-Masri had frequently tried to discover where the money of the Palestinian people was, but failed.
Al-Masri called Arafat?s economic advisor, Muhammad Rashid, a ?catastrophe for the Palestinian people?. Commenting on the income of the PA, Al-Masri says: ?There are revenues from sales of natural gas, cigarettes, milk and the cement of the Al-Bahyr Companies- which is headed by Muhammad Rashid- there is a monopoly on these. The gas revenues alone come to no less than $500 million annually. The total revenues from them are no less than a billion dollars, and this does not go into the PA?s general budget. No one but Allah knows what happens in the Treasury fund.?
Al-Masri says the corruption is most apparent in the bribery of senior people, such as the awarding of $40,000 a month to Marwan Kanafani ?for his loyalty to the president. In exchange for such sums, Kanafani and his cronies act to thwart all talk of reform, of demands for accountability, or even of he smallest of investigations. Only a small handful of council members do not receive funds from the President.?
Al-Masri isn?t the only critic of Palestinian Authority corruption. Writing in the London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat, Sudanese author and researcher, Dr. Abd Al-Wahhab Al-Effendi, states:
"Corruption of the Palestinian Authority and other Arab regimes is actually a necessary condition for fulfilling the role imposed upon them - to serve foreign interests and subjugate the peoples. Were the PA to give full authority to the Palestinian parliament and the legal apparatuses, and were it to obey popular will and spend its grant funds and income on education, health, services, and reviving the economy, what would be left for bribing the activists and intellectuals with appointments to ministries and the security apparatus?"
None of this, however, seems to make it to the doors of the White House- or if it does- it is not deemed worthy of attention. Supporters of both the Israeli and Palestinian camps can find common cause to root out economic cooperation in the PA so that economic development and the resettlement of refugees become the number agenda at the peace table- not ?enhancing Palestinian security forces.?
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Yoel Bainerman lives in Israel and writes on Israeli and Middle East political and economic issues. He can be reached at Isratech@Netvision.Net.Il