Unmet Expectations Trouble Gaza : Mideast: Five months after taking over, Palestinian leaders worry that discontent could turn into angry unrest.

GAZA CITY — As cars and trucks honked their way past his curbside grill, Ahmed abu Fajr quickly fashioned ground lamb and traditional Arab spices into kebabs, but he minced no words as he assessed the new Palestinian Authority.

“We have begun--and nothing more,” said Abu Fajr, 41. “We have this autonomy, this self-government, but we do not know what we can do with it. So far, there’s nothing to be satisfied with, nothing to be proud of.”

Customers perched on stools around low wooden tables in the sidewalk cafe agreed, and Abu Fajr’s mild criticism of PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat’s administration here soon grew into a veritable roar of condemnation.

“Jobs--where are the jobs he promised?” demanded Ahmed Mutawi, 48, a small, wiry electrician who has not worked regularly in three years.

“Housing is the key,” Ibrahim Hijawi, 33, a German-trained mechanical engineer, replied, “but what is being done about housing? Very, very little.”

“Have the Israelis gone? Not really,” added Moustafa Hindi, 37, owner of a neighboring fabric shop. “The settlers are still here, the army is still here to guard them, and so there are still clashes and still casualties. And whenever Israel wants, it locks us all up in Gaza--like a big prison.”

Indeed, tensions ran high as Israel this week sealed off the Gaza Strip, along with the West Bank, after a bomb--for which the militant Palestinian group Hamas claimed responsibility--ripped apart a bus in Tel Aviv and killed 22 people.

And after just five months of Palestinian administration, discontent is welling throughout the Gaza Strip. Palestinian leaders from Arafat down acknowledge their fears that it could turn into angry unrest.

“We have an unemployment rate of 58% that we can count and probably more,” Arafat told visitors to his seaside office recently. “More than 80% of our people live below the poverty line by any measure. That means in the morning they probably don’t know how they are going to eat that evening. And they expect so much from us--they expect everything--and there is so little we can give them so far.”

Unfulfilled expectations after a period of great euphoria seriously worry Arafat’s ministers.

“When empty stomachs rumble, they really growl,” said Freih abu Medeen, the Palestinian Authority’s justice minister. “Street talk is cheap, but hungry and unemployed people are a grave concern for us.”

For Arafat, the key is Western assistance to get the Palestinian Authority up and running and foreign investment to build an economy for Gaza’s 850,000 people. That aid--more than $2.5 billion was promised--has been slow in coming as Palestinians have sought to meet donors’ requirements for project planning and financial accountability.

One job creation scheme has put 350 unemployed Gazans to work cleaning up Gaza City, and the authority is hoping for international assistance to increase the number of people employed to at least 10,000 and expand it throughout the Gaza Strip.

But such make-work projects do not seem to encourage many. “Cleaning up Gaza is good--the place is like a huge refuse dump,” Abu Fajr said, fanning his kebabs, “but this is not developing a real economy. And, even if they do take on 10,000 people, what of the rest of the 120,000 who used to work in Israel? And how long will this work last--six months?”

While Palestinians are known for their political pessimism, the groundswell of criticism is turning into anger in Gaza’s ramshackle and crumbling towns, in its squalid refugee camps and even in the offices of Fatah, the principal group within the Palestine Liberation Organization and Arafat’s power base.

“Abu Ammar (Arafat) is not doing anything to persuade the people that he understands their problems and is working on them,” complained Tawfik abu Khousa, a leader of the Fatah Hawks during the intifada , the rebellion against the Israeli occupation. “The Palestinian Authority has little contact with the people. . . .

“There was a general consensus, which included even the PLO’s opponents, to give the authority a chance,” Khousa said. “Well, that time is running out. The Palestinian Authority needs to demonstrate that it is a government of, by and for the people by taking up their concerns. Otherwise, not only will it lose the elections when they are held, but lose control of the whole situation.”

The impact of the grumbling, although now the most notable feature of politics in the Gaza Strip, is hard to assess because the PLO’s rivals among Islamic militants do not yet pose a credible challenge, and Fatah remains confident that it will be able to form a “national unity” coalition that will win the elections expected by spring.

“Our fear, if we fail to relieve the poverty and realize people’s hopes, is that extremists will appear, that they will become leaders of the street and that they plunge us into internal conflict and even greater despair than we have known,” Medeen said. “Although the majority of the people support the Palestinian Authority, we are young, and we are weak, and we are vulnerable, very vulnerable.”

Most Palestinians do acknowledge the vastness of Gaza’s problems after 27 years of Israeli occupation, but many also criticize the PLO and the officials Arafat has appointed for failing to work harder and more imaginatively in solving those problems.

“They have failed so far to operate effectively any of the government departments,” declared Mansour Shawa, a leading Palestinian businessman, “and that lack of proper performance has discouraged the donor countries without whose aid we cannot begin to solve Gaza’s problems. . . . We are squandering the opportunity for which our people have struggled and fought for so long. Unless Mr. Arafat appoints new and competent people, we are heading for a national calamity.”

Critics indeed view the Palestinian Authority under Arafat as an unfolding disaster.

“Palestinians have become the administrators of their own occupation,” said Dr. Mahmoud Zahhar, a leader of the Muslim fundamentalist movement Hamas, which opposed the peace agreement between the PLO and Israel. “The Israelis lay down the rules, and Arafat enforces them. . . .

“Do you think that Israel will ever accept a strong and independent Palestinian state growing next to it? Clearly not. So autonomy is a charade, a self-deception, and in that people will be crushed when they try to use these powers we are supposed to have been given.”

But criticism also comes from strong backers of the peace agreement and supporters of Arafat.

“Power should not be an end in itself,” said bookshop owner Yusri Fares, 33, a Fatah organizer, “but that is what seems to be happening with these people who came back from exile with Arafat. They fought for power for so long they failed to understand that it is to be used to achieve things.

“Fatah people come to me and ask when things are going to change,” Fares said. “They complain they see little improvement in their families’ lives. That may be unfair, but people measure politics in terms of jobs, of housing, of services, of business.”

But with the departure of Israeli troops from all but the settlement areas, and the absence of the street patrols, the removal of the checkpoints and watchtowers and the ending of the nightly curfew, Gaza is undeniably more peaceful and relaxed, if not yet more prosperous.

“When you consider that our children are not being shot in the streets, when you consider that the years of occupation are over, then you appreciate the gains we have made,” argued Gaza City Mayor Aown Shawa, a cousin of Mansour Shawa. “People now have a peace of mind that they have not had for 27 years.”

Riyad Zaanoun, the Palestinian health minister, said Gazans appreciate that the most dire predictions--a civil war between the PLO and its opponents and the collapse of the region’s health services--were not realized, and, as a result, they give the new government more credit than it seems from current criticism.

“We established security in the first month despite Israeli speculation we would be fighting in the streets,” Zaanoun said. “Secondly, we maintained and have now expanded the health services. Israelis said it would collapse. The same is true with education. . . .

“Establishing an effective Palestinian government is not going to be done in two or three months--it will take years. Nor are we going to move from poverty to prosperity overnight. I think our people are showing a lot of tolerance and understanding.”

Recent opinion surveys of Gaza residents show 54% to 60% of those polled support the peace agreement and the limited self-government it gave the Palestinians; opposition is less than half that, with the balance undecided.

But impatience is increasing, according to the surveys, with more than half criticizing the Palestinian Authority, largely for slowness in economic development.

“There are donors, there are investors, there are businessmen ready to move into Gaza,” Mansour Shawa said. “They want to see plans, and there are none--at least not with the Palestinian Authority and the people Mr. Arafat has appointed, most of whom are unqualified for their posts. . . .

“Mr. Arafat instead is alienating people, good people. He still operates as if he is commanding an army and leading a revolution when he should be founding a state and heading a government. . . . This is what brings about the loss of hope and the fear for our future.”

Aown Shawa, Mansour’s cousin, counseled patience. Permits for about 30 buildings have been issued in Gaza City, he said, and construction will begin within two months. Palestinian investors from abroad are beginning to bring projects to him for approval. And foreign assistance is beginning to flow.

“Capital attracts capital,” Aown Shawa said. “It’s not fair to expect paradise in two or three months--we need at least a year. Seriously, the PLO is learning that it was easier to run a revolution than a state, and our people have to understand that throwing stones in the intifada was easier than laying bricks for a new economy will be.”