“If Abbas and the Fateh organization manipulate the process to ensure continued control, they will lack the legitimacy necessary to bring stability.”

The end of the Arafat era presents unprecedented opportunities for change both in Palestinian society and for relations with Israel. But progress depends on the nature of the new Palestinian leadership, and the range of plausible scenarios extends from chaos, civil war and “Hamastan”, to a democratic government promoting pragmatic compromise.

Compared to Arafat, the team of Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qurei presents an image of responsibility and pragmatism, without embracing “martyrdom” and incitement. Although both were close associates of Yasser Arafat during decades of terror, and Abbas once promoted Holocaust denial, in the past two years he criticized Arafat’s policy of violent confrontation, albeit for pragmatic rather than moral reasons. Under their leadership, the first few weeks of the transition were relatively calm, with limited internal violence and no suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, although the potential for terror and violence remains high, as reflected in the December 12 bombing of an IDF outpost in Gaza along the Egyptian border. In response to the overall improved atmosphere, Israeli security forces took steps to lower friction. This is still a long way from stability and an end to four years of terror and response, but such steps at least point in the right direction.

The presidential elections scheduled for January 9, 2005 will mark an important milestone in expanding this hopeful beginning. This is an entirely Palestinian affair, and Israeli involvement to promote a particular outcome would be counterproductive. But Israelis are not indifferent–the results will have a major impact, and could mark the first real example of Arab democracy in action. However, if Abbas and the Fateh organization manipulate the process to ensure continued control, they will lack the legitimacy necessary to bring stability to Palestinian society. This will also prevent firm action to end rejectionism and violence, including dismantling of terror organizations such as Hamas and the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

From this perspective, Marwan Barghouti’s on-again off-again candidacy added an extra complication. Before Barghouti’s central involvement in the terror campaign (for which he was convicted by an Israeli court on five counts of murder), he was seen by many as the best hope for transforming Palestinian society. Unlike Abbas and Qurei, who lived with Arafat in Tunis before the Gaza process, Barghouti was a local leader of the 1987 intifada, and has many years of pragmatic experience in dealing with the realities of Israeli society. Barghouti’s youth and charisma contrast sharply with the “grayness” of the old Fateh leadership, which is also heavily tainted by the graft and corruption characteristic of Arafat’s inner circle.

But Barghouti is in jail, closely associated with the past four traumatic years of violence and extremist rhetoric. No conceivable Israeli government will negotiate with a murderer convicted through due process of law, and a politically based amnesty is not on the agenda. Thus, a Barghouti victory would have frozen hopes for renewing the dialogue aimed at political compromise.

Barghouti’s candidacy was also an expression of Palestinian political demands for the release of terrorists in Israeli jails–a position that is unacceptable to the majority of Israelis. During the Oslo period, there were a number of instances in which Israel agreed to release prisoners responsible for terror waves, only to see the former prisoners launch more attacks. Israelis also dismiss attempts to portray Barghouti as the Palestinian Nelson Mandela (a title once given to Arafat) as part of the broader political strategy aimed at delegitimizing Israel as an “apartheid state”. This is simply rejectionism in a different package.

Another important factor is the degree of participation, which is relevant to the question of legitimacy. If Hamas and other radical groups do not participate, and the Fateh organization uses the elections to maintain control in a closed system following the standard Middle Eastern “pseudo democratic” model, there is no chance for real change. In such a scenario, an Abbas victory could simply serve to resume the violent power struggle between the different factions, with little ability to move out of Arafat’s shadow on core issues such as refugee claims and Jerusalem, even in the long term.

Thus, although the post-Arafat era and the Palestinian elections offer the possibility for important and positive change, this outcome depends on overcoming major obstacles.-Published 13/12/2004 (c) bitterlemons.org

Gerald Steinberg directs the Program on Conflict Management at Bar Ilan University and is the editor of the on-line ngo-monitor. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East spme.org