The death of Yasir Arafat in November 2004 and the election of Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazin) as leader of the Palestinian Authority (PA) opened a new era in the history of the Palestinian movement. Progress toward peace, formerly an impossibility, has become possible. But that does not mean it is going to be inevitable or rapid.
But how much will things really change and what are the implications for Israel?
Understanding these developments is a difficult task for many reasons. There are a large number of factors involved and the outcome is certainly not preordained. The power structure and interaction of forces on the Palestinian side is complex in itself. Despite maintaining a veneer of unity, all the main groups, leaders, and institutions have conflicting interests.
While the many problems arising from Arafat’s world view, strategy, and personality have disappeared, then, the new central issue is how a weak leadership reinforces the fact that decisions are only made at the lowest common denominator. Unless there is a consensus, nothing changes.
CEASEFIRE: THE EASIEST STEP
Accepting a temporary ceasefire has proven to be the easiest step on which to build a consensus. The new leader of the Palestinian Authority (and also of the PLO), Abbas certainly deserves credit for bringing about this step, much-needed for Palestinian interests. For more than a year before Arafat’s death, he pointed out that the Palestinian strategy was disastrous and that carrying on a terrorist-based war against Israel was costing the Palestinians heavily in terms of lives, property, and even international support.
Many in the Fatah movement, the leading Palestinian group and Abbas’ sponsor, knew that this was so, though they would never speak out openly against Arafat and his strategy of permanent revolution. After four years of fighting and the goal of a Palestinian state further away than ever, they were ready for a change.
A key element here, of course, was their military defeat by Israel. Despite international slander, criticism, and misunderstanding, the fact is that Israel’s strategy was largely successful. An insurgency can be defeated—even if the movement behind it does not disappear—and many lives can be saved.
Consequently, behind their bluster, even terrorist groups like Hizballah, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah’s own al-Aqsa Brigades were ready to end much of their activity because they had been so hard hit. Arrests and targeted killings had decimated their leaderships. A breathing spell seemed like a reasonable idea.
The idea of a temporary truce has a number of attractions for Palestinian groups: First, of course, it is temporary and they can renew the attacks whenever they wish.
Second, it requires no long-term change in political goals (i.e., the destruction of Israel) or any concessions.
Third, they can then make demands on Israel such as the release of thousands of prisoners who have been involved in past terrorism (and thus might be participants in future such attacks as well).
Fourth, they can demand international concessions for their good behavior, large amounts of aid to begin with and even a Palestinian state within a relatively short period of time.
Fifth, they do not even have to stop all attacks since the Palestinian leadership will not put too much pressure on them, confiscate their arms, arrest their activists, or shut down their organizations. As long as terrorism is down considerably, the international media will not report and the world will not notice the number of ongoing attacks.
Even if the Palestinians break the ceasefire, they can blame it on Israeli actions, trying thus to gain a public relations’ advantage. If rockets or mortar shells fall on Israeli communities in or near the Gaza Strip, no one outside of Israel will notice. But if Israeli forces go into PA-ruled territory to prevent future attacks or retaliate, the world will react as if this were an act of unprovoked aggression.
Sixth, the most extremist groups can demand more power in Palestinian decision making. In exchange for their “accepting” the ceasefire, Hamas can insist on a bigger say in the PA (though it has not yet done so) while the al-Aqsa Brigades claim a larger role in running Fatah.
And, finally, they can use this respite to regroup, rebuild, and rearm their forces for the next round, which they can initiate whenever they choose.
All these points do not negate the fact that a ceasefire is a good thing since it saves lives. There are also public relations’ possibilities for Israel. It benefits the economy, terrorism, and international relations, as well as giving its military a rest and a chance to regroup. As will be explained below, it also offers the chance for an interim period which accords with Israel’s strategy.
By negotiating and to a large extent implementing a real—though possibly temporary—truce, Abbas has shown his ability to get things done. He could possibly build on this success to consolidate a more peaceful situation and even to advance toward a comprehensive peace.
Many obstacles, however, stand in the way of such progress, including Abbas’ own views, the most extremist groups, and the entire structure of Palestinian ideology and politics.
INCITEMENT
Next to a ceasefire, the easiest thing for Abbas to accomplish—and an important confidence-building measure with Israel—is a reduction in anti-Israel incitement. Such material runs rampant throughout the Palestinian school system (as visible in textbooks), mosques, media, and statements by Palestinian officials. It is furthered by the Palestinian Authority (PA), the governing body in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, and by Fatah leaders on a daily basis.
Basically, there are two kinds of anti-Israel incitement which might be called the short-term and the long-term. Short-term incitement involves direct calls to kill Israelis, glorification of terrorists and suicide bombers and appeals to young people to emulate their examples. Abbas seems to have largely removed this kind of incitement as a way of promoting the ceasefire, though it could be reinstated on an hour’s notice.
Long-term incitement, however, has continued unabated. This propaganda line claims that Israel is an evil illegitimate state that commits the most horrible acts and is bound to disappear in the future, destroyed by the Palestinian struggle. This approach continues to teach Palestinians that their goal is total victory and an Arab state from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean Sea. It undermines moderation, justifies violence, and guarantees support for extremists. In short, it reduces the chance of a successful comprehensive peace negotiation, makes Palestinian compromises impossible, and makes the task of moderates more difficult.
Such materials are virtually ignored in the West. Yet they are the key to understanding the intractability of the conflict, an issue which could have been settled years or even decades ago if the Palestinian side truly wanted a state of its own as the top priority. It is this problem which makes the dispute unsolvable. After all, though those in the West who blame Israel have no comprehension of this fact, the vast majority of Israelis—including the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon—would be happy to withdraw from almost all the territories captured in 1967 and accept a Palestinian state in exchange for real and lasting peace.
A small example of how this incitement can be cynically manipulated concerns the pattern of the main Friday sermon, given by a Muslim cleric and broadcast on Palestinian television. Routinely, such sermons—given by a PA-appointed cleric but indistinguishable from Hamas’ views—call Jews, “sons of pigs and monkeys” and glorify in religious terms their murder. They are also typified by a virulent anti-Americanism identical to the kinds of things said by Osama bin Ladin.
One week, shortly before the January 2005 Palestinian elections, there was a change. For the first time ever, the cleric giving the sermon read from a prepared text. Abbas himself was present. Without ever mentioning Israel or Jews, the sermon spoke of the importance of toleration and respect for “the other” in Islam. It seemed an important step forward. The next week, however, everything was back to normal and has continued in the same vein so far.
It would be easy for Abbas to order a real change in Palestinian propaganda, to prepare his people for a compromise negotiated solution. But to really take steps toward changing the long-term Palestinian goal would be very controversial politically. Until Abbas takes such a step, it is hard to take seriously his chances for really reaching a peace treaty that will end the conflict. Yet it is very hard for him to do so and he will probably not want to take such risks.
DEMOCRACY
The January 2005 Palestinian election was an exercise in democracy which was also a positive step. But the meaning of this event should not be over-stated. Abbas was elected not because he was relatively moderate but because he was the Fatah candidate. And if Fatah had run a hardliner, he would have been elected by the same, or an even bigger, margin.
Thus, Abbas in no way has a personal mandate, and given his own hardline statements during the election, cannot claim that he has won support for compromise or concessions. Rather, his policy is one of maintaining a Palestinian consensus. To do so, however, and avoid clashing with any of the extremist groups, he is probably restricted to doing little or nothing.
The other reason why Abbas won by a big margin in January 2005 is that the most militant groups did not participate at all—in the case of Hamas or Islamic Jihad—or chose not to run its own candidate, in the case of the al-Aqsa Brigades, its parent Tanzim movement, and leader Marwan Barghuti.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not accept the legitimacy of the PA structure since they reject the Oslo agreement of 1993 on which it is based because they refuse any recognition whatsoever of Israel. In contrast, though, they are willing to run in local elections. In the January 2005 balloting in ten municipalities in the Gaza Strip, Hamas won seven of them. This outcome badly shook up Fatah. Thus, democratic practices have their virtues but also can be used by extremist groups to strengthen their leverage. The Hamas victories in the Gaza Strip no doubt made Fatah and Abbas more cautious about challenging them regarding any moderation of extremist Palestinian goals or to stop them from using terrorism.
In a parallel fashion, Barghuti, the Tanzim and the al-Aqsa Brigades supported Abbas in the election in order to restrain him and to claim from Fatah a real role in running when internal elections are held for that movement. Again, this grassroots’ movement will use any additional power to ensure that the movement does not moderate its views, goals, or methods.
By showing their popular support—a backing reinforced by Arafat’s legacy and the very propaganda that the mainstream employs—the most militant groups ensure that the new leader does not change very much. In turn, this makes it impossible to attain peace.
GOVERNING THE GAZA STRIP
Israel has declared its intention to withdraw from the entire Gaza Strip, in the near future, except for a small and narrow strip along the Egyptian border to prevent smuggling. This must be the next major issue on the Palestinian agenda: can the PA negotiate an agreement with the Israeli government to hand over the territory in exchange for the PA ensuring an end to terrorist attacks from that area?
This is not something that can be finessed by honeyed words to the Western media or benign neglect. Either Abbas and the PA will meet their commitments or fail. A government in Gaza will have to stop the firing of missiles and mortars against Israeli territory or the war will continue with Palestinians being the losers. If there are attacks on the border installations, the frontier will be closed, supplies will be cut off, and the Palestinian economy and employment levels will plummet. Yet the PA can only achieve this goal if it is able to impose discipline on its own forces and to stop such attacks even if it has to arrest or even use violence against Palestinian terrorists. Otherwise, it is also conceivable that the withdrawal will not happen at all.
Similarly, the PA will be judged by Palestinians on the quality of its governance. Incompetence, anarchy, and corruption will result in the continuing decline of PA and Fatah prestige, leading to more support for Hamas and the Fatah dissidents in the Tanzim movement. The traditional Palestinian option, blaming Israel and mobilizing violence against it, will only lead to disasters for the new leadership. Without Arafat’s charisma and monopoly on power, the movement might well fall apart.
A similar situation relates to the Palestinian relationship with the international community. The rhetorical sympathy it has received from Europe and elsewhere in recent years has brought no material benefit. The current U.S. government is not going to be tolerant of trickery. The reservoir of aid money for the Palestinians has run low and could easily disappear altogether. Moreover, if the opportunity represented by getting control of the Gaza Strip is squandered, the chance of obtaining a Palestinian state is likely to be set back by a decade or more.
No doubt, the Palestinian leadership, Fatah, the al-Aqsa Brigades, and Hamas will all claim that the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a great victory achieved by armed struggle. Yet this is a dangerous game for the new leadership. By continuing to glorify violence, it is only jeopardizing its own monopoly on power and any chance of pursuing a moderate strategy.
COMPREHENSIVE PEACE AGREEMENT
The possibility of achieving a comprehensive peace agreement establishing an independent Palestinian state and ending the conflict is still far off. The ideological debate and the mobilizing of support for such an outcome have been completed on the Israeli side but have barely begun among the Palestinians. The vast majority of the latter still believe that the only acceptable outcome is the elimination of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian Arab or Islamist state from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean Sea.
This standpoint exists in three overlapping versions which often are supported by the same people. Many openly support the continuation of struggle until Israel is destroyed. In somewhat more subtle terms, others endorse an interim stage in which the combination of a Palestinian state serving as a base for struggle and the return of all refugees to Israel will bring total victory. Another variation is the supposedly humane demand for a single state in which everyone will live together. Even in this last approach, any Jewish claim to nationhood is rejected since the state would not be binational.
There is an incredible irony in this philosophy and in the Palestinian movement’s history which, astonishingly, generally goes unnoticed. If the movement was truly a nationalist one, it would indeed—as many Westerners mistakenly think—seek an independent state as quickly as possible. It would heatedly reject the “one-state” perspective and abandon the demand for a “right of return.” After all, what nationalist movement wants its people to go live in someone else’s state? Moreover, those refugees being sent to Israel instead of a Palestinian state would be precisely the people with the most capital, gained from compensation money. In addition, sending hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into Israel would result in massive bloodshed, economic devastation, and many years of instability.
The centrality of the demand for a “right of return” once again proves what Faruq Qaddumi, the hardliner who became head of the ruling Fatah movement after Arafat’s death, maintained: the destruction of Israel is more important than achieving a Palestinian state. It is precisely this policy which accounts for the failure to resolve the conflict, continued Palestinian suffering, and the length of the Israeli occupation.
These two issues—the movement’s ultimate goal and the demand for a “right of return” to destroy Israel from within—are the reasons why there has been no negotiated solution to date. Such questions as the precise borders of the state, the exact amount of compensation for the 1948 refugees, or the details of east Jerusalem’s status are quite secondary. If these were the only impediments to a solution, the two sides would have made a deal in 2000 or even years before.
Abbas, while a relative pragmatist and moderate, is also a man who deeply believes in the “right of return.” Abandoning this demand will be very difficult for him and even harder—or more undesirable—from the standpoint of other Palestinian leaders. Any hint of taking such a step would also draw the wrath of the Islamists and Fatah militants, who would be eager to portray their rivals as cowards and traitors. The prospects for a Palestinian leadership taking the actions needed to reach full peace in the near future are extremely unlikely.
INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
Palestinians are split by multiple factions and leaders with competing ambitions. Abbas hopes to bridge these gaps by forming partnerships with various interest groups and using the near-sacred concept of unity to mobilize all Fatah forces behind his leadership. This is, however, an extremely difficult task for which he has no proven skill. Moreover, he has no reliable base of support and every political deal Abu Mazin makes ties his hands further.
Within Fatah itself are two main factions: the establishment and the young insurgents.
The Establishment:
The PLO, Fatah, and PA are still led by Arafat’s veteran colleagues who continue to hold hardline views. Their best-known leader is Faruq Qaddumi who rejects both the Oslo accords and Israel’s existence. The powerful Fatah Revolutionary Committee and the Ideological Mobilization Department are headed by Sakr Habash who has written in detail that the Palestinian movement would never make real peace with Israel. Still another key institution, the Palestinian National Council (PNC) is headed by Salim al-Zanun, who claims the PLO never changed its Charter calling for Israel’s destruction.
Why have these and other hardliners let Abbas become the PLO’s and PA’s head? He is one of them, a man who can be trusted to maintain their power against all challengers, get them more Western support, and yet never become strong enough to subordinate the movement in the way Arafat had done.
Abbas himself has no strong base of support and no organization whatsoever. At the age of 69, he is no more than an interim leader. Already the battle to replace him has begun. The only strong moderate candidate for this position is Muhammad Dahlan, 43, who runs what in effect is his own militia in the Gaza Strip.
The Young Insurgents
This faction is composed of younger Fatah militants in the al-Aqsa Brigades and Tanzim group, of whom the most important is Barghuti, who is currently serving life sentences in an Israeli jail for terrorist activities. The young insurgents view their elders as corrupt, out-dated failures who were unable to achieve victory in their generation. In many ways, this faction hopes to replay Arafat’s career but this time to do it successfully.
Consequently, they are great believers in the virtue of armed struggle while leaving their ultimate goal vague. At times, they seem to argue that violence can make possible an imposed settlement on their own terms by forcing Israel to surrender the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and east Jerusalem. At other times, they suggest that armed struggle makes any political deal unnecessary because it can drive Israel out of the territories. They claim to be ready to fight on for decades, reincarnating Arafat’s world view and repeating the course of his career.
They supported Abbas in the election so as to retain their claim to be loyal members of Fatah. In exchange, Abbas has offered them more power within the organization. But if they get such leverage they will use it to block any moderate stance and the kinds of compromises needed to get a peace agreement.
THE KEY INSTITUTIONS
The PA itself is a collection of bureaucracies, not a real power base. Fatah is the real locus of Palestinian power and it remains in the hands of the hard-line traditional establishment. Abbas, as official leader of the PLO, has even less control over the Palestinian refugee communities in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and elsewhere. This constituency has been repeatedly promised a total “right of return” by the leadership. Inasmuch as they play any political role, it will not be a force for moderation.
Then there are the dozen PA security agencies which Arafat, in order to control more easily, encouraged to become competing groups run by virtual warlords who collect bribes and bully Palestinian citizens. They are not reliable sources of support for Abbas. Though their officers dislike both the Islamists and the young insurgents, they also sympathize with terrorists (sometimes themselves taking part in such attacks) and are not eager to repress those groups which defy or challenge Abbas’ authority.
Finally, there are the Islamist forces—principally Hamas but also Islamic Jihad—and smaller secularist-style radical groups—the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). They are eager to continue the violence and to subvert any peace effort. They are daring Abbas to suppress them with force and he is unlikely to meet the challenge.
Hamas has a large support base comprising at least 15-20 percent of Palestinians. They do not want a civil war but they also reject obedience to the PA. Abbas cannot offer them enough to buy them off. They hope to gain power in their own right in the future, perhaps working with Barghuti’s Fatah faction. In short, the situation is a mess and Abbas does not seem the man who can become the darling of the masses and the tamer of the dissident factions.
Thus, while the new Palestinian leadership represents an important step forward beyond Arafat’s era and the achievement of a ceasefire would be a good thing, there are also real limits to these changes. At best, there will be a considerable interim period before a comprehensive peace agreement becomes possible.
Israel is seeking to stabilize this period by redeploying its forces and showing flexibility, without having the kind of illusions that turned the Oslo peace process of the 1990s into such a mess. There is a national consensus that Israel is willing to give up most of the territories and agree to a Palestinian state but only if there is no doubt that this will result in real peace.
Only clear, verifiable, and extensive changes in Palestinian politics would make it possible to achieve the dream of a lasting peace for the world’s oldest continuous conflict.•
About the author
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center of the Interdisciplinary University in Herzliya, Israel, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His recent books include The Tragedy of the Middle East (Cambridge University Press), Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography (Oxford University Press), and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (John Wiley Publishers).