TheSalt Lake Tribune OPINION Thursday, December 3, 1998 A25 In Spite of Massive Aid, Gazans Remain Poor and Arafat Gets Richer WASHINGTON — There was a won- (where the consumersare) declined from about 50 percentto 2 percentby1996. In MICHAEL KELLY derful momentin the annals of diplomacy this week. Yasser Arafat, the presi- the first two years of Arafat's rule, one third of Gazan businesses folded. Foreign commercial investment in Gaza declined from $520 million in 1993 to below $300 million in 1997. The number of Palestinians living in poverty soared; dent of the Palestinian Authority, had come to town to attend an international conference convened by the White House to raise a new pile of money to give to President Arafat. And the conference had gone splendidly. Everyone had behavedperfectly fine; no one had so much as mentioned the inconvenient story the day before which said that the Palestinian Authority had swiped $20 million in British aid intended to build housing for the poorof Gaza, using the moneyinstead to build luxury flats for Arafat’s military and bureau- cratic elite. After a dayofpleasantries, representatives of 43 nations had pledged $3billion in new aid to the Palestinian Authority, including an extra $400 million from the U.S. president. Arafat saw that it was good. “I am satisfied with the reality of this conference,” he pronounced. Thereality? The reality is this: Since July 1, 1994, the day that Yasser Arafat arrived to take charge of Gaza, the inter- national community hasgiven the Pales- tinian Authority about $2.5 billionin aid THE WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP. In that time,to the confoundmentof confident predictions, life in Gaza became, for most people, even morepoor,nasty, brutish and short than it had been before the arrival of President Arafat. In the past four years, wagerates in Gaza have fallen 50 percent and unemployment has risen to highsof 50 percent; currently, it hovers at around 30 percent. The gross national product per Palestinian has declined by 35 percent. The number of Ga- ion, all of this is the fault of Israel, for its habitof closing off the Gaza Strip from and for the benefit of President Arafat time to time, disrupting the flow of com- nies, without benefit of law or semblance of order. merce. “TheIsrael closure policy is the primaryand direct cause for the dangerous decline in the performanceof the Palestinian economy over the past five years,” he declared on Monday. It is true that periodically stopping the flow of goods and workers between Gaza andIsrael has played an important role in the decline of Gaza’s health. But what President Arafat was too diplomatic to manyjams, would onceagain bet his fate on the short national attention span. Forced to choose weapons, he chose time; let the other side choose truth. He had, he knewfrom his early bouts over drugs, the draft and Gennifer Flowers, won such matches before. To bolster the decision to lie, Clinton had his favoritepolitical guru, Dick Morris, conduct a poll. The poll said the country would accept the sex but not a confession of cover-up. micturated away. The Palestinian Auth. seven separate police forces — police forces that may arrest without warrant and detain without due process. The 41,000 are the muscle in an obesity of a that nearly 40 percentof the annual bud get — $323 million — was wasted, looted or misused. In President Arafat's re- bureaucracy: ThePalestinian Authority by Palestinians living under Arafat's rule. Neither did President Arafat seefit Salaries for these employees consume more than half of the entire Palestinian national budget, which ran to $814 million in 1997. Where does the rest of the ority’s own auditors reported last year gime, bribery is endemic, services are nil, connections are everything / Do NOU SWEAR To TELL THE TRUTH... events. Chairman Henry Hydeand other the Judiciary Committee. Thetruthis, Clinton answereda trio of TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES questions that explain his thinking last January, at the very moment when he So, in the full face of national exposure, Clinton choseto stick with the cover-up, to borrowthe favored phrase of continuingthelie: “T did not have sexual relations with that woman,” he told us on Jan. 26 from the Roosevelt Room of the White House possibility of commissioning a poll to determine public opinion following the Richard Nixon,to “‘protectthe plan.” withportraits of TR and FDR beaming down. Clintonlied again on Aug. 17 when he faced the grandjury. Hedid so with the echo in his ears from Democrats as well as Republicans who said if he lied deliberately toa criminal tribunal, it would be impossible not to impeach him, Thequestion now facing the Congress is whether Clinton chose wisely. If the House fails to impeach him later this month, the president can say to himself —and to history — that he chose wisely in January: He wasright to lie in thecivil deposition, right to later affirm that lie Pia E Name a traction control system and chances are yo bu can getit on the E-Class Wagon. AND RUTH had to choose between coming clean and “Doyou admitor denythat on Jan. 21, 1996, you and Dick Morris discussed the Washington Post story regarding the Monica Lewinsky matter? “Do you admitor deny that you had a later conversation with Dick Morris in which he stated that the polling results regarding the Monica Lewinsky matter suggested that the American people “At some point after the investigation becamepublic, Dick Morris volunteered for perjury or obstruction of justice? in the press. He later called back. What I recall is that he said the public was most concerned about obstruction of justice would forgive you for adultery but not “Do you admit or deny that you re- sponded to Dick Morris’ explanation of these polling results by makinga statement similar to the following: ‘Well, we'll just have to win!’ ” Hereis Clinton’s answer to all three questions: ae With standard ASR, , available ESP and to conducta poll on the chargesreported or subornationofperjury. I do not recall saying, ‘Well, we just have to win then.’ While quibbling over the words, Clin- ton chose notto deny thetestimony of his mostinfamous — and dangerous — con- fidant. As he did with the stained dress that matched his DNA, he admitted those midnight machinations with Morris that so perfectly fit his MO. The question for the Congress andthe country is whether to prove Clinton's January calculation correct. Because if the manin the Oval Office gets past this month with both his presidency andhis honorintact, he does precisely what he hoped to do in that moment on the phone with Dick Morris, the moment heplaced all his bets on the lie: win. si a i ass Z iq advanced 4MATICall-wheeldrive, this E-Class is engineered to get you most anywhere you need to go—no matter how horrifying a place it maybe. Ken Garff Imports 575 SouthState Street (801) 521-6111 MENTAL REST and might is the only right thereis. ‘Thisis the reality that inspires foreign investment to stay far, far away from Gaza. But it isn’t diplomaticto say that Let's give the old fellow a fewbillion more. Maybe he won't steal all of it answer the 81 questions put to him by was obvious from day one, not least to It was a logical decision. Give him that. force, imposed by 41,000 members of critics have atiacked him for failing to culated, a better bet than admitting what Bill Clinton, whohad gotten through so YasserArafat money go? Almostallofit is stolen or Noteven Bill Clinton himself can deny this moral formulation of this past year's Hechoseto lie becauseit was, he cal- the national attention span had outrun The Palestinian Authority has yet to draft a criminal and civil code. What passes for law is brute and capricious cy he'd spenthislife attaining. it. its usual, short course, andhis bureaucrats and gunselsand cro- boasts no fewer than 80,451 employees, spread among 24 different ministries to the public. He was right because he got away with it where telling the truth back then might have caused such a storm as to drive him from the presiden- ter wouldignite, yet he choseto lie about lowered, the nation’s interest had waned, nasty, thuggish little kleptocracy run by its policy. The closures have beenin re- If Congress Fails to Punish Him, Clinton Was Smartto Lie those who know himbest. With all the hell that it would bring, he decided that denying the affair and denying the perjury in the January 17 deposition would get him through the storm. He could deal with the mess later, when tempers were y tablished in Gaza and the West Bank a sponseto the very many — 279 fatalities since Oslo — terrorist attacks on Israelis Hecould foresee fromthe momentofhis otherreason, as the Sunday In PresidentArafat’s considered opin- jobs are) has fallen from a pre-Arafat figure of 116,000 to as low as 23,000. The percentage of goods manufactured in Gaza and marketed in the West Bank exposure the whole onslaught of news coverage, the months of partisan warfare, the full fury of the debate his conduct and cover-up in the Lewinsky mat- Might there be some otherreason for Gaza’s decline? Well, tactless| 8, suggests, is that President Arafat has es- mention wasthat Israel has a reason for CHRIS MATTHEWS Yet, duringthe past two years, the economy of Gazahas only improvedslightly. oneout of every four now live below the poverty line. zanslegally working in Israel (where the WASHINGTON — The most damning thing you can say about President Clinton is that he knewall this would happen to note that, in the past two years, the governmentof Binyamin Netanyahuhas greatly reduced the number ofclosures. BUCKLE EVERYONE AND CHILOREN IN BACK! “ESP and ndvanced AMATIC AWD with 4S we avaable eq spray orm combination Advanced AMATIC alwhee! dive avantony 0 ive £520 Sedan and Wagon. Explore our Web site, www.MBX ‘ere i } com. Bees