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The Gaza Strip is perennially poor, and the economy's biggest problem right now is that last fall, as a result of a series of Palestinian terrorist attacks, the Israeli government placed restrictions on trade with the territories and the number of Palestinian laborers who can cross into Israel each day for work. Nevertheless, Arafat and the Authority can still be held responsible for economic mismanagement. The Authority has failed to attract significant new investments, aside from those in construction made mostly by Palestinians. Infrastructure projects sponsored by international donors are under way, but disagreements over Arafat's loose accounting practices were the main reason for a long delay.
It is true that Arafat has begun to score successes in everyday governance that amount if not to nation building, at least to nation tending. The Education Ministry has built 250 new classrooms in the Gaza Strip, and half the schools there have been modestly refurbished. Palestinian TV has been broadcasting in the Gaza Strip since last year, and experimental programs began in the West Bank last month. In joint ventures with private investors, the Housing Ministry has put up 4,000 apartments in the Gaza Strip. The hospital in Jericho has been renovated.
All told, though, the Gaza Strip experience has not provided much inspiration to Palestinians in the West Bank as self-rule comes their way. They are likely in any case to be disappointed by the degree of self-rule they are allowed. Among Palestinians, the widespread expectation was that after the next phase of negotiations, Israel's occupation forces would make way for Arafat's army and police by pulling out of all Palestinian cities, towns and villages in the West Bank, remaining only in positions necessary for protecting Israeli settlements. But the Israelis say they will leave just four cities for now, and that further redeployments will stretch into mid-1997. Arafat's chief representative in Jerusalem, Faisal Husseini, has called the drawn-out scheme a "disaster" for the Palestinians.
The Americans take a very different view of the recent negotiations. "We are on the verge of a major step forward-the combination of West Bank empowerment, Israeli redeployment and Palestinian elections," says Robert Pelletreau, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs. "Elections will be a major breakthrough." The timing of the elections is far from certain, however, and some Palestinians question whether they will be truly democratic.
Flawed or not, the agreement under discussion does illustrate one fact of overarching importance: the peace process continues. His administration may be a mess and the mail may not arrive, but Arafat has managed to keep the framework for talks intact, even though late last year they were at risk of tumbling down. For fear of igniting civil war when he arrived in the Gaza Strip, Arafat was at first permissive toward the Islamic Resistance Movement, also known as Hamas, and the much smaller Islamic Jihad, the two groups most militant toward Israel. But the soft approach merely emboldened the radicals, who committed a number of deadly terrorist attacks during the last three months of 1994. A double-suicide bombing last January that killed 21 Israelis convinced Arafat that further negotiations with Israel were impossible in an atmosphere darkened by terror.