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Interview: Khalil Shikaki Discusses Palestinian Opinion About Yasser Arafat's Successors And Negotiations With Israel
All Things Considered: November 11, 2004
Palestinian Polls Find Disappointment in Leadership
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
Joining us now from his home in Ramallah on the West Bank is Khalil Shikaki, who is director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research. He does a great deal of public opinion polling in the West Bank and Gaza.
Khalil Shikaki, can you tell us first, was Yasser Arafat in his last years still a compelling and popular figure for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, or was that popularity slipping?
Mr. KHALIL SHIKAKI (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research): To a large extent, the last few years have witnessed a gradual decline in the level of public support for Yasser Arafat. Back in the mid-'90s, when the peace process was still looking good and the prospect for Palestinian state-building was looking good as well, Palestinians had very high hopes. But gradually they became very disappointed with the failure of Arafat to deliver good governance and the failure to end the occupation through peaceful means.
SIEGEL: We seem to be witnessing, upon Yasser Arafat's death, the handover of power to people who were very, very closely associated with him and closely associated with his movement. Are they people, or do they represent institutions, that enjoy the confidence of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank?
Mr. SHIKAKI: In fact, to a large extent, these institutions have become powerless. And these men who today have succeeded Arafat in these positions will remain paralyzed, as Arafat was. Power, in fact, is shared by forces that are outside the institutions, forces that have been excluded from the domestic political process, forces that control the street and use violence and have militias. They're the ones in control, not the ones who are heading the institutions.
SIEGEL: In September, you polled Palestinians in Gaza on the West Bank. And one thing they said was that the government of Abu Ala, the prime minister, should resign, that it should leave office.
Mr. SHIKAKI: That is true.
SIEGEL: Obviously, not a vote of confidence in somebody who now advances to the first rank of the leadership.
Mr. SHIKAKI: No. Certainly, I think the public was very disappointed with the Abu Ala government from the beginning. They wanted to give it a chance, so they gave it the benefit of the doubt for a while, but I think gradually they became very much aware of the fact that the government of Abu Ala was totally paralyzed. Of all the issues that it said it wanted to achieve, like elections, like stabilizing domestic conditions by returning to law and order, returning to negotiations, improving the economic conditions--none of these were achieved. And the public was fully aware of that.
SIEGEL: Would the nationalist camp that Arafat led in Palestinian politics potentially be so weakened by his departure that Palestinians might turn in greater numbers to the religious, to the Islamist movement, Hamas and others?
Mr. SHIKAKI: That's a very good question. I think there is no doubt that Arafat, being the man who is seen as the father of the nation, his absence will certainly be perceived by some forces, such as the Islamists, as weakening the nationalist movement, perhaps leading to internal infighting, internal fragmentation within the movement. And so the challenges ahead for the nationalists are certainly tremendous. There is certainly an opportunity for the Old Guard today to try and reverse policies that Arafat has adopted in the past and therefore avert such an outcome of further disintegration and therefore emboldment of the Islamists. But a lot depends on policies that they decide on in the next few weeks. And a lot also depends on what the Israelis do.
SIEGEL: Khalil Shikaki, thank you very much for talking with us today.
Mr. SHIKAKI: You're welcome.
SIEGEL: Khalil Shikaki spoke to us from Ramallah on the West Bank. He is the director there of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. And you can read the results of the center's polls. There's a link to their Web site at our Web site, npr.org.
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