Palestinians on the verge of civil war by Paul McGeough
Sydney Morning Herald ^
September 6, 2006
Excerpted Page 1 of 8)
The power fails. Abu Annis stabs at the keys of his mobile phone, sparking a glimmer of light as he and six hardcore fighters for Islamic Jihad talk about life on the Gaza Strip - bombs, death and the daily grind.
Anxious that the late-night movement of such a group of men might be detected by the Israeli surveillance drones which are overhead constantly, they straggled in one at a time to this cinder-block home in Gaza's Jabaliya City. All defer to Abu Annis who, at just 22, is their appointed spokesman.
The conversation begins as most do in the Occupied Palestinian Territories - on the mind-numbing minutiae of the conflict with Israel. But the stern-faced young man demands light so that nothing will be lost when he addresses an ominous new twist in the turmoil of the Middle East - the threat of a Palestinian on Palestinian civil war.
The Palestinians have been isolated by the world since early this year when they elected a government controlled by Hamas, an Islamist movement with ties to outcast regimes in Iran and Syria. Now, in Gaza and on the West Bank, many of them cower in their homes as Hamas gunmen clash almost daily with loyalists of the regime they defeated.
It is their worst nightmare. Caught between the secularists of the late Yassar Arafat's failed Fatah movement and the fundamentalists of Hamas, they fear that the dream of their own separate state might shrivel on the scorched earth of the on-going clash between radical Islam and the West.
Amid the distractions of the Iraq war and, more recently, the new Lebanon war, little attention has been given to overlapping efforts of Washington, Europe and Israel to weaken or destroy an Arab rarity - the democratically elected Hamas government of Prime Minister Ismail Haniya.
Since late June, when militiamen from Hamas and other factions tunnelled under the Gaza-Israel border to capture an Israeli soldier, Gaza has been subjected to unrelenting Israeli retaliation - aerial and tank bombardments and border skirmishing have killed almost 200; more than 30 Hamas Cabinet ministers and MPs have been snatched in Israeli raids on the West Bank; and border closures have made a virtual prison of Gaza.
Earlier in the year, Washington, Brussels and Tel Aviv paralysed the working of the new government - and the local economy - when they cut vital funds transfers to back their demands that Hamas abandon its refusal to recognise the state of Israel and that it renounce violence.
And because Hamas is radical and Islamist - with friends in Tehran and Damascus - other US-friendly but anti-democratic Arab regimes sit on their hands as Palestine burns.
This is how the stage is set.
The popularly elected president Mahmoud Abbas is from Arafat's long-dominant Fatah faction, a secular nationalist movement that traditionally had had a mortgage on Palestinian power and which, over the years, has committed itself to a negotiated peace settlement with Israel. Despite the swing to Islam in the election, Abbas retains control of Palestinian negotiations with Israel and the world.
More importantly, Abbas commands the loyalty of much of the 35,000-strong Palestinian security forces, almost exclusively Fatah loyalists, who have taken to launching armed attacks on government buildings because they have not been paid for six months as a result of the global funding freeze.
Abbas also has seized control of much of the government's finances and communications networks.
Embittered by defeat, Fatah refused an invitation from Hamas to join a government of national unity in the aftermath of the January poll, prompting the International Crisis Group to conclude: "It's a question of power, pure and simple. [For Fatah,] allowing their main rivals to exercise it is inconceivable and too great a threat to their own positions".
Some in Fatah advocate military confrontation with Hamas - soaring prices for black-market weapons suggest that both sides are stockpiling arms and each is blaming the other for attempted and successful assassination and abduction of key figures from the two camps.
Despite its legendary corruption and abuse of power in office, Fatah is unable to accept its electoral defeat. The inexperienced Hamas, on the other hand, did not expect to win government and has been slow to grasp the levers of power decisively but, in response to Abbas's grip on the security forces Hamas has started setting up its own parallel forces. The tension is nerve-tingling.
At the mobile-phone-lit meeting at Jabaliya, the seven from Islamic Jihad set out their own unambiguous position. They are fighting to the death for the liberation of all of historic Palestine - "this is a religious war against the Jews" - but for them the showdown between Hamas and Fatah is an unnecessary distraction.
The spokesman Abu Annis steeples his fingers as he explains: "The different militias run a joint operations room to coordinate attacks.
"We are trying to hold things together. The political leaders work all the time to stop Hamas and Fatah fighting each other and we work on heightening an atmosphere of war to make them focus on Israel as the enemy, instead of each other".
Among the ruins of Netzarim, utterly destroyed by the Israelis last year when they abandon all their fortified settlements in Gaza, the Herald chanced upon the 30-something brothers Rubin and Khalid Khadoura, who were picnicking with their families in the cool shade of a spreading tree.
As the children fossicked in the rubble that had been Israeli homes and workshops, the brothers complained about the new siege and Rubin had frank words of caution for the Hamas leadership: "If I was the Prime Minister, I'd be thinking about the plight of the people without salaries because Hamas will never change the ideology of the people unless we have a good life."
But this was leavened with criticism of the international community and contempt for Israel: "They have made a prison of Gaza with their checkpoints and border controls that block food getting in and our fruit and vegetables going to markets. What's wrong with our democracy that they think they can arrest our leaders? Jimmy Carter vouched for the fairness of the vote, but our democracy is not acceptable to the world - is it?"
Amid another pile of rubble, not far away in Beit Hanoon, 65-year-old Mohammad Hussein affirms his commitment after what he claims has been almost 30 years as a resistance agnostic.
The new fire in his belly is caused by an Israeli air-strike that pulverised a four-story building in which his children lived and from which he ran one of the biggest supermarkets in the area.
"I worked for 22 years in Saudi Arabia for the money to build it," he says. "The Israelis call at one o'clock in the morning on my 17-year-old son Hussein's mobile, saying everyone must be out of the building in 15 minutes.
"'You must leave immediately', they tell him. When Hussein asks if he can be sure the call is real, the voice tells him to go outside, to look up and he will see the F-16 circling.
"Minutes later two missiles hit one side of the house. Neighbours rushed in, trying to help us get stuff out of the rest of the building but the Israelis call again, saying to get the people away because there will be another strike - six minutes later two more missiles knock down the rest of the building."
Surrounded by several of his sons, the old man bounces his one-year-old grandson Osama on his knee. Shouting to be heard over each other, all argue that such attacks only drive them into the arms of the militias.
"They oblige us to join the resistance," he says, before he delivers the Palestinian distillation of decades of failed diplomacy and ineffectual war:
"We have made agreements with Israel, but it doesn't respect them ... they don't want peace, they just want to drive us from our land. We have had six years of fighting in this latest round because they would give nothing in the previous six years. Do you really think things would be any different if they could bring Fatah back?"
Then Ribhi, the father of little Osama, demands silence because he has something to say: "You see this one-year-old? He will grow up to a bomber in Tel Aviv if the Israelis keep killing our people. He is my boy, but he is not as priceless as Jerusalem."
The grandfather gets up to leave, closing the family's case as he wanders back into the rubble: "We have all travelled. My sons study in Greece and we know what a good life is. But we all come back here because we don't forget where our roots are; we return to where we want to die." As he goes, he jabs a finger at his collapsed building: "For us? This is nothing - we'll build again".
To another house on a rise overlooking the Mediterranean north of Gaza City - a palatial residence that has not been bombed.
It is the home of Dr Nabil Shaath, who was foreign minister in the Fatah-led former government. Here, the swimming pool, the manicured gardens and the Asian household staff are read by ordinary Palestinians as proof of the rampant corruption that caused voters to turn against Fatah.
A pistol-packing bodyguard hovers as a seemingly contrite Shaath canvasses his party's options: "We've made many mistakes. We were angry after the election, so we refused to be a part of a Hamas government ... but now they need partners and we might be able to help.
"But we can't make the government that Bush wants - that is not how democracy works. The US dictated that there had to be an election, but it can't dictate the outcome".
The former minister acknowledges - but denies - allegations that Fatah has been instrumental in US-Israeli efforts to bring down Hamas. He insists: "Not true. Our president is a good friend of the US, but he has not been clubbing together with Washington and the Israelis ... if fact, the Israelis knife him in the back almost daily. Our interest is in destroying the occupation - not Hamas.
"But these stupid sanctions and the jailing of their leaders are helping Hamas - it's an excuse for their failure as a government. Hamas doesn't suffer one bit - it gets funds from Iran and the Arab world and they make sure that their own people don't suffer."
Shaath warns of dire consequences. The American campaign, he says, is destroying civil society, governance and any remaining Palestinian support for the peace process. He seems to have one-year-old Osama in mind as he finishes: "They are radicalising people and creating a governless society - just as they have done in Lebanon and Iraq."
Despite Israel's round-up of Palestinian officials on the West Bank, Hamas' Minister for Refugee Affairs, Professor Atef Odwan, tools around Gaza in a beaten-up Volkswagen Passat.
The presence of just a single bodyguard supports the view of many Palestinians that the Israelis have snatched none of Hamas' Gaza-based ministers or MP because they see the whole strip as an effective prison. Odwan explains: "They control our borders, the sea and the air, so why would they bother coming back in to face hatred and resistance? So I can move around. "
In his spartan office, the minister sets out the various elements of an emerging Hamas compromise that remains unacceptable to Israel and the key international players: "We have offered a 30-year truce in exchange for a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, freedom for Palestinians held by the Israelis and complete sovereignty."
He readily acknowledges the glaring omission - there is no explicit recognition of Israel. He adds: "Its '67 borders is de facto recognition, isn't it?"
So what does the Islamist professor make of democracy when Washington is leading a charge that has paralysed the Hamas government? "We have discovered that the Americans are liars; the Europeans too - they are not the democracy lovers they claim to be. The all just push their own interests."
On the sidelines, there is a loud 'we told you so' from Islamic Jihad.
As four great speakers bounce thumping jihadi anthems off the drab walls of Jabaliya City, young men with AK-47s slung over their black-shirted shoulders gather for the funeral of a fighter who was killed in a border clash with Israeli forces the previous night.
Hundreds assemble in a big street tent in which the 20-year-old Mohammad Al-Nedar's family receive condolences. Overseeing it all, Islamic Jihad political leader Khalid Al-Batsh eyes the boy's father and explains: "We don't leave the martyr's family alone. He won't have time to think of his loss - people will keep coming for three days and slowly he will forget his sadness".
As meaty dates and bitter Arabic coffee are passed around, Al Batsh commiserates with Hamas for the pressure it has come under: "They were pushed into a corner after the election and ordered to give immediate answers, but Hamas can't deal that way. The Americans and the rest won't even let Hamas prove that it accepts democracy ... but the reality is that Israel will give nothing.
"The worry now is after their debacle in Lebanon, the Israelis will be looking for a quick victory in Gaza to prove to their people that they are not as weak as they were revealed to be in Lebanon. And the US will push for superficial movement in the peace process as a gift to those heroes in Riyadh, Cairo and Amman ..." - he is talking about Washington's key Arab allies - "for keeping their mouths shut during the destruction of south Lebanon."
Dr Ibrahim Ibrach, a political analyst at Gaza's Al Azhar University, comes at the crisis from a different angle: "This place wasn't ready for a vote - how do you have proper elections when the country is occupied and instead of political parties, we have militias?
"And now Israel wants the internal Palestinian friction - it doesn't want to give Mahmoud Abbas a peace deal and it doesn't want Hamas to falter completely."
The Herald recounts an exchange with medical officials at Gaza's Shifa Hospital - they spoke of Palestinians crying as they stood in ATM queues to withdraw the last funds from their bank accounts and of rising complaints that the electoral endorsement of Hamas had been a case of 'putting too many eggs in the one basket'.
Ibrach agrees that the current crisis has eroded some of Hamas' popular support. But he makes a bold prediction: "They remain strong and if an election was held tomorrow, Hamas would probably win ... because the Fatah factions are fighting among themselves and the Americans and the Israelis are not going to give Abbas any kind of winning peace deal.
"A government of national unity might work. But if Hamas fails - or if it is made to fail - Palestinian voters will not rush back to Fatah's corruption and its failed peace efforts. The voters will be looking for someone else - that's why the risk of civil war is so real".
In May, all sides in the Palestinian equation seized on help from an unlikely quarter - Israel's jails. Five revered Palestinians inmates representing the key factions drew up their own plan for national reconciliation and demanded that it be adopted.
Intended more to bring Palestinians together than to appease Washington, it called for an independent state on all of the land seized by Israel in 1967, a right for the millions of Palestinian refugees around the world to return and for resistance by all means within the Israeli-occupied territories - not in Israel proper.
The prisoners' document acknowledged the role of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, a bastion of Fatah power, but it argued that Hamas has to be brought into the PLO. Importantly, it urged the formation of a coalition government of Hamas and Fatah.
Abbas grasped the document and ran, proclaiming that if Hamas did not accept it, he would put it to a referendum within 40 days. It was a bold gamble - then president was banking on Hamas acquiescing or being seen by voters as the party-wreckers - and it didn't work.
Amidst the squabbling, the Hamas signatories to the prisoners' document withdrew their signatures. Abbas's objective was to see Hamas ousted, but as haggling continued it was overshadowed by renewed violence.
When Israel assassinated a key Hamas figure on June 9 and blame for the death of seven members of a single Palestinian family in a strike on a Gaza beach on the same day was laid at the Israelis' door, Hamas announced that its military wing was abandoning a ceasefire to which it had pretty well held for 16 months.
Hamas was playing hard ball. It had demonstrated that it could put its missiles on hold, and now it was sending a message through one of its senior MPs who told an International Crisis Group researcher: "The alternative to our government is a resumption of suicide attacks".
Finally, in the last week of June, virtually all the factions signed off on acceptance of the prisoners' initiative - but hardly anyone noticed because on the same day Hamas and two other militias mounted a combined operation in which the capture of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit brought down the wrath of Israel on all of Gaza.
Corporal Gilad remains a prisoner. And under constant Israeli fire, it is virtually impossible for the Palestinian leadership to deal with the immediate internal political challenge - to agree on the shape of a unity government. More difficult still, will be finding sufficient common ground between Hamas and Fatah for the two to work together, even in the short term.
Hamas believes it can retreat underground and still command broad Palestinian support - a poll in July found that almost 80 per cent of Palestinians supported the June 25 abduction of the Israeli soldier, a reflection of their deep bitterness over the detention of thousands of Palestinians by Israel.
Fatah might win back power. But if it is seen to have done so with foreign or Israeli support, it might well be a Pyrrhic victory ... particularly given the widespread acceptance in Gaza of evidence that Fatah officials urged European governments to tighten the screws on Hamas by withholding aid.
Both sides are counting and cursing - Tel Aviv says about a dozen Israelis have died and more than 300 Qassam rockets have lobbed into its territory since June 1. The Palestinians say more than 9000 Israeli missiles into its territory and almost 200 dead Palestinians.
Instead of joining forces to fight Israel, the Palestinian factions have turned on each other, with the president and his Fatah backers trying to undermine Hamas and Hamas accusing them of treason because of their support for the international effort to isolate the Hamas government. These days, their separate rallies condemn each other as often as they condemn Israel.
When the Herald interviewed Ghazi Hamad, the Hamas government's official spokesman, he claimed the local factions had seen the light and that they could sort out their differences. But a clearer indication of his thoughts appeared just days later in the newspaper Al Ayyam.
Billed as self-criticism, but directed at Fatah and some of the lesser factions, he was scathing: "Gaza is suffering under the yoke of anarchy and the swords of thugs. [After so much optimism when Israel pulled out a year ago] life became a nightmare and an intolerable burden".
Against the backdrop of Hamas' recently abandoned ceasefire, he admonished the others for the death and injuries inflicted by Israel's retaliatory attacks: "We've all be attacked by the bacteria of stupidity. Please have mercy on Gaza. Have mercy on us from your demagogy, chaos, guns, thugs [and] infighting. Let Gaza breath a bit - let it live.
""When you walk around in Gaza, you cannot help but avert your eyes from what you see: indescribable anarchy, policemen that nobody cares about, youth proudly carrying weapons, mourning tents set up in the middle of main streets ... Gaza has turned into a garbage dump, there is a stench ...
"The government cannot do anything, the opposition [Fatah] looks on from the sidelines, engaged in internal bickering, and the president has no power... We are walking aimlessly ... We applauded the elections ... but there has been a great step backwards. We spoke of national consensus, [but] it turned out to be like a leaf blowing in the wind..."
With all sides on a hair-trigger, the only identifiable circuit breaker is fear of the consequences of internal war - but despite local anger at the new levels of hardship, Hamas is judged to be the more popular and stronger and to be perceived by most Palestinians as the victim of foreign interference.
Fatah might regain power, but beset by its own internal factional and generational wars, the party's resurrection would do little to break the new hand of radical Islam in the Palestinian equation.
Like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas is probably here to stay. Much is made of its refusal to explicitly recognise Israel, but local and international players can hardly be shocked - Washington's autocratic friends in Riyadh still refuse to do so; likewise Rabat; and Amman and Cairo both stonewalled on recognition until they negotiated their respective peace treaties with Tel Aviv.
After watching Israel's destruction of Lebanon, the Beirut-based Arab commentator Rami Khouri, upbraided the Americans and the Israelis for their obsessional interest in symptoms rather than root causes.
Noting that the Middle East crisis predated the arrival of both Hezbollah and Hamas on the scene, he writes: "Every tough issue in this region - Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, terrorism, radicalism, armed resistance groups - is somehow linked to the consequences of the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"The politicians and government leaders who dominate the region, or engage it from Western capitals, all look like rank amateurs or intemperate brutes as they flail at symptoms instead of grappling with the core issue that has seen this region spin off into ever greater circles of violence since the 1970s."
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