Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epsteinbd who wrote (31618)	6/5/2002 9:25:07 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Dahlan did show up in the NYT the last few days, though of course that was obviously a plot by Howell Raines to - oh, I don't know. Anyway, from Sunday: nytimes.com Mr. Dahlan and Mr. Rajoub, who speak English and Hebrew as well as Arabic, have long led Israeli lists of potential successors to Mr. Arafat. Israeli security officials in recent months have speculated about a post-Arafat Palestinian Authority breaking up into a "Rajoubstan" and a "Dahlanistan," two provinces ruled separately by the strongmen. Palestinians deride such speculation as wishful thinking by Israelis hoping to divide and rule. Both men have credentials as Palestinian fighters. Mr. Dahlan was jailed for 6 years by Israel, and Mr. Rajoub for 17. Both were eventually deported by Israel, and both returned in the mid-1990's, when Mr. Arafat was permitted back into the West Bank and Gaza Strip under the Oslo accords. But the two men's political fortunes have diverged. While Mr. Rajoub's influence has declined and his popularity has evaporated, Mr. Dahlan has improved his standing with Mr. Arafat. But some Palestinians say he has ties to corrupt officials, and he has had trouble expanding his reach beyond Gaza into the West Bank, Palestinian analysts say. Israeli security officials have recently told reporters that Mr. Dahlan is playing a double game — encouraging militants while presenting himself as a security official. But in the hall-of-mirrors of Israeli-Palestinian relations, such accusations may actually represent an Israeli effort to boost Mr. Dahlan's standing among Palestinians. Although Israeli forces destroyed Mr. Rajoub's hilltop compound in Ramallah during their incursion there in April, they left Mr. Dahlan's headquarters in Gaza untouched. Mr. Dahlan is an accomplished and cautious politician, who conducted an interview in Arabic but then repeatedly corrected an interpreter's English translation. For months, he has insisted not only on his willingness to police militants, but also on his inability to do so as long as he cannot point to a promising political alternative to violence. As far back as November, Mr. Dahlan argued that Israeli incursions into Palestinian-controlled territory, along with its targeted killings of militants, made it impossible for the Palestinian Authority to succeed in quashing Palestinian violence. "They're asking the P.A. to attack the Palestinian people, and that's not possible," he said at the time. More cryptically, if that's possible, from today: nytimes.com Mr. Dahlan told reporters he would step down from his job in Gaza but remain in the government in some capacity. Some Palestinian officials said he had been offered the national security post and was deciding whether to accept it. But other Palestinian officials were quoted as saying that Mr. Dahlan had been rebuffed and that the new position had been offered to another of Mr. Arafat's associates.