Hope for fresh diplomacy and the struggle for succession go hand in hand
Nov 11th 2004
THE first aim of the Palestinians' diverse leadership, in the wake of Yasser Arafat's death in France on November 11th, is to project a sense of unity as it steps gingerly into a new era. Mr Arafat's body—it was decided even before his death—would, after a state funeral in Cairo, be buried in the compound of his headquarters in Ramallah, on the West Bank, where their fledgling Palestinian state has its headquarters. In the immediate aftermath of his slow death, Palestinians, high and low, appeared united in grief for their iconic leader of the past four decades (see our obituary).
Not, perhaps, for long. The bigger question is whether the new leaders will have the power and skill to steer through the rapids awaiting them in the next few weeks and months. Almost certainly the two helmsmen will be Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen), general secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which represents Palestinians everywhere, and Ahmed Qurei (Abu Alaa), prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the territorial government. In the Palestinian hierarchy, the PLO is the higher body; so Mr Abbas, quickly elected its new chairman, is Mr Qurei's boss.
The two men's policies are pretty similar. Both advocate reform and a separation of powers between the PLO and the PA; both oppose the violence of the Palestinians' current four-year uprising, especially against Israeli civilians; and both want a return to negotiations with Israel along the lines of the international “road map”. But both are politically weak, not least within their own—and Mr Arafat's—Fatah movement, long the dominant force in the PLO.
Mr Abbas was once backed by Fatah's younger generation of leaders, including its best-known tribunes: Marwan Barghouti, Fatah's leader on the West Bank, now serving five life sentences for complicity in killing Israelis, and Mohammed Dahlan, once the PA's minister for security.
From his prison cell Mr Barghouti supported Mr Abbas's brief premiership last year but became disenchanted by its failure to cut any ice with Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, or with President George Bush, let alone Mr Arafat. In July, Mr Dahlan told his armed backers to take to Gaza's streets in violent protest against Mr Arafat's refusal to reform the PA's police.
But Messrs Abbas and Qurei will be even more hampered by the old guard in Fatah, especially those who returned with them and Mr Arafat from exile in Tunisia to Palestine a decade ago, and whose power derived solely from the old man's patronage. It rightly sees Mr Arafat's demise as a prelude to its own; it fears that the reforms Mr Abbas and Mr Qurei want to promote would spell its doom.
Signs of this coming power struggle were evident this week in meetings in Mr Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, even as the world awaited his death. The reformers, including Fatah people allied to Mr Barghouti, the most popular Palestinian leader after Mr Arafat, insisted that any transition be done by the law. This says that the PA's presidency, held by Mr Arafat, must pass to the Palestinian parliament's speaker until a new president is directly elected—within 60 days.
Aware that it might lose its seats, the old guard has opposed direct elections, insisting that parliament alone should choose a president. Mr Abbas is reported to have wobbled, suggesting that an election be deferred for six months, with parliament picking an interim president. The reformers won this early round: Rauhi Fattouh, the speaker, who has no clout of his own, has already been made acting president. But the reformers were disappointed by the dithering of Messrs Abbas and Qurei.
In this, as in much else, the reformers have Palestinian public opinion on their side. Polls show solid majorities not only for a presidential election but also for local and parliamentary ones. They are supported, too, by the Islamists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which have called for new elections and for a united front, embracing both Islamists and secular parties, to prepare for them. They have also implicitly warned Mr Abbas and Mr Qurei not to take any steps to stop the “armed intifada”, as the uprising is known.
Some Palestinians are looking for help from abroad. Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, says he is seeking American help to convert Mr Sharon's unilateral plan to leave the Gaza strip into a bilateral negotiation with a new Palestinian leadership. The starting point would be a ceasefire between the Palestinians and Israelis.
Foreign helpers
Egypt is convinced it has persuaded Fatah and Hamas, as well as Messrs Abbas and Qurei, to agree to a truce. Mr Sharon has always rejected one, on the ground that the Palestinian militias' disarmament must precede any negotiation. Mr Abbas lacked the power to do this when he was prime minister. He and Mr Qurei have less power now. So there is no certainty that a truce can be made to hold.
In any event, Mr Arafat's demise has created rare accord among Israeli politicians. Both Yossi Beilin, who runs a small peace-seeking party on the left, and Binyamin Netanyahu, the finance minister who wants to lead the ruling Likud party from the right, have been telling Mr Sharon to reconsider his Gaza withdrawal: with Mr Arafat gone, Israel should try to seek an agreement with a new Palestinian partner. And some of Israel's generals and diplomats are urging Mr Sharon to bolster Mr Arafat's reform-minded heirs by offering gestures such as the release of prisoners.
Mr Sharon, though acknowledging a possible “historic turning-point”, balks at such ideas: “We don't yet have a partner.” He still says he will negotiate with a new Palestinian leadership only after it curbs terror. Meanwhile, he would rather wait and see how events among the Palestinians unfold.
Besides, Mr Sharon's troubles at home are far from over. The right-wing National Religious Party, which fiercely opposes the Gaza withdrawal, deserted the ruling coalition this week. Though now governing with a minority in parliament, Mr Sharon has a solid majority for disengagement, thanks to the left-wing opposition. But he faces defeat on other issues, which hobbles his running of the country.
So he may try to stumble on, supported by the opposition Labour party on Gaza, while buying votes from religious parties in order to pass next year's budget. Or he can try again to bring Labour, headed by his friend Shimon Peres, into the government coalition—which would mean flouting the Likud party's decision against joining forces with its old adversaries. Or, as a last resort, he may call an early election.
Mr Sharon's real battle, however, will loom elsewhere. He knows that Mr Abbas, or whoever leads the Palestinians, would agree to co-operate with him over the Gaza withdrawal only if it is linked to a bigger pullout from the West Bank, so enabling a viable, contiguous Palestinian state to emerge there, along the lines of the international “road map”. That was what Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, was to tell President Bush this week in Washington. Leaving Gaza, he says, must be only a first step. That dismays Mr Sharon, who would like to leave Gaza but keep about half the West Bank—for a long time.
Nov 11th 2004
THE first aim of the Palestinians' diverse leadership, in the wake of Yasser Arafat's death in France on November 11th, is to project a sense of unity as it steps gingerly into a new era. Mr Arafat's body—it was decided even before his death—would, after a state funeral in Cairo, be buried in the compound of his headquarters in Ramallah, on the West Bank, where their fledgling Palestinian state has its headquarters. In the immediate aftermath of his slow death, Palestinians, high and low, appeared united in grief for their iconic leader of the past four decades (see our obituary).
Not, perhaps, for long. The bigger question is whether the new leaders will have the power and skill to steer through the rapids awaiting them in the next few weeks and months. Almost certainly the two helmsmen will be Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen), general secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which represents Palestinians everywhere, and Ahmed Qurei (Abu Alaa), prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the territorial government. In the Palestinian hierarchy, the PLO is the higher body; so Mr Abbas, quickly elected its new chairman, is Mr Qurei's boss.
The two men's policies are pretty similar. Both advocate reform and a separation of powers between the PLO and the PA; both oppose the violence of the Palestinians' current four-year uprising, especially against Israeli civilians; and both want a return to negotiations with Israel along the lines of the international “road map”. But both are politically weak, not least within their own—and Mr Arafat's—Fatah movement, long the dominant force in the PLO.
Mr Abbas was once backed by Fatah's younger generation of leaders, including its best-known tribunes: Marwan Barghouti, Fatah's leader on the West Bank, now serving five life sentences for complicity in killing Israelis, and Mohammed Dahlan, once the PA's minister for security.
From his prison cell Mr Barghouti supported Mr Abbas's brief premiership last year but became disenchanted by its failure to cut any ice with Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, or with President George Bush, let alone Mr Arafat. In July, Mr Dahlan told his armed backers to take to Gaza's streets in violent protest against Mr Arafat's refusal to reform the PA's police.
But Messrs Abbas and Qurei will be even more hampered by the old guard in Fatah, especially those who returned with them and Mr Arafat from exile in Tunisia to Palestine a decade ago, and whose power derived solely from the old man's patronage. It rightly sees Mr Arafat's demise as a prelude to its own; it fears that the reforms Mr Abbas and Mr Qurei want to promote would spell its doom.
Signs of this coming power struggle were evident this week in meetings in Mr Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, even as the world awaited his death. The reformers, including Fatah people allied to Mr Barghouti, the most popular Palestinian leader after Mr Arafat, insisted that any transition be done by the law. This says that the PA's presidency, held by Mr Arafat, must pass to the Palestinian parliament's speaker until a new president is directly elected—within 60 days.
Aware that it might lose its seats, the old guard has opposed direct elections, insisting that parliament alone should choose a president. Mr Abbas is reported to have wobbled, suggesting that an election be deferred for six months, with parliament picking an interim president. The reformers won this early round: Rauhi Fattouh, the speaker, who has no clout of his own, has already been made acting president. But the reformers were disappointed by the dithering of Messrs Abbas and Qurei.
In this, as in much else, the reformers have Palestinian public opinion on their side. Polls show solid majorities not only for a presidential election but also for local and parliamentary ones. They are supported, too, by the Islamists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which have called for new elections and for a united front, embracing both Islamists and secular parties, to prepare for them. They have also implicitly warned Mr Abbas and Mr Qurei not to take any steps to stop the “armed intifada”, as the uprising is known.
Some Palestinians are looking for help from abroad. Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, says he is seeking American help to convert Mr Sharon's unilateral plan to leave the Gaza strip into a bilateral negotiation with a new Palestinian leadership. The starting point would be a ceasefire between the Palestinians and Israelis.
Foreign helpers
Egypt is convinced it has persuaded Fatah and Hamas, as well as Messrs Abbas and Qurei, to agree to a truce. Mr Sharon has always rejected one, on the ground that the Palestinian militias' disarmament must precede any negotiation. Mr Abbas lacked the power to do this when he was prime minister. He and Mr Qurei have less power now. So there is no certainty that a truce can be made to hold.
In any event, Mr Arafat's demise has created rare accord among Israeli politicians. Both Yossi Beilin, who runs a small peace-seeking party on the left, and Binyamin Netanyahu, the finance minister who wants to lead the ruling Likud party from the right, have been telling Mr Sharon to reconsider his Gaza withdrawal: with Mr Arafat gone, Israel should try to seek an agreement with a new Palestinian partner. And some of Israel's generals and diplomats are urging Mr Sharon to bolster Mr Arafat's reform-minded heirs by offering gestures such as the release of prisoners.
Mr Sharon, though acknowledging a possible “historic turning-point”, balks at such ideas: “We don't yet have a partner.” He still says he will negotiate with a new Palestinian leadership only after it curbs terror. Meanwhile, he would rather wait and see how events among the Palestinians unfold.
Besides, Mr Sharon's troubles at home are far from over. The right-wing National Religious Party, which fiercely opposes the Gaza withdrawal, deserted the ruling coalition this week. Though now governing with a minority in parliament, Mr Sharon has a solid majority for disengagement, thanks to the left-wing opposition. But he faces defeat on other issues, which hobbles his running of the country.
So he may try to stumble on, supported by the opposition Labour party on Gaza, while buying votes from religious parties in order to pass next year's budget. Or he can try again to bring Labour, headed by his friend Shimon Peres, into the government coalition—which would mean flouting the Likud party's decision against joining forces with its old adversaries. Or, as a last resort, he may call an early election.
Mr Sharon's real battle, however, will loom elsewhere. He knows that Mr Abbas, or whoever leads the Palestinians, would agree to co-operate with him over the Gaza withdrawal only if it is linked to a bigger pullout from the West Bank, so enabling a viable, contiguous Palestinian state to emerge there, along the lines of the international “road map”. That was what Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, was to tell President Bush this week in Washington. Leaving Gaza, he says, must be only a first step. That dismays Mr Sharon, who would like to leave Gaza but keep about half the West Bank—for a long time.
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