Solving the Middle East, Part I: Fix the Palestinian Authority

Note: Over a series of posts, I will address the var­i­ous issues that com­prise all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian con­flict in an effort to present a solu­tion that will estab­lish peace between all sides. Some of my rec­om­men­da­tions are real­is­tic; some are cur­rently not. But all are nec­es­sary. These ideas would not nec­es­sar­ily need to be addressed in the order presented.

First in a series

The Pales­tini­ans will be unable to make peace with the Israelis until they fix their own houses first.

At the moment, the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple and gov­ern­ment are both in chaos, if not out­right civil war. As a result, it is cur­rently impos­si­ble for any Pales­tin­ian leader to agree to a peace set­tle­ment, to have his deci­sion be respected by the rest of his people, and to enforce its terms within their var­i­ous polit­i­cal and reli­gious com­mu­ni­ties. The Pales­tin­ian National Author­ity can barely tend to its domes­tic affairs. All of this needs to change.

The are two pri­mary rea­sons for the chaos: 1.) A lack of a for­mal, estab­lished and rec­og­nized gov­ern­men­tal struc­ture with a clear sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers and an inde­pen­dent judi­ciary; and 2.) A lack of a desire to solve all prob­lems among the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple through polit­i­cal, non-violent methods.

The Pales­tin­ian author­ity has been unsta­ble since power was divided between the offices of the pres­i­dent and the prime min­is­ter. Yasser Arafat, under U.S. pressure, originally named a prime min­is­ter, who would over­see domes­tic issues while Arafat con­trolled the “secu­rity forces.”

After Arafat’s death, Mah­moud Abbas – a mem­ber of Arafat’s mod­er­ate Fatah party — became pres­i­dent. The ten­u­ous polit­i­cal sys­tem, how­ever, fell into chaos once Hamas, the oppo­si­tion party and ter­ror­ist group, gained a major­ity in the leg­is­la­ture through fair elec­tions and then named the prime minister.

The main rea­son for the erup­tion of con­flict and vio­lence was the fact that no con­sti­tu­tion has ever been rat­i­fied. No clear sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers exists within the gov­ern­ment. No one knows — or much less respects – what­ever spe­cific author­i­ties the pres­i­dent and prime min­is­ter each have. At the end of the day, true power rests with whomever has the most fol­low­ers with the most guns. No true nego­ti­at­ing part­ner exists for the Israelis to work with.

And now there is civil war. The Pales­tin­ian Author­ity does not have a sin­gle, uni­fied mil­i­tary force that is under the sole author­ity of the exec­u­tive, and it is even unclear whether the pres­i­dent or the prime min­is­ter is the exec­u­tive author­ity. The two lead­ers are fight­ing each other. This has led to dozens of inde­pen­dent mili­tias that are loyal to Fatah, Hamas, and the lead­ers of var­i­ous ter­ror­ist groups. All of these mili­tias are fight­ing each other (as well as Israel), and many are funded by for­eign gov­ern­ments and ter­ror­ist groups. This is insan­ity. The Pales­tin­ian peo­ple have issues to address (as does Israel), but they need to agree to solve them through non-violent, polit­i­cal meth­ods. Their lead­ers also need to stop using for­eign aid to buy food and med­i­cine rather than pad their bank accounts and pur­chase weapons.

The cur­rent struc­ture of the Pales­tin­ian Author­ity is unwork­able. The inter­na­tional com­mu­nity needs to cre­ate a pro­vi­sional author­ity, with the con­sent of the Pales­tini­ans, that will admin­is­ter domes­tic affairs and main­tain peace in the West Bank and Gaza Strip while a new gov­ern­men­tal struc­ture can be estab­lished. The United Nations, NATO, and even sev­eral mod­er­ate Arab gov­ern­ments like Jor­dan, Saudi Ara­bia and Egypt could be involved. All of these orga­ni­za­tions and states have an inter­est in solv­ing the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

The Pales­tini­ans and the pro­vi­sional author­ity need to do the following:

• Draft a con­sti­tu­tion that spe­cific defines the roles of the leg­isla­tive and exec­u­tive branches;
• Cre­ate an inde­pen­dent judiciary;
• Deter­mine whether the prime min­is­ter or pres­i­dent shall be the chief exec­u­tive (if the for­mer, than the lat­ter would be a cer­e­mo­nial role; if the lat­ter, then the for­mer would be equiv­a­lent to the Speaker of the House in the United States);
• Estab­lish and train an army that will report directly to the chief executive;
• Ban all other mili­tias and police forces (and enforce the ban);
• Con­duct law enforce­ment until a domes­tic police force can take over; 
• Serve as a lia­sion between Israel and the Palestinians;
• Mon­i­tor any sus­pected ter­ror­ist activ­ity and pre­vent ter­ror­ist attacks against Israel and Israelis;
• Pre­vent any other for­eign influ­ence in Pales­tin­ian affairs; and
• Israel should give assis­tance, finan­cial and oth­er­wise, to the pro­vi­sional author­ity as an act of good will.

Once these actions are accom­plished, then the pro­vi­sional author­ity can hold elec­tions for the leg­is­la­ture and pres­i­dent. Once the gov­ern­ment is in work­ing order, then the qual­ity of life for the Pales­tini­ans will improve and the peace process can con­tinue in earnest.

I never said my pro­pos­als will be easy, but sta­bi­liz­ing the Pales­tin­ian Author­ity will be one of the first things that need to occur. But, most impor­tantly, the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple need to real­ize that the rule of law is more impor­tant than the rule of gun.

The entire series: Part V: The Right of Return; Part IV: The Pales­tini­ans Need a Viable State; Part III: Set­tle­ments and the Sep­a­ra­tion Bar­rier; Part II: Israel Needs Elec­toral Reform