This interesting Ha'aretz analysis offers a path out of the current mess. With the PA largely destroyed in the West Bank and largely intact in Gaza, it suggests a back to the future approach, rebuilding the PA Gaza first, this time doing it right - monitoring funds, restricting arms, and neutralizing Arafat.
The joint product is a platform for a new, rehabilitated Palestinian Authority, a Gaza first approach, model 2002. It returns the Palestinians back to eight years ago, to the first week of May 1994, when Arafat and his forces arrived in Gaza (and Jericho).
Israel now wants to stop the clock at that critical moment, the big bang of Oslo, and take back security control over the territories. The civil administration will remain in the hands of the Palestinians - but with foreign supervision, by the donor countries and Egypt and Jordan.
The security infrastructure in the territories was tainted by terrorism, and since the civil infrastructure was part of the security structure, both were damaged during Operation Defensive Shield. Enlisting outside help, with Israeli help, to rehabilitate the civil administration will create an opportunity to build a much
less threatening society.
The two important levers for shaping the Palestinian community, just as in relations between Jerusalem and Washington, are money and arms. The defense establishment assumes that consistent, ongoing action to undermine violent forces in the West Bank and Gaza, denying them the arms they used for intimidation, will bring back powerful financial and political forces who during the Oslo years withdrew in the face of the militias. Without weapons, the thugs will resort to their natural dimensions.
The economic aid to the Palestinians will go directly to the development and welfare projects without dripping into the sands of Gaza through the corrupt institutional pipes. The donors will no longer just hope for the best without effective supervision of their funds.
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