Bleak prospects for crisis team

By Gerald Butt
Middle East analyst

Many of the names in the new emergency Palestinian cabinet may be the same as before. But the problems faced by the new team are even more complex and dangerous than in the past.

The appointment of an emergency cabinet and the declaration of a state of emergency in the Palestinian territories are desperate measures taken in desperate times.

Ahmed Qurei (right) heads the eight-member cabinet

But the fact of the matter is that the Palestinian leadership has neither the authority nor the strength to impose rules and regulations on those within the community who believe that violence against Israel - with civilian targets included - is the only way to confront the Jewish state.

At the same time, the leadership does not enjoy the trust of the Israeli Government, thus ruling out the option of any kind of negotiated settlement.

This latter state of affairs will not be improved by the choice of key ministers - all of whom are loyal supporters of Yasser Arafat, the man being blamed by Israel for the succession of suicide bombings over recent weeks.

Waning sympathy

In choosing the new team at a time when he faces increasing Israeli pressure, the Palestinian president has surrounded himself with his most trusted advisers.

In particular, he has chosen Nasser Youssef as minister of the the interior - a long-time ally with a military background.

Mr Arafat will hope that Mr Youssef will be able to use a combination of persuasion and, if necessary, physical pressure to bring the suicide bombings to an end - thus achieving what the former prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, failed to do.

The government has no vision of hope that it can offer to its increasingly disillusioned people

At the same time, Saeb Erakat, a British-educated and highly articulate speaker of English, has been chosen to put over the increasingly desperate cause of Mr Arafat in particular and the Palestinians in general to the outside world.

His task will not be easy. While every suicide attack is denounced by senior members of the Palestinian Authority, the body has proved to the international community that it is incapable of stopping future ones.

Prominent Palestinians acknowledge that the atrocities, like the latest restaurant bombing in Haifa, are losing their community much of the sympathy that they once enjoyed around the world.

Expulsion threat

The prospects, then, for the new cabinet are bleak. The Palestinian Authority is starved of funds and is having to deal with an infrastructure that has been devastated by years of neglect and violence.

With tens of thousands of people out of work, living standards are falling fast.

Above all, the government has no vision of hope that it can offer to its increasingly disillusioned people.

Against this background, the militant Islamic groups appear to be having little difficulty in finding recruits for suicide bombing missions.

Then, there is the fate of Mr Arafat himself. The cabinet will be hoping that the international community - and the United States is particular - persuades Israel not to carry out the threat to expel him.

For the new team would be as ill-prepared for the likely upsurge in violence that would follow his expulsion as they are incapable of bringing the suicide bombings to an end.

In short, the new cabinet is a team for a time of emergency. But whether it has the ability to deal with this emergency or any other must be open to question.