Well, here’s some heartening news:
An overwhelming majority of Palestinians support reform of the Palestinian Authority, according to poll taken last week by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which is headed by Dr. Khalil Shakaky.
The poll showed 91 percent in favor of ‘fundamental changes’ in the PA, with 85 percent backing unification of the myriad security services, 95 percent for sacking ministers, 83 percent for early elections and 92 percent for adoption of the Basic Law, or constitution.
In the latest poll, 48 percent favored, and 43 percent opposed, changing the Palestinian system to divert power to a prime minister, leaving the presidency now held by Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat a largely ceremonial post.
Echoing complaints increasingly expressed by ordinary Palestinians, 83 percent believed corruption exists in PA institutions.
Hah! Nossir, Yasser.
Or, in the words of playground basketball great, Billy Hoyle, “The mustard is off the hot dog, you big corn-fed mule, you.”
Related: An open letter to Arafat, from The American Prowler’s Peter Hannaford. An excerpt:
The Israelis were always on to your game. Bush is, too. The Europeans are catching on. Even your “moderate” Arab neighbors are tiring of it. Bloodshed is getting your “cause” nowhere.
Do you think it was an accident last week that former members of your cabinet were all over the airwaves talking about the corruption in your cabinet? Was it an accident that pressure built from inside as well as outside for elections, both presidential and legislative; for the appointment of a prime minister to do the daily work of managing the Palestinian Authority?
What is happening is that virtually everyone has tacitly agreed that it is time to ease you upstairs where you can claim credit for reforms about which you did nothing, and preside at ribbon-cuttings for the new schools and public health clinics you should have been building during the last eight years instead of dishing foreign aid out to your cronies.
—–