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| Middle East |
| Paleostinians bitching about corruption... |
| 2002-07-21 |
| Many Palestinians now accept as fact allegations that officials take kickbacks and bribes from contractors and have misappropriated funds from Arab states meant to rebuild homes and businesses destroyed by the Israeli army. "We are poor, we are critical, we are angry, and also we have a cause," said Ziad abu Amr, a Palestinian legislator and academic. "This is a small society, and cases of corruption are highly visible. People believe that we are supposed to be clean, because we are fighting for our rights. So, objectively speaking, in relative terms, our corruption may be less than people think, but it doesn't matter." I tend to doubt it's less than people think, unless they think it's total... Palestinians, Abu Amr said, are fed up with seeing "an official whose salary is $1,000 a month who buys property worth millions. There was a lot of stealing, extortion, bribery." Yup. That'd fire me up, too... "Where have the millions gone?" shouted thousands of unemployed workers who poured into the streets of Gaza City in a demonstration against the Palestinian Authority this month. It was a not-so-subtle question about how millions of dollars in aid from Arab countries and the international community have been spent by the authority since fighting erupted in September 2000. Well, shucks. Those muckety-mucks have to eat, too... "Soon, the situation will become so dangerous that people will start accusing everybody, including people like me, of being the symbol of destruction, of defeat," said Abbas Zaki, a Palestinian legislator from the West Bank city of Hebron and veteran leader in Arafat's Fatah movement. We feel your pain... This generation of leaders, Palestinian critics charge, has failed dismally both at making peace and at making war. "For the people, they're finished," said Salah Abdul Shafi, a Gazan economist. "People now even talk about Arafat, and this is completely new." Still waiting for certain circles to apologize to Bush & Co. Instead, they've changed the subject... Abdul Shafi said he worries that unless Arafat institutes the top-to-bottom reforms he has promised, "there will be a wave of internal assassinations." Palestinian ministers, the economist noted, no longer attend the funerals of Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli troops, "because they are afraid of the people." Maybe they can import some guys from Iran to help keep them in line? |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |