Party Vibe

Israel still abuses the ‘no partner’ myth
The Daily Star Middle East | Ron Pundak
Beirut

One year after the death of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, the biggest surprise is that nearly no one misses him. When Arafat vanished without collective grief and a transfer of power took place with dignity, it appeared that all his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, had to do was keep his promise: one authority, one law, one gun. But with the passage of time, it emerged that only Arafat knew the operative formula enabling the gathering of all the factions into agreement over issues.

Arafat had a design for exercising control: divide and rule, fragment forces, all against all and, in the end, keep all dependent on him. The day he departed so did the formula, and Palestine’s diverse actors began to act without direction or purpose. Even had Arafat tried, in his dying moments, to whisper the secret code, it would have turned out that only the man regarded as the father of the nation, the symbol of the national struggle, the historic leader, the one married to the revolution – only he was the one able to rule on the basis of the existing system.

The problem was that after the outbreak of the intifada, Arafat did not want to, or perhaps believed mistakenly he could not use his formula to maneuver the Palestinian system toward a ceasefire, non-violent resistance and a dialogue with the Americans and through them with Israel.

Historically, Arafat was without doubt an impressive leader. Yet in the post-Oslo era he lacked the facility to change his fatigues for a statesman’s business suit. He did not know how to make the transformation from revolutionary to state-builder, from a leader nourished by conflict to one who generates stability and aspires to end conflict. Ironically, it is Abbas who displays all the character traits that Arafat lacked. Beyond the political integrity and pragmatism that he projects, which were nearly non-existent in his predecessor, Abbas was over the years the man who tried to persuade Arafat, unsuccessfully, to concentrate on state-building. And it was he who took the lead from the outset after the Oslo accords to move ahead as quickly as possible toward a final-status agreement that would bring peace to Israel and an end to the historic conflict.

A year has passed, and what remains from Arafat is chaos. Security has been “privatized” in favor of armed and violent gangs that rule city centers and refugee camps; the security services are more fragmented than ever; Hamas is gathering strength at the expense of the inactive Palestinian Authority (PA); government offices barely function; law enforcement is in a state of collapse; and the Fatah movement is destroying itself from within in superfluous power struggles. In other words, there is chaos at every corner, no collective responsibility, and Abbas is unable to lead, rule, or deliver on any of his promises to the public. One year later, the hoped-for changes are not happening.

True, Israel has made its own very significant “contribution.” Throughout the past year it did almost nothing to strengthen the PA or empower the new president. The historic move to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, dismantle the settlements there and redeploy along the 1967 border was also made without coordination and without enabling Abbas to score a single political point. Thus, too, the ongoing building of outposts, the route of the separation wall, the system of assassinations, the light finger on the trigger, and the long list of daily injustices of occupation.

But it would be a grave mistake to blame only Israel for everything and thereby ignore the insight that there must be a Palestinian awakening: what is needed is a general house-cleaning that stops the current decline–a decline that is liable to lead to disintegration from within and that will be hard to avoid even if the occupation disappears.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is the principal beneficiary of the situation within the PA and the status of Abbas. He wants both weak. He does not want to find a partner for the peace of the brave of the sort launched by Arafat and his predecessor Yitzhak Rabin. On the other hand, he is not interested in the collapse of the PA and the fall of Abbas. The current situation is ideal for Sharon. The “there is no partner” mantra gathers momentum when the chaos in the PA is the principal characteristic of daily life. That the occupation contributes, the assassinations help, and most of the Palestinian public wants a decent solution and compromise with Israel, does not interest him. Thus does the Palestinian public play into Sharon’s hands; he can always find a good excuse for not moving ahead with the Quartet’s “road map” and for continuing to recycle the lie, invented by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, that there is nothing to talk about because there is no one to talk to.

But the good news is that Abbas – this decent person who really believes in building a Palestinian nation and society, and really believes there is no better way for both sides than the path of peace – is still holding on, and is doing all in his power to stabilize the situation. Perhaps the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006 will launch a new departure that will put paid to the Arafat legacy. Perhaps the opening of Gaza to Egypt and the inauguration of efficient commercial transit points with Israel will rejuvenate the Gaza economy and generate a new momentum. And perhaps the election of a new leader in the Israeli Labor Party will reestablish Israel as a true partner for peace – one that strengthens its Palestinian partner out of a sense of long term responsibility.

Ron Pundak is the director general of the Peres Center for Peace. He was one of the architects and negotiators of the Oslo Agreement. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons.org, an online newsletter presenting contending views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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