Palestinian PM Abbas submits his resignation

[drdon326]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/337263.html

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu
Mazen) submitted his resignation in a letter to
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat on
Saturday.

It was not immediately clear whether Arafat would accept
Abbas' resignation. Arafat would have to accept the
resignation for it to take effect.

"Arafat is still studying Abu Mazen's resignation," national
security adviser Jibril Rajoub told reporters Saturday. Palestinian officials had earlier said Arafat had accepted Abbas's
resignation letter.

Abbas, who was appointed due to Israeli and U.S.
pressure, has previously threatened to quit without following through.

The New York Times quoted Abbas aides as saying
that he had concluded that he had no choice but
to resign, in light of the recurring
confrontations on the extent of his powers with
Arafat and the Fatah movement.


..................................................

[drdon326]

1. kick

.

[StandWatie]

2. good

Sharon should have to deal with another war criminal.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. This is less significant than it appears

The so-called Road Map to peace was designed to lead to a dead end. Abbas, who appeared to be the designated drvier, was really the degignated fall guy.

Sharon and Bush would like to marginalize Arafat. There are good reasons to want to do so. On the other hand, there are the reasons they want to do so. Sharon wants peace as badly as he has ever wanted it. That is a peace few Palestinians of any walk of life can accept. He believes marginalizing Arafat will crush Palestinian resistence to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and pave the way to Eretz Israel. Arafat wants power. For him, the Palestinian Authority is a fat cow that has provided Arafat and his cronies a great deal of milk. Bush wanted something that would look good on paper long enough to get him through the invasion of Iraq and the initial stages of colonial occupation there.

Abbas was the leader Sharon and Bush chose to replace Arafat. Abbas is a man of some talent, but he has no independent following among the people. When he pleaded with the militants to stop their violent attacks against Isreali civilians, the militants adhered to those requests for their own reasons. Abbas never had the ability to stop them. Sharon continued to expand settlements, in violation of both international law and the provisions of the Road Map. Overall, it was as if Abbas wasn't there.

Abbas is left holding the bag. Everybody can point to him and say "You failed! Shame! Shame!"

Pardon me if I sound cynical, but that was the desired effect. The Road Map was a hoax pertetrated by cynical men with an agenda that has little to do with achieving a just peace. We who hoped it would work did so desperately because it was the only plan in place.

The failure of Abbas is really the failure of leadership in this struggle. That can't be pinned on Abbas. He was never really a leader of anything. A leader should have a following, something Abbas lacks. Bush, Sharon and Arafat aren't leaders, either. They are simply thugs with a following.

When the Palestinian people choose a leader to replece Arafat, we might start getting somewhere. When Arafat and Sharon are replaced with strong and reasonable men, then we can really begin to hope. When there is again an occupant of the White House who is both legitimate and intelligent enough to drive a peace process that will work for all involved, then we may really be in business.

Until then, people will die.

[StandWatie]

4. Sharon is definately a leader

something aproaching 70% of Israeli Jews voted for him. He's the chosen face of Israel.

on edit: You are right about the hoax, the Israeli press speculated that the only reason Sharon ever even gave lip service to the thing was because he knew Labor Day was the start of Bush's campaign for '04 and wouldn't say boo to him after that and right on schedule Bush starts blaming the Palestinians and washing his hands of the whole thing.

[Lithos]

8. Only one in six voted opted for Sharon

In reality, Sharon owes his victory not to any mass enthusiasm for his policies, but rather to the lack of any alternative political perspective on offer. Almost a third of the electorate stayed away from the polling stations. In what was the lowest ever turnout in an Israeli general election, only 68.5 percent of the country’s 3.2 million voters cast ballots—a sharp drop from the 1999 general election, when turnout was 78.9 percent. In 1996, turnout was 79.3 percent.

Only about one sixth of the total electorate actually voted for Likud. This accounts for the apparent paradox between Sharon’s electoral victory and opinion polls, which showed majority support for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jan2003/isra-j31.shtml

[StandWatie]

12. my bad..

I was thinking about 2000.

[The Magistrate]

5. Well Said, Mr. Rabbit

"Sharon wants peace as badly as he has ever wanted it."

Indeed, he wants peace in the worst way, and that is the only way he will ever get it.

It does seem to me that, if the Israeli government had kept up its end in this, particularly in the matter of settlements, and in the early stages of the "cease fire" had refrained from answering an attack on Israeli soldiers with a strike against a Hamas leader, there could have been real progress. If it turns out Mr. Abbas has indeed failed as Prime Minister, the reason is that he was given no concrete success he could have used to gain popular support from peaceable folk against the militants. The key to the situation remains altering the views of the mass of people of Arab Palestine, in such a way that they feel no interest in supporting violence: only this will enable the destruction of the various armed factions among that people.

[bemildred]

6. Well said.

I was wondering about a few things last night.
So I thought I'd fish for clues here.

1.) How come Arafat walked out of Oslo? I can't make it fit
without getting pretty far afield. I don't see him as a
principled person, and yet I don't see him leaving out of
self-interest either, I'm sure he would have been adequately
compensated. Of course people often don't make sense. Maybe
he got offended or something.

2.) I thought this latest "plan" might be a try at refurbishing
the proposal that Arafat rejected, with a new guy. You know the
"bantustan" thing. If that was true, its hard to figure out why
Abbas got so little help, unless Don is right and he was supposed
to go after the militants, and refused. I tend to think he was
right to refuse, unless he had the necessary force to apply, which
he did not appear to have. Getting his ass shot off wouldn't
accomplish much, and he doesn't look like the violent type. But
then that boils down to Arafat not giving up control. One could
also speculate, as we have a bit here, the the PNA is not up to
taking on Hamas el. al. I cannot judge that.

[Lithos]

7. Well said

Abbas was indeed a fall guy who has played his part and has now exited the stage.

And you are correct in that people will continue to die.

L-

[Darranar]

9. Extremely well said, Jack Rabbit!

I agree with you completely, though I doubt I could have stated it so fully.

[The Commie]

10. Extremists Both sides are at fault

The "no compromise" attatude by Arafat on the Palestinian side and the bigoted "This is our land" crap by extremist Orthodox Jews in the Likud Party is the reason for this mess. I think Sharon is intentionally inciting the pals (why else would he bulldoze peoples homes?). Both sides are looking for genocide, but politicians here in the US don't dare stop israeli support because they will suffer from the resulting Jewish-American backlash in elections. :mad:

[Darranar]

11. I agree with your general sentiment here...

but I'll have to correct you on a technicality: the Likud is basically a party of more secular right-wingers. There is a small party of religious right-wingers, but its name is lost to me.