Yasser Arafat accepts prime minister's resignation

[Azred]

Why should they bother? Mr. Qurei won't make any difference in the supposed "peace process", because no one really wants peace. I'll be surprised if he lasts 6 months.

[B_part]

I have been quite busy, and couldn't answer before. However, here I am.

[quote]Originally posted by Skunk:
[QB]

Well first of all the Al-Fatah and Aqsa Marthry Brigates are the armed wing of the political parties of the same name They are *not* part of the Palestian Authority nor do they report to it. [...] No - he would (and did) send both the police and the intelligence service to pick them up. Also, as head of the judiciary and prisons, he would have been responsible for their detention.

Maybe I omitted a passage.
Al Fatah members are the backbone of the palestinian security force. Al Fatah is something different from the Palestinian police in name, but its penetration in the latter organisation is far too great to really make a distinction between the two. And Al Fatah regards Arafat as a leader. Thus if Arafat says no, the police won't move.

Any move to arrest members of *the highly popular* Hamas movement would have to be a cautious one. Even in the relative peace of the opening moves of the negociations, it would be a heavy gamble. Remember that the people of Palestine have long viewed this group as the only thing standing between them and a holocaust. Abaas had to wait to build up a case against them - and he failed at the eleventh hour because some fool sent in a helicopter gunship...

Maybe you get a point there. Yet he could have never arrested them. See below

Parliament is far from faithful to Arafat. The appointment of Abaas was really parliament's choice not Arafat - indeed Arafat fought parliament tooth and nail against having the position of Prime Minister in the first place. Secondly, once parliament had decided to appoint a PM, Arafat attempted to weaken the powers of the PM - but again parliament over-ruled him. In the nicest possible way, you need to read the newspapers - the power struggle was widely reported at the time.

Arafat conceded to have a PM, the parliament elected a PM. Arafat said the road map was dead, the parliament disgraced the PM. It's just a pantomime: Arafat wanted and managed to show his people that there is no alternative to him. Conceding to have a PM was a way to show his power. And the parliament followed like a pet dog.

An 'unwritten veto power' is no veto power at all!

The Pope and the church have no written power at all, yet lawmakers tend to follow what they say... and it happens in old democracies like the US, nevermind in the Palestinian democracy


Besides, Abu Abbas itself conditioned his stay as PM to getting true power over internal security matters. If he really had the power, why whould he have asked for it?

Correspondents say his policies have increasingly brought him into conflict with Mr Arafat, notably over responsibility for policing within the Palestinian Authority (PA). Mr Amr said that the prime minister would tell MPs that his government needed to have full powers "especially in the security and administrative fields". The PA government's efforts to control militant groups which launch attacks on Israel have so far been largely confined to measures such as freezing the bank accounts of Islamic charities with alleged links to Hamas. Mr Arafat largely still controls the PA's security services. Source BBC

Oh, and one other, from Al Jazeera: Comic

They portrayed Arafat as stone heavy with Authority in his hands because it was him who had the power all along.

[B_part]

Originally posted by Azred: Why should they bother? Mr. Qurei won't make any difference in the supposed "peace process", because no one really wants peace. I'll be surprised if he lasts 6 months.

Don't be so optiimistic. Either he does nothing or he stays less than one month.

[Skunk]

Originally posted by B_part: Oh, and one other, from Al Jazeera: Comic They portrayed Arafat as stone heavy with Authority in his hands because it was him who had the power all along.

No - you're missing the point of the cartoon: you are seeing it from the US point of view.

In the cartoon, Abaas is being dropped from the hands of the US/Israel on the the Palestinian Authority. In other words, Abaas is being depicted as the stooge/collaborator of the US/Isreal polices and as such, he lacks any authority with the people in comparison to Arafat - who has the Palestinian interests in mind.

Oh and as for the BBC, it is *very* partisan and often gets the facts wrong esp. on middle eastern affairs:

"Internal security and public order (including preventive security, civil defense and police forces) are a Cabinet function (currently under the Ministry of Interior) and therefore, ultimately under the authority of the Prime Minister. Responsibility over national security resides with the President.
Palestinian National Authority

[B_part]

I agree with the US/Israel puppet part.

But I see that in the comic Arafat's authority literally outweighs Abu Abbas', and Arafat is keeping in his hands Palestinian Authority, not only authority in an abstract sense. That's what I have been saying all along: it has always been Arafat in charge.

[quote]Orginally posted by Skunk
[qb]"Internal security and public order (including preventive security, civil defense and police forces) are a Cabinet function (currently under the Ministry of Interior) and therefore, ultimately under the authority of the Prime Minister. Responsibility over national security resides with the President.[quote][qb]

You are particularly obsessed with what is written down in laws and constitution. I have seen countless violation of constitutional spirit in "true" (or at least old) democracies. I don't expect a fake democracy like the Palestinian Authority to respect its constitution.

[Skunk]

----B_part You are particularly obsessed with what is written down in laws and constitution. I have seen countless violation of constitutional spirit in "true" (or at least old) democracies. I don't expect a fake democracy like the Palestinian Authority to respect its constitution.

Coming from the home of political corruption, that statement really takes the biscuit...Just because Italy is famous for political corruption, it does not mean that every other country partakes in a similar cake contest.

I think that you've lived in Milan for too much and the resultant cynicsim of seeing your government permanently with its hands in someone elses pocket has permanently damaged your objectivity. Either that or living under a Prime Minister who recently said: "Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini used to send people on vacation in internal exile," [img]graemlins/uhoh2.gif[/img] has caused you to believe that all heads of state are either corrupt or insane...

You have no grounds to support this claim in relation to the PA.

[ 09-13-2003, 04:48 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

[B_part]

Originally posted by Skunk: quote: ----B_part You are particularly obsessed with what is written down in laws and constitution. I have seen countless violation of constitutional spirit in "true" (or at least old) democracies. I don't expect a fake democracy like the Palestinian Authority to respect its constitution.

Coming from the home of political corruption, that statement really takes the biscuit...Just because Italy is famous for political corruption, it does not mean that every other country partakes in a similar cake contest.

I think that you've lived in Milan for too much and the resultant cynicsim of seeing your government permanently with its hands in someone elses pocket has permanently damaged your objectivity.

You have no grounds to support this claim in relation to the PA. [/QUOTE]I hope you realize how stupid and racist your remark is. If you don't, well, I won't waste my time trying to show you.

However when I said old democracies I wasn't talking about Italy, which isn't an old democracy. I was talking about the US (remember Vietnam? remember how ole Lyndon Johnson merrily played around his congressional mandate?) or France - they had to tear down at least 4 republics because of "murky" procedures.

Also, I never mentioned corruption in relation to the PA. I simply stated that power and influence do not always reside where the constitution says they should be, especially when bloody wars are being fought or have been fought recently. I am basing my evaluation on historical events similar to that in question.

For instance, in 1946 the italian government was ad interim in the king's hands, before free elections could be held. Yet a sizable part of the country, mostly in the North and North East was de facto under the influence of the communist partizans, whose prestige came from "liberating" Italy They obeyed Palmiro Togliatti, who in turn was very close to Stalin. In the end they let go, but Italy was on the edge of another civil war for a couple of years.


Another example: Greece, 1944 - 1945.
26th september 1944: right before the Nazis retired, the main figures of the resistance sign a treaty in Caserta where they agree to turn both partizan factions, ELAS (communist) and EDES (the others) into regular armed forces, to be comanded by the central government in the person of general Scobie. They agree also to disarm them after the war. Once the Germans retire, ELAS partizans ignore the disarming order and try to capture the capital and overturn the government they agreed to be commanded by. In the end British troops along with the EDES quell the revolt.

Afghanistan, 2003: Hamid Karzai is head of the government. warlords control the country outside Kabul.

These examples have in common one thing: an agreement clearly stating where power should be, and a situation which shows power doesn't reside there, but is held by those whose prestige comes from fighting, or at least claiming to have done, against the former enemy, be it Germany, the Talibans or, in Arafat's case, Israel

[ 09-14-2003, 06:43 AM: Message edited by: B_part ]

[B_part]

Originally posted by Skunk Either that or living under a Prime Minister who recently said: "Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini used to send people on vacation in internal exile," [img]graemlins/uhoh2.gif[/img] has caused you to believe that all heads of state are either corrupt or insane...

Another stupid statement. That's like saying all US citizens agreed with the war in Iraq just because Bush did.

I don't condone what Berlusconi is saying, and never said anything about it.

[Skunk]

Originally posted by B_part: I hope you realize how stupid and racist your remark is. If you don't, well, I won't waste my time trying to show you.

It would be anti-Italian if the claims were unfounded - but do I really need to to post links to someone whose own city (Milan) was labeled by the Italian populace as Tangentopolis?? ( 'Tangenti' for those not in the know are bribes).

Or should we go on to talk about the 'Clean Hands' enquiry of '95 that implicated more than 80 MPs of high-level corruption? Or perhaps the resignation of Rome's police chief (what was that for again? Something to do with $200 million in gold perhaps?),or talk about how many judges were indited for accepting bribes?


Or perhaps just a couple of links will do?
Corruption and Political Financing in Italy
Italy plagued by Mafia-style universities
Italy's worst case of corruption
Corruption probe of Italy docs, drug firms growing

Originally posted by B_part: Another stupid statement. That's like saying all US citizens agreed with the war in Iraq just because Bush did. I don't condone what Berlusconi is saying, and never said anything about it.

Of course you don't and I never suggested that you did - in fact I inferred the opposite, that I assumed that you would find such remarks/people to be 'insane'...


And finally, you gave three examples of unelected/imposed officials/groups who didn't follow the presribed constitution/rules. What does that prove?

Arafat and the Palestinian Authority were elected by universal suffrage. The PA is a democratic institution and Arfat won 85% of the votes in an election that saw voter turnout at between 85-90% and this was despite the harrassment of voters by Israeli forces:
"I don't think there is any doubt they [the Israelis] are doing everything they can to intimidate the voters," said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, head of a team of election observers.

No other elected leader, before or after him, has won such a strong mandate from the people. There is a big difference between democratic institutions like the PA and undemocratic insitutions like the Afghan parliament. The former obeys the rules as it has no need to circumvent them, given the strength of support it has, while the latter, devoid of support, circumvents any rules that it has to in order to survive.

[ 09-14-2003, 10:07 AM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

[B_part]

Originally posted by Skunk: quote: Originally posted by B_part: I hope you realize how stupid and racist your remark is. If you don't, well, I won't waste my time trying to show you.

It would be anti-Italian if the claims were unfounded - but do I really need to to post links to someone whose own city (Milan) was labeled by the Italian populace as Tangentopolis?? ( 'Tangenti' for those not in the know are bribes).
Or should we go on to talk about the 'Clean Hands' enquiry of '95 that implicated more than 80 MPs of high-level corruption? Or perhaps the resignation of Rome's police chief (what was that for again? Something to do with $200 million in gold perhaps?),or talk about how many judges were indited for accepting bribes?
[/QUOTE]

Just to be precise:

1)Tangentopoli (=Bribesville) was the name given to the complex of inquiries. The "ville" in question is not Milan as you imply, and in fact is no other city in Italy. saying XYZpoli in Italy is just like saying XYZgate in the US. No reference to any city or gate.

2)The inquiries you are talking about started on 27th september 1992 and raged in 93 until mid 94. After that, there were really no more inquiries, just trial completion, with the notable exception of the trials against Berlusconi, which kept popping up in later times.

3)Of the 3607 billion liras (1,863 mln €) in total bribes ascertained in the inquiries, most went under the heading "finanziamento illecito ai partiti" (=illicit funding of parties). That is, in order to get something from a politician, you paid his party a bribe. In the US it's called lobbying and campaign funding. The only difference is that in Italy it was and still is illegal. But no party could (and can) survive with the meager state-granted funds, so the illegal lobbying was in fact a need to allow things to work. Only a minor part of the money were spent on "true" bribes asked or given to the single politician.


Apart form that, following your line of resoning (there has been a clean hands inquiry for corruption => all italians are corrupted) one should:

[I don't mean any of the things I say below]

a)call the US the heaven of corruption as well, since the grandtotal bucks spent on lobbying on any given year is perhaps more than what was ascertained in all Tangentopoli.

b)call the US a country of killers given their daily homicide casualty toll

c)call germany the home of Nazism. After all it was only 50some years ago they killed 6+ million Jews

d)call palestine sanctuary of terrorists, given the number of terrorist acts perpetrated by palestinians

e)I hope you got it

I call that reasoning by stereotypes. If it's your way of reasoning, well, I cannot do anything about that, sorry.

__________________________________________________ __________________________

With regard to the examples I stated in previous posts, Italian and Greek government were not imposed but were the rightful representatives of the factions who fought against the Nazis AND the exiled government. If you don't like Hamid Karzai example, the same conflict would have happened if in his place there was Ahmad Massud, the old and people-chosen leader of the northern alliance.

Anyway there's no keeping up the argument. Our positions on the PA are in contrast and cannot be conciled. I have stated mine, you have stated yours. Debate closed.