Still in a conundrum

Arab press

Today marks the third anniversary of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s passing away. Questions and suspicions continue to surround the circumstances of his death, but perhaps more importantly, Palestinians are in a weaker position than they have ever been. Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has tried to follow a difficult but consistent line of talks, whether in his dealings with Palestinian parties or in his approach to ending the 40-year-old Israeli occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

The approach started out promisingly. Abbas secured a ceasefire from Hamas and other Palestinian factions and resisted pressure from Israel and the West not to hold parliamentary elections. He did not flinch from this principled stance even when Hamas won elections, and he duly swore in a Hamas-government in March of last year.

For his consistency, he won the respect of all Palestinian political parties, except perhaps of his own Fateh party, unhappy with being ousted from power.

But he has now been thwarted by a number of factors. The West had no qualms in installing punishing sanctions against the newly elected Palestinian government. The Arab world protested but did little to alter this “strategy”. As financial sanctions bit, so did ever harsher Israeli closures of the West Bank and Gaza. Abbas was stuck.

Hamas, too, dug its heels in, perhaps at a time when the party should have shown enough maturity to step aside. Instead, hardline elements in Fateh gained ascendancy and armed clashes ensued.

Saudi mediation notwithstanding, the situation in Gaza spiralled out of control, Hamas took over and Abbas was left with an illegitimate coup, a Fateh party thirsting for revenge and a divided Palestinian polity.

He turned to Israel and negotiations, hoping that the threat of a Hamas control over all Palestinian territories might spur that country to take the proper measures to boost his own legitimacy and chances of a fair two-state solution.

In the process, he would appear to have severed his ties with Hamas and spent that hard-won respect among many Palestinian political parties.

Abbas’ fate would now appear to depend almost totally on the outcome of negotiations with Israel. There is little to suggest that Israel will rise to the occasion.

A weak government informed by the usual Israeli policies of greed for land and the unabated use of force inspires no confidence.

One can only speculate what Arafat might have done in the intervening years. One thing seems certain though: he would never have put all his eggs in one basket.


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