http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/2005/rubin/12_06.html
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center university and visiting professor at American University. His coauthored book, Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography, (Oxford University Press) is now available in paperback and in Hebrew. His latest book, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East, will be published by Wiley in September. Prof. Rubin’s columns can now be read online at http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/column.html. His books can be ordered at the SPME Mart at spme.org/spmemart.html at spme.org
Copyright GLORIA Center. Reprinted With Permission.
The evidence for the Palestinian national movement’s collapse and its leadership’s paralysis is accumulating daily. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Palestinian Authority (PA) must either cancel the parliamentary election scheduled for January and the Fatah primaries to choose candidates for that balloting or lose them.
The two most important recent events have worsened his situation. First is the opening of the Egypt- Gaza Strip border under what for all practical purposes is full PA control was widely portrayed as a victory for the PA but this conclusion is misleading. The PA’s border controls are a joke and both terrorists and weapons are going to pass freely with no one interfering effectively. Neither the Egyptian security forces nor the European Union observers are going to risk any confrontations for the purpose of saving Israeli lives.
Yet curiously it is not Israel that is most endangered by this situation. Israel has a defensible border, a strong army, and good intelligence which can block almost all attacks on that front. The real loser is the very PA that is cheering its new border-control role as a great victory. This power, the PA argues, shows it delivers benefits to the Palestinians. Yet this will not bring much popular support for it. After all, Hamas’s claim of credit for such things due to its terrorist violence seems more credible with Palestinians. In addition, PA officials admit that the anarchy there has driven off any hope of obtaining foreign investments.
Moreover, the group which most needs to smuggle across cadre and weapons is Hamas. Fatah already has plenty of guns and armed men. While Hamas would like to use its guns against Israel, these arms are going to end up ensuring it can defy–or even fight–Abu Mazin, the PA, and Fatah.
A half-dozen years ago, Muhammad Dahlan begged Yasir Arafat to take on Hamas, whose disrespect and challenges to the PA and Fatah were becoming steadily more apparent. Arafat did nothing and Dahlan broke with him. But now Dahlan has failed to provide the military muscle to impose Abu Mazin’s authority. The truth is that it is too late for the nationalists to crush the Islamists, even if they decided to do so. Whether or not Hamas will actually take over the Palestinian movement–I think it won’t–it now is setting the agenda and intimidating anyone advocating moderation. Within the next two months, local and parliamentary elections are going to confirm Hamas’s new leverage.
The other big Palestinian story has been Marwan Barghuti’s good showing in the Fatah primaries to choose candidates for its parliamentary slate. This is not so significant on a personal level. After all, the fact that Barghuti won big in Ramallah, his home town and main base, is hardly surprising. But in general Fatah militants involved with the al-Aqsa brigades terrorist group did do well while traditional PLO figures and Abu Mazin supporters did poorly.
Here, too, arise multiple problems for Abu Mazin and the PA leadership. He is supposed to be able to choose the Fatah list as he likes from among high vote-getters. Yet how is he now going to ignore the victories of a faction which opposes him? Moreover, Abu Mazin’s supporters have charged that the primary results were marred by cheating. Further balloting was canceled by Fatah’s leaders after gangs stole ballot boxes and fired shots outside polling stations.
Thus, Abu Mazin faces a whole mess of dilemmas. If he holds no more primaries and chooses a Fatah list full of his own supporters, the young radicals may resist with violence as well as by running independent candidates splitting the Fatah vote. Abu Mazin will be even weaker and, if elections are held, Hamas will gain even more. But if he lets his opponents dominate Fatah, his career will essentially be over.
No doubt, the final round of Palestinian local elections will also bring more success for Hamas, which is also doing well in student government elections. In addition, the Fatah primaries, like Hamas’s victory in local elections, shows that the best campaign event in Palestinian politics is a terrorist attack on Israel. Ironically, Barghuti’s wife claimed that her husband’s local success showed that “Marwan is not a terrorist, he is a leader of his people_.” But the exact opposite is true: Barghuti did so well precisely because he has been a terrorist.
Could it possibly be clearer that Abu Mazin is the Palestinian leader in name only and is incapable of negotiating any agreement with Israel or implementing anything he promises?
What does it say that the most popular forces in Palestinian politics are Hamas and Fatah hardliners who engage in terrorism and insist that military force not diplomacy is the way to reach their goal?
What does it signify that the big winner in Jenin, Jamal Abu Rob, who chose “Hitler” as his nom de guerre, is another terrorist leader?
The answer is this: moderates have no chance of leading the Palestinians; there is no prospect of progress toward a negotiated peace for many years. But there is an even more immediate double problem for the Palestinians themselves: Abu Mazin cannot lead the Palestinians, Fatah cannot unite itself, and Fatah cannot defeat Hamas.
