And the new leader: Arafat

On the other side, Sharon floated the test of reforms as the threshold condition for entering into a diplomatic process. The expression "reforms" has, as usual, a double meaning. For Israeli ears, there is only one reform. It makes no difference to Israel who the members of the Palestinian parliament will be, who the mayors are, whether the status of women will be recognized or whether Palestinian child labor is prohibited. After all, Israel is not interested in democracy for democracy's sake, but rather in "reform" that will depose Arafat and remove him from the public discourse.

American ears hear "reform" differently. They were quick to praise Arafat's speech, his condemnation of terror and decision to implement reforms in the American sense - those aimed at building a more soundly functioning Palestinian government, unified security forces, and transparent economy deserving of foreign assistance in advance of establishing a Palestinian state, which has become a firm stance in American policy. But reality in Palestine has its own voice, and it is unlike the voice of either Sharon or the American administration.
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Israel forces internal movement permits on Palestinians

The Israeli army has been tightening its grip on movement of Palestinians in cities and towns in the West Bank by insisting that they obtain new freedom-of-movement permits from the regional administration to travel from one city to another.(...)

According to a source from a donor country, the result has been to effectively cut the territory into cantons. Under the new system, goods can be transported within the territories only using a "back-to-back system" in which a truck goes to a certain location where goods are unloaded to another awaiting truck, which then carries the merchandise further.
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The real disaster is the closure

1. The ongoing damage to the Palestinian economy from the sieges and closures is much more than the physical damage created by the military operations, including Operation Defensive Shield. In the first 15 months of the intifada, from October 2000 to December 2001, the physical damage to infrastructure and Palestinian institutions was an estimated $503 million. Last week, an estimate of $360 million was published, referring to the physical damage resulting from the military actions in March and April this year. But in the first 15 months of the intifada, at least $2.4 billion in damage was done to the economy, in terms of lost gross national revenues because of the mounting restrictions on freedom of movement imposed by Israel on the Palestinians in, and out, of the territories. Roberts, who is British, and usually careful with his words, calls the closure policies "the silent destruction."
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Analysis / A process advancing in diplomatic treacle

The Likud central committee meeting last week demonstrated that the domestic political system and regional diplomatic contacts are now interlinked and can no longer be separated. The result - the slow pace of movement toward a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians will become even slower.
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