Hamas did not give Abu Mazen anything of a honeymoon after his electoral win last week, but instead mounted (along with Jihad and the Aqsa Brigades) the operations at the Karnei crossing point, which killed six Israelis, including two truck drivers and four crossing-administrators. Then this week Hamas launched the attack against Shin Bet agents staffing a checkpoint deep inside Gaza, killing one of them.
But still, it seems the tide on both sides of the national divide there in Israel/Palestine is shifting toward the possibility of some de-escalation. Indeed, despite Sharon’s big announcement of a decision last week that he would not open talks with Abu Mazen because of the Karnei attack, tonight there was a meeting at the Erez checkpoint between high-level security delegations from both sides.
Abu Mazen has thus far laid a lot of stress on “cleaning up the internal house” of intra-Palestinian politics. A very wise move indeed, given the (sometimes deadly) internal chaos that had over recent years increasingly become the norm in relations even inside Fateh– and that had actually left Fateh with little time or energy to wage any kind of internal political battle against any other forces inside Palestinian society. (Let alone against Israel.)
Abu Mazen has also laid stress on resolving intra-Palestinian issues through negotiation and other peaceful means, rather than through force– though force is certainly what the Israelis and Americans have been urging him to use against the militant forces inside Palestinian society.
My sense of what’s happening in Palestinian politics right now is that most Palestinians are quite happy to see the schisms emerging inside Israeli society over the issue of the planned withdrawal from Gaza, and are fairly determined not to let similar schisms tear their own already very vulnerable society apart. I have to note that for all the many, many attempts the Israelis have made over the years to cultivate some form of a Buthelezi-like “third force” figure inside Palestinian society, they have never to this day succeeded in that.
(Anyone out there remember the name Mustafa Dudeen? He was the “great white hope” of the Begin administration, circa 1981.) Arafat, for his all his many, many flaws was never prepared to become a Palestinian Quisling– despite all the vitriol that Edward Said launched his way (from the safety and comfort of Edward’s perch at Columbia University). And Abu Mazen certainly is no Quisling, either.
Anyway, Abu Mazen’s first job is to try to fashion some kind of a working administration out of the organizational chaos and anarchy he has inherited from Arafat. According to this piece from occupied Jerusalem in Thursday’s Al-Hayat, Abu Mazen has said that, “the ‘reform file’ for the PA contains four principal headlines, which are the security organs, the administration, the economy, and the judiciary.”
Well, that should all be heard as good news by democracy-lovers all around the world. It might also come as good news for Hamas, which has also– just like Hizbullah in Lebanon– taken increasingly in recent years to promoting its cause under the general banner of “good governance.”
In recent days, Hamas reportedly presented a document to all the other Palestinian factions which was their suggested draft for a “Document of Palestinian Dignity”, which basically lays out ground-rules for how they want the different Palestinian factions to relate to each other.
It’s long on general principles and short on specific details, but one of the really significant things in it is the degree to which it avoids airy-fairy, specifically religious rhetoric or references and the degree to which it really does use the language of general good governance.
Look, for example, at numbers 4, 5, and 6 in the second part of their listing (“internal relations”):
- 4– The undertaking of a complete operation to reform the Palestinian administrative and financial situation that guarantees the realization of justice, equality, transparency, and accountability from everyone, and the guaranteeing of the public finances and properties, and holding to account whoever worked to abuse his office, and accountability in public finances.
5– Bringing about the rule of law and the complete independence of the judiciary and guarding this independence from attacks upon it, whatever side they come from, and the implementation of its [the judiciary’s] decisions according to the policy of the separation of powers, and the transformation of all the organs of the Authority into institutions ruled by law, as a preparation for its transformation into the institutions of the state.
6– Relying on elections to make all the Palestinian decisions; the support of elections and non-interference with them.
I think #5 is particularly significant. One of the things that happened in the 1990s was that the PA, under Yasser Arafat, caved to US and Israeli pressure to establish special “Security Courts” that flew quite in the face of any theory of the rule of law.
Anyway, I’m too tired to do much more thinking right now. I need to go and curl up with Sy Hersh’s latest article on the Rumsfeld global power bid, which dropped on our doormat this afternoon.
But still, it seems the tide on both sides of the national divide there in Israel/Palestine is shifting toward the possibility of some de-escalation. Indeed, despite Sharon’s big announcement of a decision last week that he would not open talks with Abu Mazen because of the Karnei attack, tonight there was a meeting at the Erez checkpoint between high-level security delegations from both sides.
There’s a little more to it than that; the meeting took place after the Israeli security cabinet formally rescinded the original breaking of contacts.
In any event, I’m hopeful thus far about the maturity shown by both sides. There were some bad moments at the beginning, but neither Abbas nor Sharon acted like the caricatures drawn by their critics; Abbas didn’t play the part of “Arafat in a suit,” and Sharon didn’t act like someone who was looking for the first excuse to resume business as usual. (I could go on for considerably more than 300 words about the assumptions that underlie both caricatures; maybe on my blog, some other time.) Instead, they acted like leaders who had a security problem and were willing to work together to resolve it. Hopefully this will leave both parties with something to build on.
Abu Mazen has also laid stress on resolving intra-Palestinian issues through negotiation and other peaceful means, rather than through force– though force is certainly what the Israelis and Americans have been urging him to use against the militant forces inside Palestinian society.
Keep in mind that, as Shai recently pointed out, Israeli notions of state formation are heavily influenced by the Altalena incident, which informs not only their view of Palestinian politics but their own incipient confrontation with the settler movement. Israel is, essentially, asking Abbas (as it asked Arafat) to do what Ben Gurion did, on the theory that a state with more than one military force is unviable. With that said, though, there are increasing indications that Israel will accept a co-optation strategy as long as it works, as well as increasing signs that Hamas might be willing to be co-opted.
[The Hamas document is] long on general principles and short on specific details, but one of the really significant things in it is the degree to which it avoids airy-fairy, specifically religious rhetoric or references and the degree to which it really does use the language of general good governance.
Plenty of airy-fairy rhetoric in the “fixed points of the nationalist cause” section, though. Item 6 in that section appears compatible with acquiescence to a two-state solution, but I’m not sure how far item 10’s rejection of negotiation goes. In the original Arabic, does it call for rejection of all negotiation or only negotiations that perpetuate the occupation?
I notice, BTW, that there’s no demand for the implementation of sharia. Could this be another sign that Hamas is adapting to political pluralism?
I think #5 is particularly significant.
Item 5 is huge. Without rule of law, neither elections nor administrative reforms are particularly meaningful. Item 3 is also huge – independent civil society, media and political organizations are extremely important to maintaining a functioning democracy, and these are among the things that were suppressed during the Arafat era. (On the other hand, what’s with the call to tolerate demonstrations only so long as they “do not contradict our beliefs and our cultural heritage?”)
For the record, though, I don’t think Arafat needed to have his arm twisted in order to establish security courts. He wasn’t exactly a stranger to personal aggrandizement even before Oslo.
Ariel Sharon as a leader is pretty much a known quantity. Although Sharon can change directions, he is better understood than Abbas.
Abbas has just come into position and like many second tier leaders thrust into power, may emerge as a new and unique leader. Think Truman after Roosevelt or Sadat after Nasser. This will make it harder for Israelis to work with Abbas, for a while.
It will take a while for the world to take the measure of Abbas. But will Sharon still be in power? And will Abbas last? There are many reasons to think that the pair may not stay in power long enough to reach a peace deal:
Jonathan,
Item 6 in that section appears compatible with acquiescence to a two-state solution, but I’m not sure how far item 10’s rejection of negotiation goes. In the original Arabic, does it call for rejection of all negotiation or only negotiations that perpetuate the occupation?
The word they use is “takhabur”, which is not the usual word used for negotiation, which is “mufawada”. The translation for “takhabur” given in my Hans Wehr dictionary is “negotiation; correspondence”, but my sense of the triliteral root there is it could also mean an “exchange of information”… But it seems significant to me that they didn’t use the word “mufawada”.
I notice, BTW, that there’s no demand for the implementation of sharia. Could this be another sign that Hamas is adapting to political pluralism?
It could. It might not. It’s interesting, though, huh?
what’s with the call to tolerate demonstrations only so long as they “do not contradict our beliefs and our cultural heritage?”
Probably, a rampant fear of gay pride demonstrations or such-like. I can’t stress enough how much the association of “democratization” with a theorized version of rampant decadence epitomized by gay-rights issues actually preoccupies many folks in the Muslim world these days… (See this early-Dec JWN post.)
I think this is such a pity. I mean, it’s not as if the gay-rights issue is satisfactorily resolved in many well-established democracies, either. It’s a pity if Muslims conflate this version of “strongly liberal democracy” with a basic form of “procedural democracy” in order to denigrate (from their standpoint) the latter.
For the record, though, I don’t think Arafat needed to have his arm twisted in order to establish security courts. He wasn’t exactly a stranger to personal aggrandizement even before Oslo.
Too right. But the US and Israeli pressures on him certainly did not seek to curb those tendencies!
Warren W, hi–
You make a lot of good points there. I disagree with your last point there, though. The vast majority of people in both nations want to live securely in the homeland to which they are attached; to be able to practise their religions freely and to participate in the vibrant national/”ethnic” culture of their own choosing; to be able to raise their kids in a hopeful situation; and to be in a situation of livable or perhaps even better than that relations with all their neighbors.
This is potentially realizable within either a two- or a one-state solution– but the former only if the land-base and the political conditions of BOTH states make the situation in them viable.
Polling by e.g. the Steinmetz Center and the center for Political Studies and research in Nablus have shown that a fairly solid two-thirds of people on each side of the dividing line could support a “Geneva Accord” type outcome. And that has been in a situation of continuing conflict and nearly zero inspirational, pro-peace, “transformational” leadership (a la Mandela or de Klerk) from either side there.
Imagine what the situation could be if inspirational leaders were indeed in power!
In their absence, just sticking close to principles of equal respect for all of God’s children will have to be our guide…
The translation for “takhabur” given in my Hans Wehr dictionary is “negotiation; correspondence”, but my sense of the triliteral root there is it could also mean an “exchange of information”…
Could it possibly stand for collaboration or espionage (i.e., “correspondence” in the sense of passing intelligence)? That meaning would seem to fit with the rest of the sentence.