(Washington Post) Dennis Ross - Unfortunately, at this point, Abbas has been able to deliver little of what was expected. While he has made some moves against corruption - treading carefully, given the opposition of the old guard of Fatah - he has not been able to produce much on employment or freedom of movement. Palestinians still give him the benefit of the doubt, but they are increasingly dissatisfied with the absence of real change. One sign of this is the increasing appeal of Hamas - perceived as clean and capable of delivering services. The international community acts as if a business-as-usual approach will suffice in providing the assistance that has been pledged. That could mean that by the time the money begins to appear, it will be Hamas, not the PA, making the calls on how it is spent. While the administration's assistance request has almost worked its way through Congress, there is little prospect that money from the U.S. will flow to labor-intensive projects before the elections. The Bush administration needs to call publicly, not privately, for the creation of a Gulf Cooperation Council fund of $1 billion for Palestinian development, to be available immediately to finance housing projects that are labor-intensive and for which there are existing Palestinian blueprints and contractors; provide the $240 million the PA would like to spend on social programs to compete with Hamas; and underwrite the cost of the pensions Abbas needs to pay to those he has retired from the security organizations. Oil revenue for the Persian Gulf oil states has increased by $58 billion in the past year. These countries should be more than capable of providing $1 billion for the Palestinians.
2005-05-25 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive