Interesting musings in the Jpost:
Is the PA head also sharpening a stick?
By MATTHEW GUTMAN
If you think it's deja vu all over again, you may be right. But the latest effort by Mahmoud Abbas to impose a cease-fire could yet pan out differently than the aborted experiment of 2003.
PLO-affiliated groups like the Aksa Martyrs Brigades and the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine agreed on a cease-fire Saturday evening, while Islamic Jihad and Hamas appear days away from reaching an understanding with Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas. That, combined with talks between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza and perhaps further discussions in Cairo, parallels the sad script that developed during Abbas's administration as PA prime minister in the spring and summer of 2003.
And once again, just as they did a year and a half ago and as in the short-lived hudna (cease-fire) of the summer of 2002, all the groups demand Israel's reciprocation – cessation of assassinations and incursions.
Again, as in 2003, the troops of Sa'eb al-Ajez, head of the Palestinian police force in Gaza, are out patrolling the streets, setting up checkpoints and even poking around fields for renegade mortar men.
Only this time, the PA has little wiggle room.
"We [the Palestinians] need the hudna to enhance our political and diplomatic position vis- -vis Israel," said Khan Yunis-based Palestinian analyst Adli Sadiq Sadiq. "The whole world blames us for the violence. We need to stop the attacks and put the challenge in Israel's lap. We just hope that this hudna will not be as fragile as the last hudna."
Abbas is also being squeezed by Washington. A senior Western diplomat who visited Israel and the Palestinian territories last week made sure the PA understood that with Iraq in flames, the Bush administration desperately needs a success in the Middle East.
The upshot, according to the diplomat, is that the stakes are high for Abbas in Gaza. If he succeeds there, the Bush Administration could at least chalk up its Middle-East policy as a partial triumph. Abbas will then have earned the White House's loyalty. But if he fails, he should not expect to spend too many nights in Washington.
So far Abbas has only shown carrots. With Islamic Jihad virtually in the bag, he is luring Hamas into the hudna by offering it legitimacy and a chance at real participation in the several rounds of municipal and legislative elections slated for the next six months.
But he is also sharpening a stick, a senior Fatah official in Ramallah said Saturday. And the stick's name, said the source, is General Nasser Yousef.
Yousef is the same general – he earned his stars training in Pakistan – who signed off on the 1996 Hamas crackdown. He was the first Palestinian to bulldoze a mosque, after Hamas illegally erected a structure on "state land" as a challenge to Arafat and the PA security services.
Fatah officials already see their window of opportunity closing. If the Palestinians cannot induce Israel into diplomatic negotiations for a final-status agreement before Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement takes place this summer, they could be stuck with an interim solution for 30 years, said the Fatah official.
Fatah officials say that declarations indicating Abbas would rather fall on his sword than swing it against his opposition are exaggerated. Even the preternaturally political Saeb Erekat stepped out of character in a brief interview on Friday at the Erez Crossing saying that "political pluralism is one thing, but no society can tolerate pluralism in authority. We hope that soon all the factions will adhere to the rule of law."
Now, said the Fatah source, Yousef will lead a massive reform of the Palestinian security forces, which will be ready, if called upon, to crack the whip on Hamas.
The PA's security plan would be nothing less than earth-shattering – if it goes through. The 13 Palestinian security forces would be lumped together into three separate parts: national security, which would comprise the army and border patrols; internal security, to include the various police groups; and the intelligence services, which would finally combine the sundry Palestinians "Mukhabarats," or secret services.
Many of the "top generals," currently serving as head of this or that security organization would be reshuffled within the PA's cumbersome bureaucracy. Some would be shipped off as ambassadors and others would run as Fatah candidates in municipal elections, the second round of which are due to begin on January 27.
"Clearly," said the Fatah source, "many of the officers are in a real depression. They don't know what they will do without their privileges." But Abbas has a long way to go.
It is said that in the Middle East the more things change the more they stay the same. Yasser Arafat may have died, but over 70% of the salaries of the security forces are still financed by Muhammad Rashid, Arafat's money man.
Rashid, considered a practical person and one who consistently condemned the violence of the intifada, has not fallen completely out of favor in Israel. In fact, according to sources in Ramallah, Rashid held meetings with very senior Israeli officials in Tel Aviv this weekend.
For Israelis and Palestinians, Rashid is still a man to be reckoned with: He controls the cement monopoly in the Palestinian territories. And while Rashid has promised to cough up about $600 million of the Palestinian people's money stowed in various accounts all over the world, he too is waiting to see which way the wind will blow.
jpost.com |
