What if a Shakespearean palace battle to succeed Palestinian bigwig Mahmoud Abbas was raging and no one was there to document it?
American and Israeli officials shrugged off Abbas’s warnings last fall that he’d dissolve the Palestinian Authority, of which he’s president. The rais (boss) had so often made similar threats in the past that no one took him seriously.
No one, that is, except some in Ramallah who started thinking that maybe, well into Abbas’ tenth year of a four-year term, the 81-year-old chain-smoker is finally thinking of mortality, retirement — or just a bit of rest.
Abbas had always discouraged such notions. Palestinian doubters and dissenters are jailed or otherwise made to shut up. Yet now even Abbas’ own former yes-men started making public statements that could easily be interpreted as a challenge to his hold on power.
Palestinian Sports Minister Jibril Rajoub wondered out loud where Abbas is leading the Palestinians. Mohammed Dahlan, a Dubai-based former Gaza strongman who pulls West Bank strings from afar, raised his Abbas criticism a notch. Even top loyalists like long-time negotiator Saeb Erekat and intelligence chief Majid Faraj sounded like they were contemplating a leadership fight.
When Palestinian security forces arrested a top manager in Erekat’s office earlier this month, accusing him of spying for Israel, West Bankers speculated that it was orchestrated by Erekat’s rivals seeking to make him look bad.
But as whispers of a succession battle intensified, Abbas realized he risked losing his grip. In the last couple of weeks he gathered loyalists to assure them he’s going nowhere. He then started a campaign to rein in the terrorist wave he had unleashed in September but of which he’s clearly lost control.
Faraj, the intel chief, gave a rare interview to the New York-based Defense News this week, boasting he’d prevented 200 terrorist attacks and arrested 100 Palestinians. It signaled to outsiders that the PA is fighting terror, but at home the message was, hey, watch out. (Faraj didn’t say how many of the men he’d arrested were mere critics or political rivals.)
At the same time, officials in Ramallah leaked to reporters that they’re about to launch a UN campaign to fight Israel diplomatically.
These are staples of Abbas’ longtime tactics, which suggests he’s got full control of the reins again.
But, like it or not, he won’t live or rule forever.
And then what? To fend off pesky rivals, Abbas has long avoided anointing a successor or naming a deputy. So who decides who’s next?
According to Palestinian law, the speaker of parliament would take over pending new elections. But the parliament hasn’t convened in years. And the current speaker is a member of Hamas, Abbas’ Islamist rivals.
Israel and the US — and, even more so, members of Abbas’ Fatah party — won’t let him get near the seat of power. Nor would they risk another humiliating election, which Hamas is likely to win.
In other words, no one in the West Bank knows how the next leader will emerge — “and Israeli intelligence officials, whose entire job is to predict such things, have no idea either,” says Gal Berger, Israel Radio’s indispensable Palestinian affairs correspondent.
When the time comes, the Fatah men who in the last few weeks started jockeying for position will duke it out for real. Such chaotic political fighting often leads to violence.
Once that violence ebbs, a new strongman will emerge.
But not a peaceful, democratic state of Palestine.
This week, the UN’s Ban Ki-moon said Palestinian terrorism is part of “human nature” to resist occupation through “hate and extremism.” US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro earlier said Israel’s justice system employs “two standards” — one for Israelis and another for Palestinians (and later said he regretted his timing).
The real double standard is in endlessly scrutinizing Jerusalem while ignoring Ramallah. Rather than promoting two states, it only assures endless failure in the West Bank and Gaza.
Confederation with Jordan?
Surprising an interviewer from a well-known Palestinian website two months ago, famed Palestinian man of letters Sari Nusseibeh said the concept of a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation should be reconsidered.
The idea of a confederation has been almost completely discredited in recent years — a process that began with a 1988 announcement by the late King Hussein of Jordan that he was giving up his claim to Palestinian-controlled territories.
The comments by Nusseibeh, the president of Al-Quds University, were thus widely perceived among Palestinians as an irrelevant example of his unusual musings and doings, such as his ill-fated 2003 peace initiative with former Shin Bet chief and ex-Labor MK Ami Ayalon.
The remarks did spark some dialogue, in particular among some of the older generation and the more affluent tiers of Palestinian society – the business people and merchants. Ultimately, however, it is clear that the Hashemite royal family has no interest in reviving the initiative.
President of Al-Quds University Prof. Sari Nusseibeh in his office at the university in Beit Hanina, in East Jerusalem.
But then came another surprising statement, this time from a member of the Jordanian establishment.
Last week, Jordan’s former prime minister, Abdelsalam al-Majali, visited the West Bank city of Nablus as the guest of Ghassan Shakaa, the city’s former mayor and a member of the PLO Executive Committee,
Speaking to 100 key Palestinians in the Nablus area, Majali expressed support for a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation, after the establishment of a Palestinian state. “Jordan cannot live without Palestine and Palestine cannot live without Jordan,” Majali said. “The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, wants such a confederation established. He asked as much several times but was refused completely.”
The confederation, Majali said, should be headed by a joint government and parliament that would guarantee security, oversee the economy and handle foreign affairs. As things stood, he said, the Arab Ummah [nation] was not fighting for the Palestinians since they have no viable economic capacity on their own.
(Incidentally, Majali also criticized education systems in the Arab world, saying they are not preparing students well enough to tackle scientific issues, “and this allows them to learn only history.”)
Majali’s speech created a real stir among Palestinians. While he no longer holds an official position with the court of Jordan’s King Abdullah, he is still considered a person of influence among the Jordanian elite and among local politicians, having twice served as prime minister.
In the past, Majali was regarded as a close associate of King Hussein. Was his speech coordinated with the Jordanian monarchy, as part of an effort to revive Palestinian – and especially Israeli – faith that peace is possible? Or were these merely the words of an aging ex-politician, who wields no influence with King Abdullah?
A Jordan expert at Tel Aviv University dismissed Majali’s speech.
“It sounds like another attempt by one of the ‘formers’ to make headlines,” said Dr. Yoav Alon. “Majali spoke of this two or three years ago, and the idea in fact dates back to 1982, as an initiative of King Hussein. Then there was an agreement between Hussein and [former PLO leader Yasser] Arafat, that the leadership of PLO rejected. So, in 1988, the king announced he was disengaging from the West Bank. Still,” Alon went on, “one must emphasize: The official Jordanian position does not reject the possibility of establishing a confederation, albeit only after the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“This idea rises now and again when the Palestinians are in distress and diplomacy offers no hope,” Alon went on. “Maybe it also helps Israel swallow the idea that a Palestinian state may rise. For now, the idea of a confederation is non-obligating, so nobody can say precisely what it means. Furthermore, I don’t see any support from official Jordan or the royal family in this idea. Jordan’s demographic situation is delicate as it is. The Palestinians make up 50 percent of the population there. The Jordanians make up 25-30% and the rest are Syrian and Iraqi refugees. That is why they are so sensitive to this notion. The Jordanian regime has no interest in promoting the idea of a confederation and this is why I think there is nothing concrete here,” Alon said.
Senior Palestinian officials speaking to the Times of Israel also dismissed the idea of a confederation. They vaguely said, too, that it may be reconsidered after the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Other Palestinian sources said the Hashemite monarchy is preoccupied, where the Palestinians are concerned, with resolving the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic deadlock, grappling with the fear of a deterioration into violence in the West Bank which would impact Jordan, and dealing with tensions in its ties with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Amman is not pleased by Abbas’s recent shows of independence, including his making diplomatic moves without first consulting King Abdullah, and this has created tension between the two men, the sources said.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) and Mohammad Dahlan (left), leave a news conference in Egypt, in February 2007.
Ramallah has also been angered by reports that representatives of the Hashemite Kingdom have met with several Palestinian officials, gauging their suitability to take over the PA presidency one day. Especially infuriating for Abbas, the sources said, is that the Jordanians met with his No. 1 enemy, Mohammad Dahlan.
The Jordanians also met with Nasser al-Kidwa, Arafat’s nephew and a former PA foreign minister, whose name keeps coming up, and with ex-PA security chief Jibril Rajoub among others.
Nasser al-Kidwa
Such Jordanian meddling in Palestinian politics, preparing for the day after Abbas, is seen extremely negatively in Ramallah, the sources said.
The tension between Ramallah and Amman underlines how improbable the idea of a confederation currently seems, much to the chagrin of some of the “West Bank elders” who miss the days when King Hussein was sovereign in the West Bank and the Palestinians had ministers in the Jordanian government and representatives in its parliament.
Surprising an interviewer from a well-known Palestinian website two months ago, famed Palestinian man of letters Sari Nusseibeh said the concept of a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation should be reconsidered.
The idea of a confederation has been almost completely discredited in recent years — a process that began with a 1988 announcement by the late King Hussein of Jordan that he was giving up his claim to Palestinian-controlled territories.
The comments by Nusseibeh, the president of Al-Quds University, were thus widely perceived among Palestinians as an irrelevant example of his unusual musings and doings, such as his ill-fated 2003 peace initiative with former Shin Bet chief and ex-Labor MK Ami Ayalon.
The remarks did spark some dialogue, in particular among some of the older generation and the more affluent tiers of Palestinian society – the business people and merchants. Ultimately, however, it is clear that the Hashemite royal family has no interest in reviving the initiative.
President of Al-Quds University Prof. Sari Nusseibeh in his office at the university in Beit Hanina, in East Jerusalem.
But then came another surprising statement, this time from a member of the Jordanian establishment.
Last week, Jordan’s former prime minister, Abdelsalam al-Majali, visited the West Bank city of Nablus as the guest of Ghassan Shakaa, the city’s former mayor and a member of the PLO Executive Committee,
Speaking to 100 key Palestinians in the Nablus area, Majali expressed support for a Jordanian-Palestinian confederation, after the establishment of a Palestinian state. “Jordan cannot live without Palestine and Palestine cannot live without Jordan,” Majali said. “The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, wants such a confederation established. He asked as much several times but was refused completely.”
The confederation, Majali said, should be headed by a joint government and parliament that would guarantee security, oversee the economy and handle foreign affairs. As things stood, he said, the Arab Ummah [nation] was not fighting for the Palestinians since they have no viable economic capacity on their own.
(Incidentally, Majali also criticized education systems in the Arab world, saying they are not preparing students well enough to tackle scientific issues, “and this allows them to learn only history.”)
Majali’s speech created a real stir among Palestinians. While he no longer holds an official position with the court of Jordan’s King Abdullah, he is still considered a person of influence among the Jordanian elite and among local politicians, having twice served as prime minister.
In the past, Majali was regarded as a close associate of King Hussein. Was his speech coordinated with the Jordanian monarchy, as part of an effort to revive Palestinian – and especially Israeli – faith that peace is possible? Or were these merely the words of an aging ex-politician, who wields no influence with King Abdullah?
A Jordan expert at Tel Aviv University dismissed Majali’s speech.
“It sounds like another attempt by one of the ‘formers’ to make headlines,” said Dr. Yoav Alon. “Majali spoke of this two or three years ago, and the idea in fact dates back to 1982, as an initiative of King Hussein. Then there was an agreement between Hussein and [former PLO leader Yasser] Arafat, that the leadership of PLO rejected. So, in 1988, the king announced he was disengaging from the West Bank. Still,” Alon went on, “one must emphasize: The official Jordanian position does not reject the possibility of establishing a confederation, albeit only after the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“This idea rises now and again when the Palestinians are in distress and diplomacy offers no hope,” Alon went on. “Maybe it also helps Israel swallow the idea that a Palestinian state may rise. For now, the idea of a confederation is non-obligating, so nobody can say precisely what it means. Furthermore, I don’t see any support from official Jordan or the royal family in this idea. Jordan’s demographic situation is delicate as it is. The Palestinians make up 50 percent of the population there. The Jordanians make up 25-30% and the rest are Syrian and Iraqi refugees. That is why they are so sensitive to this notion. The Jordanian regime has no interest in promoting the idea of a confederation and this is why I think there is nothing concrete here,” Alon said.
Senior Palestinian officials speaking to the Times of Israel also dismissed the idea of a confederation. They vaguely said, too, that it may be reconsidered after the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Other Palestinian sources said the Hashemite monarchy is preoccupied, where the Palestinians are concerned, with resolving the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic deadlock, grappling with the fear of a deterioration into violence in the West Bank which would impact Jordan, and dealing with tensions in its ties with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Amman is not pleased by Abbas’s recent shows of independence, including his making diplomatic moves without first consulting King Abdullah, and this has created tension between the two men, the sources said.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) and Mohammad Dahlan (left), leave a news conference in Egypt, in February 2007.
Ramallah has also been angered by reports that representatives of the Hashemite Kingdom have met with several Palestinian officials, gauging their suitability to take over the PA presidency one day. Especially infuriating for Abbas, the sources said, is that the Jordanians met with his No. 1 enemy, Mohammad Dahlan.
The Jordanians also met with Nasser al-Kidwa, Arafat’s nephew and a former PA foreign minister, whose name keeps coming up, and with ex-PA security chief Jibril Rajoub among others.
Nasser al-Kidwa
Such Jordanian meddling in Palestinian politics, preparing for the day after Abbas, is seen extremely negatively in Ramallah, the sources said.
The tension between Ramallah and Amman underlines how improbable the idea of a confederation currently seems, much to the chagrin of some of the “West Bank elders” who miss the days when King Hussein was sovereign in the West Bank and the Palestinians had ministers in the Jordanian government and representatives in its parliament.
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