Over the past five months, Palestinians looking for a way out have been unable to look to their government for guidance. The reason is that the political situation has become unbearably confusing. It takes a full time job trying to keep track of resignations rumored, presented or withdrawn and whether or not a government has been formed. Those filling ministerial posts have become sitting ducks simply awaiting their respective government formulation to collapse.

The disagreements boil down to power. A crisis arises every time questions on the authority of the prime minister, president or security minister are brought up. President Arafat’s reluctance to give up any of his powers is directly related to U.S. and Israeli efforts to sideline him. Having acquiesced to international demands to create the post of prime minister, Arafat is weary of having his powers swept from under him. Arafat can not survive as an ordinary human being. He has always been symbolic, larger than life, a figure of power. Take that away and there is no Arafat and so his resistance to sharing power is one of survival.

The post of prime minister was created with two intentions in mind, as far as the U.S. and Israel are concerned, sidelining Arafat and cracking down, with force, on Palestinian militants. This is the flaw that will doom any person appointed to the post. Arafat is aware of the strategy behind the appointment of prime minister. Both Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qurei had no room to maneuver. Both were forced to demand more power in response to American pressure to take certain actions, and thus they were involuntarily pushed to clash with Arafat.

It is clear the Bush administration was counting on this clash all along as it allows them to covertly and indirectly force an internal conflict within Palestinian society in the hopes that Arafat would be sidestepped by Palestinians themselves. Of course there is the added bonus that such an internal conflict provides the perfect excuse to squarely blame the stalled implementation of the “road map” and U.S. disengagement on the Palestinians. While the latter intention seems to be working, the former only shows that God did not grace the foolish U.S. administration with wisdom.

While this internal conflict is unlikely to result in the toppling of Arafat, it is leading us down a dangerous path. It is one thing when we are attacked from the outside, but now we are fighting with ourselves. Instead of dismantling the occupation, we are dismantling our institutions, our people. Ultimately, we will end up with a fragmented people and no law and order, but still determined to resist. In other words, chaos.

The only way out of this crisis, and any other for that matter, is by resorting to law and legal institutions and in these troubled times the President, prime minister, cabinet and various political factions are urged to resolve their differences through these available legitimate means of dispute resolution and not by bypassing them.