(Ha'aretz) Danny Rubinstein - The Palestinian public is no longer asking if the government of Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is going to fall, but when it will happen. Its very raison d'etre was to achieve a cease-fire. During the weeks of cease-fire, the government was supposed to reorganize the Palestinian security services, conduct reforms in the government, and start implementing the road map. Abbas's government was weakened most not by its policy but by the growing feeling in the public that the government was not 100% loyal to the interests of the Palestinian people. Yasser Arafat helped quite a bit to strengthen that feeling. The public in the West Bank and Gaza is growing ever more suspicious that Abbas's government is serving foreign interests more than it is serving the Palestinians. Too many foreigners want the government to succeed: the Americans, Europeans, Egyptians, Jordanians, and even the Israeli enemy.
2003-09-01 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive