What Happened to Reform of the Palestinian Authority?
Dan Diker and Khaled Abu Toameh • According to public opinion polls, Palestinians support an end to rampant corruption and lawlessness, which they increasingly associate with Yasser Arafat. A Palestinian poll released on February 9, 2004, revealed that only 27 percent of the Palestinian public expressed “strong support” for Arafat. • According to Israeli and American assessments, Arafat has engaged in “a willing suspension of control” since 1994, following a strategy of “organized chaos” and playing security forces against one another to prevent any one group from becoming too powerful. As a result, the PA has lost legitimacy in the eyes of the public since it has left the control of Palestinian cities and towns to competing armed militants and terror groups. • Since Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield in the spring of 2002, there has been a growing chorus of criticism of Arafat by Palestinian legislators, academics, and NGO leaders. • Palestinian reformers have refrained from demandin
