PALESTINE -- PEACE NOT APARTHEID |
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Chapter 10: THE PALESTINIAN ELECTION, 1996 One of the most important commitments of The Carter Center is to promote democracy in nations that face their first experience with elections or have a ruling party so powerful (or corrupt) that opposition candidates are hesitant to seek office. Although we have no authority over the local people, we respond to requests from governments, political parties, and national election officials to participate. Since our time and funding are limited, we offer our services only when we believe that our presence is necessary to ensure free and fair elections. Carter Center teams have monitored more than sixty elections, but three of the most interesting, challenging, and important have been for the Palestinian people. Although I had met with other PLO leaders in Egypt and Syria beginning in 1983, my first personal meeting with Yasir Arafat was during a visit to Paris in April 1990. Rosalynn was with me to take notes, and Arafat had a large entourage of his top leaders. He was surprisingly friendly and obviously grateful to discuss Palestinian issues directly with a prominent American. His associates treated him with great deference, but Arafat was reluctant to give any clear answers to substantive and sensitive questions without first having a chance to reach a consensus among the many contending factions within his organization. He expressed his regrets at having rejected the Camp David Accords, admitting that he hadn't studied all its terms, including withdrawal of Israeli military and political forces from the occupied territories. He knew that I had called for a Palestinian homeland, pointed out that a democratic process would have to be the first step, and urged me to consider helping to ensure that Palestinians could elect their own government. I promised that, when the time came for any kind of election, The Carter Center and I would be deeply involved -- provided we could obtain approval from Israel. I pushed him to fulfill his Oslo promise to modify the PLO charter to accept Israel's existence, but he was equivocal in his answer. The Palestinian leader had never had any direct contact with Israeli leaders but was quite familiar with the different political factions that contended for leadership in Jerusalem. My notes show that he had specific questions about Prime Minister Shamir and some of the younger politicians, including Yossi Beilin (who later negotiated the Geneva Initiative) and Ehud Olmert (who would become prime minister). Although I had unofficial approval from Secretary of State James Baker for what was supposed to be a private meeting, we decided to accept a last-minute invitation from President Francois Mitterrand to visit him at the Elysee Palace. This turned out to be a highly publicized event, which caused me some discomfort but was very gratifying to Arafat. I maintained contact with Palestinian leaders after this introductory meeting, and when Israel approved an election for president and members of the Legislative Council as part of the Oslo Agreement, Arafat repeated his request to The Carter Center. We accepted the responsibility along with an organization with which we often cooperate, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a nonprofit organization devoted to strengthening democracy. This was a very interesting experience, which illustrated many of the problems and challenges in the Holy Land. When we arrived there in January 1996, it was obvious that the Israelis had almost complete control over every aspect of political, military, and economic existence of the Palestinians within the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli settlements permeated the occupied territories, and highways connecting the settlements with one another and with Jerusalem were being rapidly built, with Palestinians prohibited from using or crossing some of the key roads. In addition, more than one hundred permanent Israeli checkpoints obstructed the routes still open to Palestinian traffic, either pedestrian or vehicular. After meeting with other members of our observer team, I had sessions with American diplomats, Palestinian pollsters, political candidates, and members of the Election Commission. I learned that the commission had been in existence for only four weeks and that political candidates had just three weeks to campaign, but seven hundred had qualified for the eighty-eight parliamentary seats, six of which were set aside for Christians and one for a Samaritan. Only Arafat and a relatively unknown woman named Samiha Khalil had qualified for the presidency. There were many problems, which I discussed with Prime Minister Shimon Peres and General Uri Dayan, who was responsible for security in the West Bank and Gaza. They assured me that key checkpoints would be opened, Israeli soldiers would not enter voting places, and voters would not be intimidated. I had seen many posters in East Jerusalem that threatened any Arab voters with the loss of their identification cards, housing permits, and social services. Israeli leaders, who told me that a militant religious group had posted the warnings, promised to remove as many of them as possible. The biggest problem related to East Jerusalem, which Palestinians (and the international community) consider to be their occupied territory and Israelis claim as an integral part of their nation. The key question concerning the election was whether Palestinians living in East Jerusalem were voting as residents or as aliens who were casting absentee ballots to be counted outside the disputed area. There were about 200,000 resident Arabs, only about 4,000 of whom would be given permits to vote -- and then only in five post offices, four of them quite small. Of about 120,000 registered voters, the others who had adequate determination and transportation might find their way outside Jerusalem to nearby polling sites in suburban villages, including the Mount of Olives, Ramallah, Bethany, and Bethlehem. This was a very sensitive political issue, and a failure to resolve it threatened the conduct of the election. Rosalynn and I met with Yasir Arafat in Gaza City, where he was staying with his wife, Suha, and their little daughter. The baby, dressed in a beautiful pink suit, came readily to sit on my lap, where I practiced the same wiles that had been successful with our children and grandchildren. A lot of photographs were taken, and then the photographers asked that Arafat hold his daughter for a while. When he took her, the child screamed loudly and reached out her hands to me, bringing jovial admonitions to the presidential candidate to stay at home enough to become acquainted with his own child. During our more serious time together, I chastised Arafat for arresting Palestinian members of the news media and human rights activists, but he was unrepentant, claiming that they had stirred up strife between Muslims and Christians. I urged him to modify the Palestine National Charter to renounce violence and to recognize Israel, but he claimed that this had already been accomplished during the Oslo peace process. I also urged him to give the newly elected Legislative Council maximum autonomy, and he promised to do so, stating that they would assemble for the first time shortly after Ramadan (an annual month of fasting and prayer for Muslims that would begin that same weekend). At Arafat's request, I then met with Mahmoud al-Zahar and other leaders of Hamas, an Islamic militant group that opposed recognition of Israel, perpetrated acts of violence, and was increasingly competitive with Arafat's secular Fatah Party. I urged them to accept the results of the election and forgo violence. They promised not to disrupt the elections and to renounce violence in the future "if Israelis discontinue repression." They informed me that they intended to participate in later municipal elections but not to be part of the Legislative Council. The issue of voting in East Jerusalem became critical before voting was to begin, and we finally worked out a compromise: to have the slots in the top edges of the ballot boxes! Palestinians could claim they were dropping in their ballots vertically as on-site votes while Israelis could maintain that the envelopes were being inserted horizontally as letters to be mailed. On election day Rosalynn and I went from one polling station to another, and our observers heard complaints and resolved as many as we could. Quite early there were few voters in East Jerusalem, and about fifty uniformed Israeli police were around the entrances and even within the post offices, ostentatiously videotaping the face of every Palestinian who was standing in line to cast a ballot. Two domestic observers who appeared at the largest post office with their proper credentials were arrested, and one was beaten on the way to jail. This news spread like wildfire throughout Jerusalem. At the main checkpoint where the Palestinians were going outside the city to vote, a young captain told me that his orders were to record every name. I called General Dayan to report these problems, and the checkpoints were opened, but it was around noon before the police numbers at the Jerusalem sites were reduced and the final video cameras put away. Dayan's reasoning was that they were restraining right-wing Israelis to prevent violence, but it was obvious that the Palestinian voters were intimidated, and only about 1,600 Jerusalem voters finally cast (or mailed) ballots in the city. During the day our observer team collected and analyzed reports from about 250 voting places. Overall, about 75 percent of all registered voters cast their ballots, and in Gaza more than 85 percent voted. Of 1,696 voting places outside Jerusalem, there were problems in only two. Three Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli police at a checkpoint at Jenin, but 60 percent of the people voted in the village. The participation and enthusiasm of women was the biggest surprise for us. In Gaza and most other places where few women were ever seen in public, they jammed the polling sites. Yasir Arafat received 88 percent of votes for president and members of his Fatah Party and affiliated independents won about 75 percent of the Legislative Council seats. After the election, I again urged that he honor the independence of the elected council, make a credible offer to Hamas and others to participate in the future, set an early date for municipal elections, and expedite the amendments to the PLO charter. Some strong independents were elected, including Hanan Ashrawi, an influential Christian spokesperson from Ramallah. Everyone laughed when Arafat told me there were going to be about fifteen women on the council, adding that "Hanan counts for ten." It was obvious that release of almost 5,000 of the Palestinian prisoners being held by the Israelis and the possibility of progress on the permanent issues would be predicated on good-faith action by both sides. Prime Minister Peres announced that all members of the Palestinian National Council (legislative body of the PLO) would be permitted to travel to the West Bank and Gaza in order to amend the PLO charter. This was welcome news, since many of the more active members of the Fatah Party had long been accused by the Israelis of being terrorists and not given travel permits within their own land. The new president established his office in Ramallah and continued the struggle to obtain complete Palestinian control of the West Bank and Gaza, which remained occupied by Israel. All of us international observers were pleased with the quality of the election, which was nothing less than an over- whelming mandate, not only for forming a Palestinian government but also for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. We also were reminded of the extreme sensitivity and difficulty of issues still to be resolved.
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