Salam Fayyad: ‘This Is a Cycle That Has to Stop’
What do you do? How can there be a state of security unless the security is for Palestinians and Israelis alike?
Israel at 60
5/10/08: NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth talks to Israeli President Shimon Peres about the the growing threat from Iran.
Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak says that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is like an American CEO—a man who gets things done. Fayyad, a former World Bank economist with a reputation for probity, first joined the Palestinian Authority as Finance minister, and was appointed prime minister after the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007. A future leader of a Palestinian state? He faces several hurdles: he has no popular base and is not a member of the ruling Fatah party. Last week NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth spoke with Fayyad in Ramallah. Excerpts:
Weymouth: You are popular with Israeli officials.
Fayyad: That's good.
Why did you join the Palestinian Authority?
I came here when the IMF [first] set up an office here in December 1995 … Particularly after Oslo, a lot of people began to come in as experts. I started to feel antsy about being in the Washington area and just sitting there on my deck on Sunday. When the time came for me to go back to Washington, I just didn't want to leave this place.
Did you think it was possible to do anything with Arafat in charge?
There is hardly anything I did here that was easy. Changing the way business is done in finance in the PA was not easy. You just didn't know where to begin. The elements of failure by far outweighed the elements of success.
Do you blame the Americans for pushing the election in which Hamas won?
No. From what I remember, everyone, myself included, pushed for elections to be inclusive.
How do you explain the result?
When you really think about what happened, it should not have come as a surprise. It is a problem of an incumbent. There was dissatisfaction with the way the PA had governed. You had a newcomer running against the system. They claimed to be clean; they claimed Fatah was corrupt.
Is it true that Fatah was corrupt?
The PA clearly didn't manage properly throughout. It does not really have to be a clear case of impropriety for there to be strong public opinion against a sitting authority. The context in which we live, occupation and checkpoints, people don't like that. In the early '90s, expectations were high, but then there was setback after setback. People started to say life before was easier.
But when you were sworn in, you spoke out against violence and incitement.
My first speaking engagement was to clergymen.
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Member Comments
Posted By: saldabbakeh @ 05/17/2008 8:57:39 AM
Comment: The Sad Story of Disproportionality:
Sixsty years ago this month, my father, and 800,000 other Palestinians (who by the way were no Muslim extremeists), were forced to leave their homes, lands, villages, cities and country by Isrealis who came from all parts of the world. For decades, Europe had been committing atrocities against them. There were very few places to which they could run for their lives. One of these places was Palestine.
These people have been repeating these atrocities in Palestine ever since. The victim has turned a full circle to become the killer. The response by the new occupiers of Palestine has been disproportionate ever since. Mr. Fayyad is being very nice to the Israelis when he puts the matter so mildly.
The fact is that Israelis are occupying Palestine. The Fact is that they have deprived hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Palestinians from their basic human rights. The fact is the Israelis have place at least 1.5 million Gazans under siege in the largest prison on earth. The fact is that Israel was created 60 years ago only after Palestinians paid with their lives, property and ruin.
My father tells me that he had been living with Palestinian Jews all his life in harmony when they were being placed in concentration camps in Germany and Poland. When he refused to leave, Israeli soldiers killed his donkey and threatened to do the same with his family if he did not.
The Israeli response has always been "disproportionate." The problem with Fayyad's terminlogy is two-fold: people like Salam Fayyad do not see the large picture of their people losing everything- he thinks of us as refugees, not a full fledged nation. And the world, especially the United States various administrations, close their eyes to the realities- they do not want to see the truth. It is a world of double standards. For 60 years, we Palestinians have been paying for crimes committed against the Jews in Europe. The sad reality is that the victims of yesterday are now committing the crimes against others, disproportionately to say the least.
Posted By: Nins @ 05/12/2008 3:09:53 PM
Comment:
ThreeNewCandidates, I agree with you when you say that Carter was a good man with high hopes. But I can't agree when you say that he "accomplished nothing" while he was in office. You are 50 years old, so surely you remember how Carter brought peace to the Middle East? And you must remember how very threatening that was to certain factions like the religious right in Iran, who had just overthrown the Shah. They wanted the drama to continue (and they had some legitimate grievances against the US, since we had been controlling Iran through the Shah) so they took American hostages to sabotage the peace, and OPEC jacked the price of oil and turned down the US oil supply for a while, to scare Americans enough not to re-elect Carter. Since you are 50, you must remember standing in line for hours during the 70s, waiting to buy gasoline. Trust me, it will only get worse in the future as the oil supply actually runs out. The party is over, people.
When will America wake up and rid ourselves of our dependancy on oil?
If we want to remain the "land of the free" we better start investing in renewable energy, NOW.
You ask, who would vote for Obama instead of McCain?
The answer: ANYONE WHO WANTS A STRONG AMERICA, FREE OF OIL DEPENDENCY.
Posted By: factsearcher @ 05/12/2008 12:05:31 PM
Comment: In the Newsweek interview with Salam Fayyad, Mr Fayyad said that he would not get rid of Hammas because we "have to be accepting of political pluralism". I would respond that political pluralism is one thing, political terrorism is quite another.
I also find Mr Fayyad's remarks to be some what disingenuous when he states publicly that he is against violence from Gaza as it relates to Hammas' indiscriminate rocket fire into Israeli towns, then decries a "disporportionate" Israeli response. And what, Mr Fayyad, may I ask, would be a more proportionate response from the Israelis? To sit back and do nothing while the innocent get murdered? Please. I find you, sir, to be some what of a hypocrite. You say that you want peace between Israelis and Palestinians, yet your remarks belie the true content of your character. If, as you state you truly want peace, then you must get Hammas to renounce all violence and acknowledge Israel's right to exsist. You must extirpate the influence of non state actors such as Syria, Iran and their minions lest they be consumed by the fires of their own hatred. You cannot hold an olive branch in one hand and a grenade in the other. The ambiguous nature of such political posturing does nothing to champion your cause pushing Palestinian statehood into the realm of fantasy rather than reality. You want peace. Then, sir, might I suggest that you eradicate the biggest impediment to it. The irrational hatred directed against a nation of people codified by an ancient religious decree that to this day seeks the elimination of those people and their state; whose only objective is to live in peace.
Well said