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| Middle East |
| A Palestinian Constitution, But No State |
| 2002-12-17 |
| Efforts to write down a Palestinian Constitution came under fire Monday, December 16, from a leading resistance group, dubbing the move as pre-mature, while the head of the Constitution Committee defended the project as a counter measure to the U.S. roadmap for the Middle East. Usama Hamid, member of the Political Bureau of Hamas resistance group, said that the problem is adopting a constitution for the Palestinian state constitutes a major demand of the U.S. roadmap. Having a written constitution, even one that's honored only in the breach, is a bad thing from the Islamist point of view; after all, all of men's affairs are governed by the Koran and the Hadith. If you want a caliphate, the last thing you need is a constitutional state. This puts the Palestinians in a deep problem, as they will have to define the borders and identity of the Palestinian state (the first article of any constitution), as well as the political identity for all Palestinians (under occupation inside, or living as refugees abroad). How could the new constitution define the new state? Will it be the current (supposedly) self-ruled areas, or the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or all the Palestinian lands? If they go for the first option, what about the hopes of all Palestinians to establish their own independent state with east Jerusalem as its capital? Hamid wondered. "No. No. A thousand reasons why we couldn't possibly do it. It's just like those elections..." He went on to add that adopting a constitution comes naturally after |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |