Excerpts: Abbas faces fall.Arafat in charge. 16 June 2003
+++HAARETZ 15 June '03
"Analysis: Israel looks to Egypt, as Abbas faces possible fall"
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
QUOTES FROM TEXT:
"threatened Arafat with a public Egyptian condemnation if he did not
stop interfering with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas."
"American reservations over Israel's recent measures in the territories
have been replaced by renewed pressure on Abbas and Dahlan to accept
security control in the northern Gaza Strip."
" 'if Hamas is not neutralized, Abbas' government will not be able to
take off.' "
"as long as those being targeted were lower-ranking activists, the Hamas
leadership was undeterred"
"The IDF claims Dahlan has 20,000 armed men at his disposal (providing
Arafat does not prevent their mobilization) - a sufficient number to control
several hundred armed Hamas men."
"Dahlan demanded a complete halt to Israel's policy o targeted killings.
For now, Israel has rejected this demand"
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EXCERPTS:
The security meeting Saturday night between IDF Major General Amos Gilad,
Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, and Mohammed
Dahlan, Palestinian Authority minister responsible for security affairs, was
the result of intense U.S. and Egyptian pressure ... Gilad and Dahlan
discussed the transfer of security control in the northern Gaza Strip to
Palestinian hands - they met in the residence of the U.S. ambassador in
Herzliya ... .
. . .
Israel believes Egypt has a key role to play in the latest efforts aimed at
calming the violence ... Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman was
meeting with ... Arafat in Ramallah. Suleiman threatened Arafat with a
public Egyptian condemnation if he did not stop interfering with Palestinian
Prime Minster Mahmoud Abbas.
The immediate result of the meeting was that a specific and
harsher-than-usual condemnation of the Jerusalem suicide attack emanated
from the Muqata. But Israel has grown accustomed to such lip service from
Arafat, and far more important was the fact that the renewal of security
contacts, in the form of the Gilad-Dahlan meeting Saturday night, went
unhindered by the Palestinian leader.
...an Israeli security source says the U.S. is fully aware of the fact that
the situation is on the verge of exploding. American reservations over
Israel's recent measures in the territories have been replaced by renewed
pressure on Abbas and Dahlan to accept security control in the northern Gaza
Strip. The source claims that the U.S. promised the Palestinians that if
they "present us with a serious plan, the Israelis will oblige."
According to a high-ranking officer in the IDF general staff, officer "the
Americans finally understand that if Hamas is not neutralized, Abbas'
government will not be able to take off."
The defense establishment is convinced that despite domestic criticism of
its policy of targeted killings, the assault on the Hamas leadership in the
Gaza Strip has brought results.0 ... Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon told
veterans that "they [Hamas] are on the verge of surrender, and are already
negotiating a cease-fire."
Security sources added that as long as those being targeted were
lower-ranking activists, the Hamas leadership was undeterred, "but since the
threat has become personal, the leadership is showing signs of stress."
While Hamas leaders ... continue to threaten Israel with terror, the
assault by Israel is certainly affecting the PA. A source close to Abbas
predicted the new Palestinian government would collapse within two weeks if
the current situation continued ... .
Israel's rapid embrace of the U.S. plan for the transfer of security to the
Palestinians in northern Gaza, took the Palestinians by surprise. Ahead of
Saturday night's security meeting, the Palestinians held urgent
consultations to discuss whether ... Sharon was setting another trap for
them.
The Palestinians fear that they will take control of northern Gaza and
prevent Qassam rocket attacks from Beit Hanun and Beit Lahia, but that
Israel will nevertheless continue its aerial manhunt of Hamas leaders in the
Gaza City environs, just several kilometers to the south.
The IDF claims Dahlan has 20,000 armed men at his disposal (providing Arafat
does not prevent their mobilization) - a sufficient number to control
several hundred armed Hamas men.
[IMRA: The 20,000 should easily handle the several hundred. The
capability is there if there is a will. This is not a matter of a "civil
war" but of civil will.]
In an interview broadcast Friday on Israel's Channel One, Dahlan continued
with his excuses: he does have the men, he said, but added that "all of our
offices in the Strip have been destroyed, and we have no means of radio
communications, fax or Internet.
No Internet? That is certainly incontrovertible proof of the difficulties he
is facing in fighting terror!
In telephone conversations with the Americans, and in line with Hamas'
demands, Dahlan demanded a complete halt to Israel's policy of targeted
killings. For now, Israel has rejected this demand, and will apparently
agree to less far-reaching demands. If the PA shows it is battling terror,
Israel will apparently agree to target only "ticking bombs" and those firing
Qassam rockets. "Under such circumstances, we will promise the Palestinians
that we will restrain ourselves," one Israeli source said.
The decision to target Hamas leaders was not an emotional response that got
out of control, sources in the IDF General Staff claimed. They insist that
the new policy is the result of calculated considerations, and came after a
host of in-depth discussions among top defense establishment officials.
"Abbas' government was sworn in a month ago, and has done nothing," said one
high-ranking officer. He added that Hamas has taken advantage of the vacuum,
and has encouraged and directed Islamic Jihad and Tanzim in the carrying out
of terror attacks.
Israel opted for "shock therapy": it placed Hamas leaders in the crosshairs
and generated a crisis that will force Abbas and his people to act. For
Abbas, said a senior officer, "this is a 'to be, or not to be' moment."
The army, he said, is no longer just sending out signals. "If it appeared
that there was no need for the Palestinian Authority to move quickly, they
now know that time is running out."
+++AL AHRAM WEEKLY 12-18 June '03: "Archaeology of the roadmap"
HEADING:"To read through the roadmap is to confront an unsituated document,
oblivious of its
time and place, says Edward Said ...."
QUOTES FROM TEXT:
"the roadmap seems to have given Arafat another lease on life, for all
the studied efforts by
Powell and his assistants"
"most Palestinians had no real notion ... that Israel was made up not
only of fundamentalist
Zionists who were anathema to every Arab, but of various kinds of
peaceniks and activists as
well."
"the Palestinian participants emerged from the centre of Palestinian
politics (i.e. Fatah), the
Israelis were a small marginalised group of reviled peace supporters."
"No wonder ... Oslo negotiations made the situation of the Palestinians a
good deal worse."
"The PLO and the Palestinian Authority under Arafat are anything but
transparent. Little is known
about the way decisions have been made or how money gets spent."
"Mazen's elevation to the status of reforming prime minister, which so
pleases the Americans
and Israelis, is thought of by most Palestinians as, well, a kind of
joke, the old man's way of
holding on to power by inventing a new gimmick"
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EXCERPTS:
. . .
The truculent aggression and stiff-necked unilateralism of the American and
Israeli teams are already well-known. The Palestinian team inspires scarcely
any confidence, made up as it is of recycled and aging Arafat cohorts.
Indeed, the roadmap seems to have given Yasser Arafat another lease on life,
for all the studied efforts by Powell and his assistants to avoid visiting
him. Despite the stupid Israeli policy of trying to humble him ... he has
the Palestinian purse strings in his hands ... none of the present "reform"
team (who with two or three significant new additions are re-shuffled
members of the old team) can match the old man for charisma and power.
Take Abu Mazen .... I first met him in March 1977 at my first National
Council meeting in Cairo. He gave by far the longest speech, in the didactic
manner which he must have first perfected as a secondary school teacher in
Qatar, and explained ... differences between Zionism and Zionist dissidence.
...most Palestinians had no real notion ... that Israel was made up not
only of fundamentalist Zionists who were anathema to every Arab, but of
various kinds of peaceniks and activists as well. ...
Mazen's speech launched the PLO's campaign of meetings, most of them secret,
between Palestinians and Israelis who had long dialogues in Europe about
peace and some considerable effect in their respective societies on shaping
the constituencies that made Oslo possible.
Nevertheless, no one doubted that Arafat had authorised Abu Mazen's speech
and the subsequent campaign ... while the Palestinian participants emerged
from the centre of Palestinian politics (i.e. Fatah), the Israelis were a
small marginalised group of reviled peace supporters ... . During the PLO's
Beirut years between 1971 and 1982, Abu Mazen was stationed in Damascus, but
joined the exiled Arafat and his staff in Tunis for the next decade or so. I
saw him there several times and was struck by his well-organised office, his
quiet bureaucratic manner, and his evident interest in Europe and the United
States as arenas where Palestinians could do useful work promoting peace
with Israelis. After the Madrid conference in 1991, he was said to have
brought together PLO employees and independent intellectuals in Europe and
turned them into teams to prepare negotiating files on subjects such as
water, refugees, demography, and boundaries in advance of ... the secret
Oslo meetings of 1992 and 1993 ... none of the Palestinian experts was
directly involved in the talks, and none of the results of this research
influenced the final documents ....
In Oslo, the Israelis fielded an array of experts supported by maps,
documents, statistics and at least 17 prior drafts ... the Palestinians
unfortunately restricted their negotiators to three completely different PLO
men, not one of whom knew English or had a background in ... negotiation.
Arafat's idea seems to have been that he was fielding a team mainly to keep
himself in the process, especially after his exit from Beirut and his
disastrous decision to side with Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. If he had
other objectives in mind, then he didn't prepare for them effectively ... .
In Abu Mazen's memoire and in other anecdotal accounts of the Oslo
discussions, Arafat's subordinate is credited as the "architect" of the
accords, though he never left Tunis; Abu Mazen goes so far as to say that it
took him a year after the Washington ceremonies (where he appeared alongside
Arafat, Rabin, Peres, and Clinton) to convince Arafat that he hadn't gotten
a state from Oslo. Yet, most accounts of the peace talks stress the fact
that Arafat was pulling all the strings ... . No wonder ... Oslo
negotiations made the over-all situation of the Palestinians a good deal
worse.
[IMRA: Absolutely not.]
The American team led by Dennis Ross, a former Israeli-lobby employee -- a
job to which he has now returned -- routinely supported the Israeli position
... .
Since the PLO's return to the occupied territories in 1994, Abu Mazen has
remained a second-rank figure, known universally for his "flexibility" with
Israel, his subservience to Arafat, and his total lack of any organised poli
tical base ... The PLO and the Palestine Authority under Arafat are anything
but transparent. Little is known about the way decisions have been made, or
how money gets spent, where it is, and who besides Arafat has any say in the
matter. Everyone agrees, however, that Arafat, a fiendish micro-manager and
control freak, remains the central figure in every significant way. That is
why Abu Mazen's elevation to the status of reforming prime minister, which
so pleases the Americans and Israelis, is thought of by most Palestinians
as, well, a kind of joke, the old man's way of holding on to power by
inventing a new gimmick .... Abu Mazen is thought of generally as
colourless, moderately corrupt, and without any clear ideas of his own,
except that he wants to please the white man.
... By contrast, Mohamed Dahlan, the new security chief from Gaza -- the
other much- heralded figure in whom the Israelis and Americans place great
hope -- is younger, cleverer, and quite ruthless. During the eight years
that he ran one of Arafat's 14 or 15 security organisations, Gaza was known
as Dahlanistan. He resigned last year, only to be re-recruited for the job
of "unified security chief" by the Europeans, the Americans and the Israelis
... he too has always been one of Arafat's men. Now he is expected to crack
down on Hamas and Islamic Jihad; one of the reiterated Israeli demands
behind which lies the hope that there will be something resembling a
Palestinian civil war, a gleam in the eyes of the Israeli military.
...Abu Mazen ... is going to be limited by three factors. One of course is
Arafat himself, who still controls Fatah, which, in theory, is also Abu
Mazen's power base. Another is Sharon (who will presumably have the US
behind him all the way). In a list of 14 "remarks" about the roadmap ...
third is Bush and his entourage; to judge by their handling of postwar
Afghanistan and Iraq, they have neither the stomach nor the competence for
the nation-building that surely will be required. Already Bush's right-wing
Christian base ...has remonstrated noisily against putting pressure on
Israel, and already the high- powered American pro-Israel lobby, with its
docile adjunct, the Israeli-occupied US Congress, have swung into action
against any hint of coercion against Israel, even though it will be crucial
now that a final phase has begun.
... even if the immediate prospects are grim from a Palestinian
perspective, they are not all dark. I return to the stubbornness ...and the
fact that Palestinian society -- devastated, nearly ruined, ...-- is ...
still capable of flinging its soul upon the growing gloom. No other Arab
society is as rambunctious and healthily unruly, and none is fuller of civic
and social initiatives and functioning institutions ... . Even though they
are mostly unorganised and in some cases lead miserable lives of exile and
statelessness, diaspora Palestinians are still energetically engaged by the
problems of their collective destiny, and everyone that I know is always
trying somehow to advance the cause.
Dr. Joseph Lerner, Co-Director IMRA
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