Exile and the prophetic: Farewell to Salam Fayyad and American innocence

This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is gone. With him goes the Palestinian Arab Spring.

So says the New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman in his column, “Goodbye to All That.” Say it ain’t so Tom. Or better, say it differently. Think, Tom, think!

Like Kenneth Feinberg, Friedman is an American innocent abroad. Or should I say an American liberal innocent abroad.

Fayyad is credited with solidifying the Palestinian governmental and economic infrastructure. He resigned recently amid political infighting in the Palestinian Authority. Fayyad was also widely known for his work or collaboration – depending on one’s point of view – with Israel and the United States.

Fayyad may have had little choice in his policies. However, the more important question is where Fayyadism was leading – to a real Palestinian state or a more efficient dependent autonomy?

So Friedman’s sense that Fayyad was the “’Arab Spring before there was an Arab Spring” is bound to be controversial. But this isn’t what interested me about Friedman’s take on things. Rather, it is Friedman’s innocence about American politics and its relation to the politics he sees rampant in the Arab world.
Two passages from Friedman’s column caught my attention:

That is what the Arab Spring was supposed to lead to: a new generation of decent Arab leaders whose primary focus would be the human development of their own people, not the enrichment of their family, tribe, sect or party.

Shortly after he became prime minister in 2007, I coined the term ‘Fayyadism’ – the all-too-rare notion that an Arab leader’s legitimacy should be based not on slogans or resistance to Israel and the West or on personality cults or security services, but on delivering decent, transparent, accountable governance.

Friedman’s assertions reminded me of learning about Colin Powell’s personal wealth a few years after he retired from the military. Though I’m not sure what Generals in the American military make and of that amount what they’re able to save each month, I was astounded by what I found. This is how the New York Times matter-of-factly reported it in 2001:

Since his retirement from the military seven years ago, Gen. Colin L. Powell has become wealthy through high-priced speaking engagements, amassing an investment portfolio in excess of $28.2 million, according to his financial disclosure statement. General Powell, who began Senate hearings today as President-elect George W. Bush’s choice for secretary of state, earned $6.7 million in speaking fees last year in 109 appearances around the country, the records show.

In most cases, he charged $59,500 for his remarks to such diverse groups as Gallup, the polling organization; Petsmart, the pet supply company; Lucent Technologies; and Middlesex Community College. For a speech at Credit Suisse Financial Services, he received his highest fee for a single appearance: $127,500 on May 5.

What the American military, Petsmart and Credit Suisse have in common I’m not sure. I think the best way of understanding the high profile ex-government official lecture circuit is the American way of paying off men – and sometimes women – for their underpaid “service to the nation.” Of course, if you think it through, the cost of Powell’s service to the American taxpayer for his outrageous and deceptive support for the Iraq war, is enormous.

Shall we factor in the maimed and dead of the war in Iraq as cost factors? How corrupt is a society that financially rewards those who have so much American – and Iraqi – blood on their hands?

Friedman’s emphasis on corruption in the Arab world also brings to mind the reports of Rahm Emmanuel’s wealth. Now Mayor of Chicago and former White House Chief of Staff to President Obama, Emanuel is another “public servant” whose pay grade as a Congressman and Senior Advisor to President Clinton was more or less consistent with a professor at a major university. In 2008, the Washington Examiner reported his net worth in somewhat less matter-of-fact tones:

Barack Obama, in the name of ethics, has promised to “close the revolving door between K-Street lobbying shops and the White House.”

He very well might do that, but the man running the show in his White House, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, is among the all-time champions in parlaying work in government into business connections and personal wealth—$16.2 million in two-and-a-half years—and then leveraging those business connections back into political success.

Emanuel, Obama’s pick as White House chief of staff, was never a K Street lobbyist, but in between his stints in government he was a highly-paid deal-maker who enriched himself by using his government connections to enrich big business.

As a fundraiser, as a policymaker, and as a businessman, Emanuel has hitched himself to those businesses particularly dependent on government—and he has been rewarded nicely.

Rewarded nicely! Like Ronald Reagan who, shortly after he left office, picked up a 2 million dollar fee for traveling and, I assume speaking, in Japan. Even with Emmanuel’s connections cited, reporters have had trouble figuring out exactly what he did for the wealth accumulated.

As with the issue of what happens to collaborators, Jewish or Palestinian – or American as we now know from recent targeted killings abroad – corruption is a subject where comparative advantage is difficult to establish.

Almost every Israeli Prime Minister in my adult life – or subordinates very close to them – has been investigated or indicted for corruption. I suppose that isn’t as bad as the case of Moshe Katsav, former President of Israel, who was convicted of rape and obstruction of justice. He is now serving a seven year prison sentence in, of all places, Ramla!

Ramla, formerly a Palestinian town, keeps popping up on my radar. It’s where Yitzhak Rabin ordered the expulsion of Palestinians during the 1948 war.

Like the present day memorializing of the victims of atrocity, ethnic cleansing has its own economies of scale. How much property did the fledgling state of Israel reap as it cleansed Palestinians from their cities, town and villages?

My take-away from Friedman’s discussions of the failings of the Arab Spring, Palestinian-style? That repression and corruption are everywhere. Even among the leaders of our American empire.