A gesture towards Palestinian reform in London, a gesture to Palestinian hopes in Tel Aviv. Does either carry substance, asks Graham Usher in Jerusalem They said it would happen and it did, more or less. On Tuesday, in the face of Israeli protests, the British government hosted a conference on Palestinian reform, attended by delegations from the US, UN, EU, Russia, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Israel did not attend. It hadn't been invited. The Palestinian Authority had been invited but didn't attend. Five Palestinian ministers nominated by Yasser Arafat to represent the PA were barred by Israel from leaving the occupied territories after Palestinian suicide bombers killed 23 in Tel Aviv on 5 January. The ministers had to make do with a video link-up to London from their disconnected enclaves in Gaza and Ramallah. Still, the PA saw the fact that the conference occurred at all as a victory of sorts, re-conferring legitimacy on an elected Palestinian leadership and leader currently in need of all the diplomatic recognition they can get. It was for this reason that the Israeli government was so opposed to the London meeting. "The present terror-promoting [Palestinian] leadership is not a peace partner, and that is part of the reason we didn't let these so-called delegates go to London for the conference, because it would just be another charade," said Zalman Shoval, an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Similar motives were probably behind Tony Blair's determination to proceed with the conference despite Israeli objections. He hopes it will help dull domestic and regional criticism that Britain and the US are ignoring the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in deference to their increasingly martial campaign to rid Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction and perhaps of Saddam Hussein. Away from the grandstanding, the delegates in London heard nothing about Palestinian reform that they did not know already. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, praised the changes introduced by the PA's Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, urged the Palestinians to complete the drafting of a new Palestinian constitution and lectured them not to let things like Israel's occupation and travel bans "be used as an excuse to stop the reform process in its tracks... Precisely because the security situation is so adverse you need a higher quality of public administration, not a lower quality". The Palestinian delegates agreed. But they also pointed out that delivering higher quality public administration was difficult when the Israeli army was occupying most of the West Bank, had destroyed much of the PA security infrastructure and was proceeding with policies of settlement construction and land confiscation. "The Israeli occupation is responsible for hindering and creating all of the obstacles to the reform process," said PA Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo. "If they [the international community] want real reform they should move the Israeli tanks and forces from our towns and cities and villages." But the politics of gesture was not confined to London. In Tel Aviv Labour Party leader, Avram Mitzna made his most solemn pledge yet that he would not join a National Unity coalition with Sharon after the Israeli elections on 28 January. "It is either us or him," he told a press conference on Tuesday. "We will not be in a government headed by Sharon. Period." The Palestinian leadership will be relieved if Mitzna stays true to his vow. Another National Unity government under Sharon's leadership is the worst-case scenario as far as the PA is concerned. A coalition government made up of Israel's right and religious parties is preferable since its majority would almost certainly be too narrow and its components too fractious to survive for long. But will Labour stay true to Mitzna's vow? No sooner had he finished speaking than the former Labour leader, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, listed conditions under which he said Labour would be prepared to join a National Unity coalition with Likud: construction of a 700- kilometre fence separating Israel from Palestinian areas in the West Bank, immediate resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians and a re-ordering of Israel's social and economic priorities. With such mixed signals coming from the opposition it is not surprising that Sharon and Likud are starting to recover the ground lost after a barrage of sleaze allegations to do with their primary election campaigns. On Monday polls showed Likud winning 32 seats in the 120- member parliament (up from 30 the week before) with Labour stuck on 22. Should these be the results on 29 January Sharon will be the next Israeli prime minister. But will he be able to form his preferred National Unity coalition with Labour so as to avoid being hostage to "those [parties] who want to give up everything or those who want to keep everything"? He will certainly issue the invitation. It remains to be seen whether Mitzna's pledge or his party will bar Labour from accepting.
