The following is the text of a speech delivered by Dr. Asali on August 3, 2004 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC.

Simply stated, crossing the bridge from Jordan to the West Bank is a hassle. However, it is also an orderly juncture over an established state border with nothing temporary about it. Traversing it gives the traveler a sense of his powerlessness in the dominant military presence of the officials of the State. The July sun scorches the lowest spot on earth and the forbidding arid and naked landscape makes you wonder how strange the Palestinians and Israelis must seem to others: Are these people serious in fighting over this barren land? The thought needs to be dismissed promptly because the answer is not in geography or topography but in history, theology, mythology and the human psyche. And the land does get better after you drive up the mountains. Rows of settlement houses dot the climb to Jerusalem, and the solid stretches of the affluent houses of Ma’ale Adumim are meant to give a sense of permanence and dominance, and they do.

Jerusalem, the Jerusalem of my childhood, is a disorderly island of unmaintained fading grandeur but with an authentic grounding in a reality I know and understand. Much of the city has changed but it is still the same. A mixture of culture and history takes form in houses, buildings, roads, alleys and shops that have changed hands as well as businesses, but it all remains familiar to me. People go about their business as if all is normal. Graffiti, crude and omnipresent, is splashed all over with political messages and names of ‘martyrs and brigades.’ The Wall, comprised of twenty-five foot tall slabs of concrete crudely winds its way around Abu Dis, Al Quds university campus, the road to Bethlehem, and the other road to Ramallah. It is an amazing medieval implement surrounding a city in the twenty first century and separating neighbors and families. Jerusalem, outside the Arab Jerusalem of old, is a modern populous metropolis, with monuments, grand structures as well as ordinary buildings, spread about so many hills. This facet of the city is Jewish, established and permanent as if it has been there for centuries, unquestionably Jewish.

If one follows the wide road to Ramallah after the checkpoint there is the resumption of physical chaos. One half of the asphalt on the left hand is dug out leaving one lane for both directions of traffic. Long slabs of concrete lay to the side waiting to be erected as a portion of the Wall, which will cut through the median of this road. The shops on either side of this road are to be separated by a wall twenty-five foot tall with one lane remaining on the right side and none on the left. Traveling from one shop to the other right across the road will take fifteen minutes by car should this wall be erected. Shops would be left with no access and no customers.

Ramallah is a vibrant, bustling city, less clean than it used to be but much larger. Tall apartment buildings, many nice homes, and winding streets scattered across many mountains point the way to the future expansion of its phenomenal growth. Ministries and government department offices are dispersed all over the city. There is no room for such offices in Jerusalem, the future capital of Palestine. The Muqata’a, the office of Mr. Arafat, seems like a preserved demolished antiquity rather than a functional office where power is held and exercised.

The checkpoints are an exercise in humiliation and power. Israeli youth, with skin of all colors, hold their guns on the ready as they read your papers and ask inane questions.

The Palestinian people hold themselves in stoic dignity. They give the impression that they are leading their life normally under the most abnormal circumstances. They seem to take in stride a life of checkpoints, permits, restrictions, searches, air raids, and gunfire, personal physical insecurity and an uncertain hold on private property that is well documented and authenticated. The lawlessness of the occupation is aggravated by the emergence of gangs, thieves and robbers. It is made all the more bitter by the indifference of Palestinian public officials, some of whom are suspected not just of failure to protect and uphold the law, but also of being part of a network of corruption and gangsterism. One day while in Ramallah we were told the authorities removed five hundred stolen cars from the streets that day which made the traffic smoother. That left twenty five hundred to go. It seems that stealing cars is a flourishing joint venture between Palestinian and Israeli gangs. The law usually looks the other way.

What holds the Palestinian society together, under this extreme destructive constellation of forces, is a sense of decency and duty, the legacy of a centuries’ old established social order. It is only this, which defines right from wrong, and decency from thuggery and unfairness. Without this cultural residue, and the challenge to face and beat down the occupation, it is hard to see how this society would have managed to hold together and survive. It has, however, frayed at the edges. When asked what they wanted many replied ‘relief,’ relief from the occupation that is. Their personal finances are mostly in shambles, their savings exhausted, and their living standard has plummeted. The urban refinements, and holding out in front of your peers, makes for a sense of dignity clashing with limited means.

Two thirds of the Palestinian economy is subsidized by foreign aid in one form or the other. In the Gaza district two thirds of the population lives on less than two dollars a day according to the World Bank. NGOs are a major source of employment with an uneven record of performance, some do outstanding work, and others are criticized for lack of effectiveness and for fostering dependency.

During our stay, my wife and I visited several cities and refugee camps, talked to leading political figures, businessmen and civil society activists as well as journalists and intellectual leaders. We also visited a couple of university campuses and major business outfits. I tried especially to get an insight into the education and preparation of the young generation for life after occupation. Specifically I tried to see what is being done to achieve an independent economy, free of subsidy and a mentality of dependence and entitlement. Two specific sectors were of interest to me as possible avenues for economic independence and prosperity: tourism and information technology.

The political discussions involved several one-on-one meetings with leaders as well as round table discussions with established think tanks and groups. The Young Turks, already in positions of leadership were especially interesting. Their toughened understanding of their country’s realities and their shedding of slogans and ideological mantras was particularly refreshing. This group is ready to play its part and to prepare to take over responsibly. The United States needs to know these young leaders and they need to know the United States.

The political house of Palestine is not merely divided. It is fragmented and needs to be built anew. The fault lines between the “Tunisians” and the locals, the old guards and the Young Turks, the corrupt establishment and the reformers, Fatah and everyone else, the ideologues and pragmatists have all been bridged by one man, Yaser Arafat. Arafat has stood for four decades at the center of Palestinian politics. A leader that cajoled, defeated, silenced, intimidated, outmaneuvered and outlasted all competitors to become a legend and a symbol. He is the founder of modern Palestine. Credit for this achievement is forever due to him. No governance or position can be a greater accomplishment than this and it should suffice. He is a master tactician who played the role of the ultimate victim thus capturing the essence of the Palestinian psyche as he claimed a proprietor hold on it. And all others yielded as men do to legends. On his entry to Palestine after the Oslo agreement the Palestinians lifted him and his car as he crossed the bridge from Jordan. He has since held all the strings of power and to him is owed all the credit and blame for the decisions made on behalf of the Palestinians and the consequences of those decisions. As the quality of life deteriorated relentlessly after the second Intifada, with mounting sacrifices endured courageously and honorably by the people who expected deliverance from an oppressive occupation, the unspoken questions started being asked in private, tentatively and defensively in the beginning but ultimately more publicly, assertively, and courageously. Questions arose. Who is responsible for the strategic string of defeats from Black September in Jordan in 1970, to the catastrophic experience and eviction from Lebanon in 1982? Who is to blame for the support of Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War and thereby answers for the attendant expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Kuwait in 1991? Who facilitated the disproportionate power for the PLO “Tunisians” after their return to Palestine following the Oslo agreement and then tolerated unabashed corruption? Who is responsible for the mishandling of the negotiations with Clinton and Barak and the heavy-handed treatment of the political opposition as Sharon worked his iron and brutal will on the lives and property of the Palestinian people? Who allowed violence against civilians to continue after its human, moral and political consequences became so tragic and prohibitive? Whose is the failure to communicate with the public about strategy, or worse, the absence of a strategy?

A lot of these questions would not have been asked by this generation of Palestinians had their prospects for independence under his leadership been within sight, had their fear of defeat and possible historic loss of the dream of a viable state been less real. President Clinton, referring to Arafat’s penchant for making decisions only five minutes to midnight, as he accepted Clinton plan fully one year after it was presented to him, wrote that Arafat’s watch must be broken. Arafat himself told Prime Minister Qurei last week after their reconciliation that he knows best what the Palestinian people want. If his watch is broken it may be more accurate to say that he knew what they wanted, but what they need now is a leader who understands not only the Palestinian people but also the world around them. A leader who understands the realities of the global power structure and knows how to navigate his way through it. A leader who understands that the only real asset of the Palestinians at this time is their moral and just right to a state of their own. A leader who will categorically reign in all the elements of force in his society and then rightly demand the state of Palestine from the world powers who have pledged to deliver it. A leader who quits giving mixed signals designed to confuse the enemy but resulting in confusing his own people. A leader who tells the truth to his people as to what it means to them to accept UN Resolution 242, what it means to the Right of Return, and to the actual recognition of the existence of the state of Israel and peace with it. A leader who knows how to establish a state, to delegate power and to build accountable and transparent institutions. A leader who abides by the rule of law and accepts the constraints it imposes on the governors and the governed.

The single most striking change in the last several weeks has been the outspoken criticism of Arafat by name, by members of the political establishment, in public. It is possible now to defy the leader in public. Ziad Abu Amr, Gaza MP and a former cabinet minister said: “Yaser Arafat is not concerned with issues of popularity and reform; he cares about control and political survival.” Hanan Ashrawi, the well-known MP, said: ”We should put this one-man show behind us. Instead of talking about individuals we should at last be talking about institutions and laws.” The ex-Speaker of the House, Rafiq Natshe said: “We demand that Arafat carry out promises he has made, or explain why he can’t fulfill them.” Dr. Ibrahim Hamami, a prominent Palestinian physician, said that Arafat has become a liability to his people: “You treat the Palestinians like a pair of shoes to be worn or kicked outside as the mood strikes. The solution is for you to pack your bags, take your crooked friends and go somewhere else. Get out of here.” Mohammad Dahlan, the ex- minister of Interior, a young leader with political aspirations, is quoted as having said that Mr. Arafat “is sitting on the corpses and destruction of the Palestinians at a time when they are desperately in need of a new mentality.”

This language, publicly expressed at a time of an insurrection that started in Gaza and is spreading to the West Bank, illustrates the level of descent of the legendary leader to that of a leader forced under pressure to resort to intimidation, and perhaps more, to hold on to his fast-ebbing power. Spreading violence within a Fatah divided between his detractors and supporters; with both sides resorting to abductions, torching buildings, threatening the media and shooting at opposition, is not a climate that a legend can survive. An actual assassination attempt of Nabil Amr, an MP, a former cabinet minister and a Fatah stalwart, that resulted in the amputation of his foreleg is perceived as punishment for his courageous, eloquent, and outspoken criticism of the leadership. In a flagrant and crude show of force over this past weekend a gang of self-declared Arafat supporters fired in the air at a meeting hall where Fatah reformers convened a conference to discuss corruption, and tried to put an end to proceedings.

There is something sad about a seventy-five-year-old man refusing to relinquish power. It is hard for the Western people to understand the phenomenon of one-man rule that plagues the Arab world, but in this case it also must be understood in the context of a fight against occupation, where the leader of Israel has consistently and repeatedly tried to undermine and marginalize Arafat. Rallying around Arafat has become a tool of resistance to occupation. Indeed it is common among Palestinian political opponents to Arafat to say that Sharon keeps propping him up whenever his fortunes sag. Just at the right time, Sharon issues an edict to throw him out, or threaten his life, or send his tanks to poke into his Muqata’a after he reduced most of it to rubble. Indeed, this is one of the most common accusations hurled against Sharon. Israel has failed miserably to allow the Palestinian process to develop in order to have them take care of their own governance.

The question of governance (i.e. Arafat) has become central now because of the upcoming withdrawal from Gaza. The significant thing about this withdrawal is that it is an event in the future that is yet to happen, which means that the Palestinians have a chance to plan for it and get themselves organized. A failed Gaza after the withdrawal, descending into chaos, extremism, or violent confrontations will put an end to the possibility of a West Bank withdrawal in the near future. The extremists in Israel will point to Gaza to explain to the world why Israel should not withdraw from the West Bank. In this case, rather than reacting to a catastrophe or event, the Palestinians can in fact exercise a measure of control over their own destiny by planning seriously for it. It is unfortunate, but true, that there are no Palestinian plans for this withdrawal as I was told unequivocally by one of the most, if not the most, credible Palestinian official. The Arafat reign bodes ill for the people of Gaza in this regard and the insurrection in Gaza needs to be seen in this light. A significant segment of the population and leadership in Gaza see a light at the end of the tunnel in the withdrawal plan and some of them see no constructive role for Arafat in it. They see Arafat negotiating for his own personal freedom and legacy rather than their liberation from occupation and a chance to build a new order. It is not difficult to imagine a link between the reformers, the Young Turks, civic leadership in the West Bank and the insurgents in Gaza to settle for nothing less than a regime change. The neighboring Arab countries which have bet on Arafat, Israel which has consistently helped him out politically by demonizing and threatening him, and the United States, which has declared him persona non grata but negotiated with his proxies, have all to take note.

The Palestinian political fragmentation has resulted from years of a harsh occupation policy of systematic destruction of the security apparatus of the PA, followed by a similar dismantling of the Hamas military operation. Israel, it is to be noted, was much less concerned about disposing of the political leadership of Hamas than that of the PA. A system of closures, checkpoints and settlement building led to physical separation and economic hardship for the Palestinians. The Palestinian leadership consistently refused to make clear choices to have total control over security in order to leave all options open. The population including the local and young leadership developed a growing sense of the failure of the national strategy. All these factors combined led to a fragmentation of authority and the emergence of city and village warlords accountable to no one. They might volunteer to pay homage to the Raiis, or might not, with no great fear of retribution. That is preserved for national figures that raise uncomfortable issues. In the meantime Fatah, the vertebral column of Palestinian politics, has also fractured along many fault lines and its security wings are spread at cross-purposes. Hamas is lying low for fear of Israeli retribution leaving all to guess as where they will strike next. A Palestinian civil war, or more accurately wars, is a matter of time if a drastic change in direction and leadership will not take place in the near future.

What is to be done? An empowered prime minister, with a clear sense of strategy, who would consolidate the whole security apparatus under a competent interior minister, is the urgent answer to avoid disaster. The United States, Israel, the Egyptians and Jordanians must see the obvious benefits to all by achieving this objective. No effort should be spared to bring about this outcome. The first task of such a prime minister, after establishing security, is to shoulder the Palestinian responsibility in making the Gaza withdrawal work and to incorporate it in the Road Map.

An electoral framework, combined with a national referendum on the Road Map, whenever feasible, and at the earliest possible date, should be held. This, rather than the will of one person, would be the source of legitimacy for the leadership.

The Abu Mazen administration fell because of the negligence and tardiness of Mr. Sharon, the careless abandon by the US administration, and the policy of intimidation and reckless personal destruction of Mr. Arafat. Let not this tragedy be repeated. All, or most, players, including the Egyptians who have been playing a constructive role, should roll up their sleeves and work to forge new and reliable partnerships to go back and give life to the Road Map.

Better late than never.