The Palestinian With a Plan for Statehood

Leslie Susser (JTA)
May 4, 2010
"In February, at the 10th Herzliya Conference, an annual forum on Israel's national security attended by top decision-makers and academics, Fayyad … explained [that] ‘the program we have embarked upon was not supposed to be in lieu of a political process. It was supposed to reinforce it.’"

Pundits and politicians have taken recently to comparing Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion. No less a figure than President Shimon Peres, one of Ben-Gurion’s foremost disciples, is the latest Israeli leader to offer the accolade. The reason is simple: Like Ben-Gurion, Fayyad is building institutions of statehood. …

The results on the ground have been impressive. Palestinian security forces trained by Dayton’s troops have been deployed in West Bank cities, creating new levels of law and order and enabling Israel to remove dozens of roadblocks and checkpoints. The aim from the outset was to secure a major principle of modern statehood: a single armed force, subordinate to the elected government, with no rival militias roaming the streets. For all intents and purposes, this is the case already in the West Bank today. …

There have been significant institutional achievements as well: A functioning stock market is operating in Nablus, Fayyad has been building government and municipal offices, and the nucleus of a central bank is in place. Access the full article>>



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