(Beirut, Lebanon)
The rapid deterioration of the domestic political order in Gaza and the West Bank reflects a range of underlying tensions, problems and failures that have manifested themselves for over a decade, and most of them are self-made Palestinian failures. They also mirror similar dilemmas that plague most of the Arab world, largely revolving around a single common practice: the tendency of small power elites or single men to monopolize political and economic power in their hands via their direct, personal control of domestic security and police systems.
The Gaza chaos therefore is really about two issues: first, the clear failure of the current Palestinian leadership under Yasser Arafat to achieve its people’s national rights to statehood, security and a normal life, and the consequent need for a combination of new leadership blood and better policies; second, Gaza is yet another warning about the failure of the modern Arab security state, and the need for a better brand of statehood based on law-based citizen rights rather than gun-based regime protection and perpetual incumbency.
It is not surprising that the catalyst that sparked the current tensions in Gaza is the issue of who controls the security forces in Gaza and the rest of the Palestinian territories. Many younger Palestinian activists and militia members revolted against Arafat last week when they briefly kidnapped the Gaza police chief and Arafat crony Ghazi Jabali. They wanted to make the point that Palestinians are fed up with the continued prevalence of corrupt, ineffective politicians and security appointees. Arafat made things worse when he consolidated 12 security services into three and then appointed his cousin Moussa Arafat to head them in Gaza. This sparked street demonstrations and attacks against Palestinian police posts, and Arafat had to retract the appointment of his cousin. The resignation of the Palestinian prime minister, Ahmad Qorei, only added to the political chaos and highlighted the ineptitude of Arafat’s rule.
In this ongoing and evolving situation, the many underlying failures of the current Palestinian leadership all coalesce into a simple single fact: Yasser Arafat has led the Palestinian national movement for nearly 40 years now. While his policies have kept alive the Palestinian cause they have done so at a very high cost. Both he and his people live in miserable, often pathetic, conditions today, and Arafat incredibly has alienated virtually every potential partner, including many of his own political party activists and his own people, the Arab regimes, the Israeli left, the US, and now even the UN special envoy to the Arab-Israeli peace process.
The current revolt in Gaza against Arafat and his failed men and policies is no surprise. It reflects the Palestinian quests for better domestic governance and a more effective war-or-peace policy vis-à-vis Israel. The Palestinian Authority that Arafat heads is more vulnerable to popular rebellion in part because Israel and the US have isolated and imprisoned Arafat in his Ramallah compound, and have systematically degraded the Palestinian security and police services. Israel’s announcement that it plans to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza next year has also prompted the various political forces in Gaza to start competing for their share of power when the time comes for the Palestinians themselves to run the place again.
This also reflects the steady fragmentation of Palestinian political life that has occurred in the past two decades. Palestinian national institutions continue to fray under the constraints of the Israeli occupation and are being replaced by a combination of new forces: Hamas and other Islamist movements, local militias and warlords, freelance, gangs and local thugs, regional or breakaway factions of the leading Fatah movement that Arafat founded four decades ago, armed resistance movements to fight Israel, and grassroots movements for democracy and human rights, to name only the most obvious. The Arafat-led Fatah movement remains the core of Palestinian political life, but because of its repeated failures to deliver national rights and a better life to its people it has lost much credibility and is vulnerable to the multiple challenges it faces these days.
The lightening rod for such challenges – no surprise in the Arab world – is the police and internal security system that many Palestinians accuse of being autocratic and corrupt. With around two-thirds of all Palestinians in Gaza living below the poverty line, such homegrown abuse of power on top of the indignity of occupation and poverty has become too much to take. Some of those who challenge Arafat – Hamas elements, former security officials and local militia chiefs such as Mohammad Dahlan, younger Fatah activists, breakaway Fatah groups such as the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – seek a share in power. But most ordinary Palestinians and political activists are not in revolt because they want to rule, but because they want to be ruled by an efficient, humane government – something that Arafat and his men have failed to deliver.
The street revolt against Arafat in Gaza should not be seen primarily as a local power struggle by groups competing to take over if the Israelis withdraw next year. It reflects a much deeper malaise in Palestinian society. Its consequences may prove to be as significant as the changes in Palestinian leadership and policy that occurred after the1967 war. After that Arab defeat a new generation of Palestinians took over from the traditional leaderships that had failed to meet the challenge of Palestine’s dismemberment and Israel’s creation in 1948. We are probably witnessing today the shift to the third generation of Palestinian leadership, as the generation that led the Palestinian national movement since 1967 succumbs to an increasingly vocal vote of no-confidence from its own people. The key moves will be visible in who controls the security services, and if political power is accountable to elected civilian institutions.
Rami G. Khouri is executive editor of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.
Copyright © 2004 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 21 July 2004
Word Count: 954 words
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