Fatah faultlines
Security appointments in Gaza trigger the resignation of the Palestinian prime minister and armed clashes. From Jerusalem Graham Usher looks at a growing chasm
Last Saturday Ahmed Qurei became the second Palestinian prime minister in less than a year to tender his resignation. It has yet to be accepted or withdrawn. "The resignation of Abu Alaa [Qurei] has been formally rejected, he will remain in place and the issue is finished," said Yasser Arafat's spokesperson, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, on Tuesday.
But this is not how it looked to Palestinian ministers who attended the latest emergency meeting between their prime minister and president.
"Abu Ala considers this a caretaker government. Despite the official declaration of the president, the crisis isn't over," said Qaddura Fares, the minister without portfolio who is generally seen as among the "young guard" of Palestinian leaders.
The crisis was precipitated by violence in Gaza between rival wings of Arafat's Fatah movement, fought out through different PA security forces and militias which, in Gaza and elsewhere, often amount to the same thing.
It began last Friday when Fatah- affiliated militias abducted two PA police commanders and four French aid workers, demanding an end to corruption in the PA and changes at the top of the security forces, particularly those headed by the "old guard" functionaries that had returned with Arafat from exile in 1994.
The situation was then massively fuelled by Arafat's response.
In line with the militias demands he sacked two commanders. In line with international, regional and increasingly domestic demands, he also agreed to streamline the dozen or so security forces into three. But, in defiance of all, he announced that these forces would not be answerable to the prime minister but to himself as head of the Palestinian National Security Council. Moreover, he appointed his nephew and former head of the PA's Military Intelligence (MI), Musa Arafat, as head of the National Security Forces, the largest of all the PA forces.
Musa Arafat is quite possibly the most hated man in the Palestinian territories, known not only for corruption but also for extreme brutality in dealing with political opponents. It was MI officers who forcibly shaved the beards of Hamas leaders like Mahmoud Zahar during the PA's mass arrest of Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists in 1996.
Not consulted about either decision, Qurei felt this was an insult too far. He resigned, as did several other PA officials. Others took more violent offence. Dissident security officers and militiamen torched one MI office in Khan Yunis and tried to ram the walls of another in Rafah. MI officers staged rallies bristling with guns in defence of their leaders in Gaza City.
In perhaps the most ominous incident, on Tuesday a gunman shot and wounded former PA information minister, Nabil Amr, in Ramallah. No group claimed responsibility. But Amr has been a fierce critic of Arafat's governance in the past. Arafat said he would investigate the shooting, as he did almost two years ago when Amr's home was fired on.
The crisis looks unlikely to be resolved any time soon. On Tuesday cabinet ministers urged Arafat to transfer control of the security forces to Qurei in line with Palestinian legislation, the various agreements Arafat has signed and mounting international pressure including, on Tuesday, a call by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that Arafat's "yielding" of these powers is a condition for movement in the political process.
Arafat remains immoveable. His only gesture so far has been to reinstate Abdel-Razai Mujaydah as overall head of the NSF. It is utterly cosmetic. Musa Arafat remains head of the NSF in Gaza where, currently, the battle is being fought.
Why did Arafat escalate the crisis? Because -- say PA sources -- he saw the abductions as neither lawlessness nor protest but rather as the first moves in a "conspiracy" to unseat him. He has also signalled who he believes is behind it -- his former Preventive Security Force (PSF) chief in Gaza, Mohamed Dahlan.
Dahlan has refused all comment. Nor does anyone know with any certainty whether Dahlan was behind the abductions, though Gaza and the West Bank are rife with rumour. What is clear is that those who took to the streets in Gaza after the appointment of Musa Arafat are PSF officers, dissidents and militiamen allied to his reformist cause within Fatah. It is a cause that is at odds not only with Arafat's mode of governance and lack of democratic reform in Fatah and the PA but also over his stance towards Israel's decision to withdraw from Gaza sometime next year.
Together with the young guard in Fatah and some in Hamas, Dahlan supports "disengagement". He believes it offers a chance for the PA to reform itself and so "show the world that the problem is the Israeli occupation and not the Palestinian people who cannot stand on its own feet".
Arafat and others in the mainstream Palestinian leadership see "disengagement" as a trap -- a ruse for Israel to offload the burden of Gaza while tightening its hold on the West Bank and evade the PA by negotiating with regional surrogates, whether Egypt in Gaza or Jordan in the West Bank.
The struggle between Arafat and Dahlan is certainly about power but it is also about policy and who should decide it: the younger, indigenous Fatah leadership in Gaza or the "traditional", "returnee" Fatah leadership in Ramallah.
Caption: Palestinian militiamen demonstrate in support of Yasser Arafat in Gaza City on Monday
C a p t i o n 2: Palestinian militiamen demonstrate in support of Yasser Arafat in Gaza City on Monday
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/700/fr1.htm