The Same Day that Israeli warplanes destroyed the home of a Hamas political leader, a new leader for the Palestinian people was chosen. Mr. Ahmed Qurei ended several days of hesitation and accepted the position of prime minister of Palestine. Mr. Ahmed has no easy task ahead of him.
In taking the position offered to him by Yasir Arafat, Qurei dropped demands he had made for Israeli and international help — and spoke suddenly like a man in a hurry. His top priority would be to unify the tangled branches of Palestinian security forces, a central Israeli and American demand. An Israeli force has been poised for some time outside the Gaza Strip for a possible invasion and at the time of writing, some Israeli ministers renewed demands that Arafat be deported.
Prime Minister Qurei
The New York Times provides some biographical data on the new Palestinian prime minister. “Ahmed Ali Sulieman Qurei was born in 1937 in Abu Dis, a West Bank suburb of Jerusalem. He grew up there and he has returned to that village after years in exile. He was born into a wealthy family and is known to have worked as a banker before joining Arafat’s Fatah movement in the late 1960’s.
“During the years that the Palestinian leadership lived abroad, Mr. Qurei was responsible for the group’s tangled finances. That position kept him in close contact with Mr. Arafat, who to this day signs off on many small payments to Palestinian officials and even individuals who come seeking help for medical treatment or other personal matters. As speaker of the Palestinian parliament, he held the second highest ranking position in the Palestinian Authority, behind Mr. Arafat, until the prime minister’s post was established.”
Objectives
First and foremost, Qurei’s basic goal is that of a Palestinian state in all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with a capital in the traditionally Arab eastern part of Jerusalem. This basic tenet will indeed become a stumbling block for Israel in that they claim Jerusalem to be their capital. The good news is that Qurei was instrumental in bringing about a temporary peace to the holy land. In 1993, he worked out a deal in clandestine meetings with Israeli negotiators in Oslo. The deal was sealed on September 13, 1993, with a White House handshake between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, with President Bill Clinton as host. Today, some ten years later, the heady optimism of that day has long since evaporated after years of almost daily violence.
Qurei has an uphill struggle as he must deal with the Palestinian people, the Hamas terrorist organization and the Israeli government all at the same time. Further compounding things is the fact that his new boss, Arafat, is now a marked man. On September 11, 2003, the Israeli government authorized the removal of Arafat through exile, jail or even death. The New York Times reported the Israeli government as saying, “The events of the last few days have again proven that Yasir Arafat is an absolute obstacle to the whole process of peace and compromise between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel will act to remove this obstacle in a manner, time and way that will be decided separately.”
As Israeli security leaders arrived at the decision to deal with Arafat, the new prime minister’s efforts to form a government were blocked by other Palestinian politicians. Diplomats from the so-called Quartet — the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia — had pressed for the emergency cabinet, and as the proposal died they threw up their hands over preventing a new surge of violence. “Everyone’s blaming Arafat on the Palestinian side, and our diplomacy is now over,” one Quartet diplomat said. “Put on your helmets.”
Mutual determination
Israel is determined to stop the endless wave of suicide killings by deadly retaliation. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders are equally determined to eliminate the state of Israel.
Despite the tremendous obstacles to be overcome, we are told Israel will dwell prosperously without bars or gates. It seems that we are a long way from this condition. However, through Divine intervention, those days may come quickly and we can all rest assured that true peace will come to the land once our Master returns. Let us pray that that day may come quickly.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One