From Challenge # 95,  January - February 2006

Elections in the Palestinian Authority

Fatah: The (Ominous) Rise of the Younger Generation

Roni Ben Efrat

DESPITE the brain hemorrhage of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel will likely go to the polls on March 28, 2006 with a strong show of stability. By contrast, in the Palestinian Authority (PA) elections will take place, on January 25, in an atmosphere pregnant with chaos. On one point, nonetheless, the two sets of elections are similar. Both reflect political upheavals resulting from five years of bloodshed.

After failing to subdue the Intifada, Sharon concluded that the time had come to abandon the Likud and establish a new party, better suited to the steps he wanted to take toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the Palestinian arena, two changes occurred. First, Hamas decided to participate in the elections and to renew, accordingly, the “period of calm” to which it had agreed in 2005 at the urging of PA President Abu Mazen.

Second, the Fatah Party settled its internal differences. It had nearly gone to the polls with two heads. One belonged to the Tunis group (PLO veterans who had followed Yasser Arafat from Beirut to exile in Tunis; in 1994, he brought them with him to the Territories, giving them top positions in the PA); the second belonged to Marwan Barghouti and other young men, notably Jibril Rajoub and Muhammad Dahlan.

 

The coup of the younger generation   

Marwan Barghouti, who began as a student leader, was among those who initiated the second Intifada in September 2000. He incarnated the disappointment of the 30- and 40-year-olds, marginalized by Arafat. In the first PA elections (1996), Arafat still ran the show, and most of the younger set, including Barghouti, got no assured spot on the Fatah list. Barghouti sought followers, therefore, among the disappointed. He found them – and wound up as the spokesperson for the second Intifada. Today he is serving five consecutive life-terms in an Israeli prison. When the Fatah Central Committee met to draw up the list of candidates, Barghouti and his supporters wanted to make sure that this time they would not be omitted.

Under pressure from the “Tunisians,” however, Abu Mazen at first attempted to do just that. The younger group revolted, presenting a separate Fatah list called “The Future” with Barghouti at its head.

The factions returned to sanity after the victories of Hamas in the December municipal elections. Hamas achieved almost absolute majorities in major cities such as Nablus, Jenin and al-Bira.  

After tense negotiations, the representatives of the Fatah factions decided to unite the lists. In the final result, it is clear that the Barghouti group trounced the Tunisians. We say Tunisians and not Abu Mazen: a number of seasoned observers believe that in his heart of hearts, Abu Mazen supports the younger generation. We recall, for instance, the period when Arafat lived under siege in the Muqata’a. Abu Mazen lent his hand to a revolt under Muhammad Dahlan (encouraged by Israel and the US). This failed, and Abu Mazen went into voluntary exile. It is not surprising, therefore, to find him again behind the grass-roots leaders – whose victory is desired, we may add, by both the Quartet and Egypt.

Among those criticizing Abu Mazen for this shift is veteran political commentator Bilal al-Hassan, writing in the London-based Sharq al-Awsat on January 1, 2006. The headline was “Crisis in Fatah or Change of Goals?” He accuses the “rebels,” meaning the Barghouti group and Abu Mazen, of calling for the “destruction of the historical Fatah” and the birth of a new movement. The latter will focus only on internal problems, cutting off relations with the Palestinian Diaspora. After taking power, the new leaders will seek a binding accommodation with Israel, the parameters of which will be determined by the Sharon consensus, including the separation barrier.

Abu Mazen, claims Hassan, is playing a double game. At first he presented a list that mainly consisted of figures from the historical PLO, but the pressure of the local leaders, backed by Egypt and the Quartet, enabled him to describe his surrender to them as an act of “no alternative.” Hassan maintains that the local leaders want to free themselves from the issue of the refugees’ right of return. The process, he says, has been gradual. At Oslo the Palestinian leaders gave up the PLO, which was established to fulfill the right of return, and now they are seeking to be rid of the historical Fatah too. In its stead they want to establish a pragmatic leadership, which will achieve a cordial relationship with the White House and work out a final agreement, no matter how inadequate, with Israel.

Bilal Hassan’s comments hew close to reality. This is not just a question of intergenerational conflict.

Israel’s strategic interest has always been to separate the Palestinian people from the PLO and create an alternative leadership. That was the purpose of the “Village Leagues” in the late 1970’s and early 80’s. It was also the purpose, in 1991, of the Madrid Conference, where the PLO was not permitted to take part officially. In the new Fatah list, we witness the completion of this quiet overthrow, wrapped in the seeming legitimacy of elections. Even those who rejected Oslo, including the Left and Hamas, will not hesitate to take part in this process, so eager are they to be in the government. But we need not be surprised. Hamas never belonged to the PLO and even opposed it.  

What is the secret of the younger generation's attractiveness in the coming elections, apart from the fact that they are supported by the Quartet, Israel and Egypt? Unlike the Tunisians, they sit among their people. That is, because they are close to the grass roots, their chances of gaining support from there – even if this is based on clan membership rather than issues – are considerably greater than those of the Tunisians, Arafat’s transplants.

The Fatah list still reserves the first five spots for Tunisians, but this is a big reduction. The remainder consists of the younger generation, whose members are little known to the Palestinian public. If that public decides to opt for a fundamental change or for a party with internal discipline, its vote will go to Hamas.

 

Hamas

The attraction of Hamas does not derive from its religious agenda, but rather from the respect it has won among Palestinians both by its ability to hurt Israel and by its twenty years of devoted work in the social field. Hamas is also distinguished by its lack of corruption. Among those who vote for it will be some who are out to punish Fatah, which enjoyed the privileges of office while they marked time at the checkpoints, the party that increased their helplessness in the face of Israel and the US.

But Hamas is also becoming more pragmatic, in no small measure because of the assassinations Israel carried out against its senior leaders. The movement has an Achilles heel, however, on which the PA and Fatah will surely press: Hamas claims the right to criticize and veto any political agreement, but it remains unwilling to assume a position from which it might be called on to negotiate with Israel. In an interview on January 10, its political leader, Khaled Mashaal (who lives abroad) said the following: “We don’t want to take the regime from Fatah, we just want to participate.” This position does not arouse popular trust. Palestinians in the Territories do want to see progress toward peace. What can Hamas say? “Excuse us, on this issue please turn to Fatah; let it do the dirty work of dealing with Israel.” This weakness may cost Hamas votes, but probably not enough to help Fatah significantly. Hamas is about to become an irreversible fact in the political struggle between Israel and the Palestinians.

 

Elections to what end?

What is the point of holding elections if Israel persists, as expected, in treating the winner as a non-partner? Here the agenda of US President George W. Bush for the Middle East is exposed in its deceptiveness. With one hand he encouraged Sharon’s unilateralism, with the other he pushes for Palestinian elections. If Israel continues to determine change unilaterally, and if the Palestinians accept its dicta, their democracy will soon evaporate. The elections will become a bitter historical joke, like Oslo and like the disengagement from Gaza.  

 

And the day after

The Palestinian people lives off the charity of the world. Nigel Roberts, the representative of the World Bank in the Occupied Territories (who is about to leave his post) believes that the PA will probably go bankrupt after the elections. He spares no side in his criticism: the PA itself, which hasn’t fought corruption, Israel, which strangles the Palestinian economy, and the US, which fails to pressure Israel to end the closures.

How then will Abu Mazen be able to govern, surrounded by:

1) young Fatah leaders whose priority is to line their pockets;

2) an Islamic bloc that will tie him down;

3) Israel, increasing his irrelevance with every new slab in the separation wall; and

4) poverty?  

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