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Palestinian Politics in the Melting Pot
by Gerry Foley / June 2006 issue Socialist Action
With elections coming up in both the
Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel, the political situation in both
areas continues to show more and more signs of fluidity.
Israel, a fortress state backed by world imperialism, is
the more stable. But even there, the projected winner of the elections,
Kadima, the new party of outgoing premier Ariel Sharon, is
not yet consolidated.
This party has come from nowhere to a
commanding lead in the polls, but it is very much the personal creation of
Sharon. And Sharon has just suffered a massive stroke, which at this
writing (Jan. 5) he is not expected to survive—or at any rate to be able to
continue to play a major role in politics.
The analysis in the liberal Zionist daily
Haaretz is that the future of Sharon’s party is now doubtful, and the main
beneficiary of his disappearance is likely to be Benyamin Netanyahu, the
extreme right-wing leader of Likud, who is opposed to any concessions to
the Palestinians. (He opposed the withdrawal of the Zionist colonies from
the Gaza Strip.)
Kadima was formed out of the wreck of the
traditional right-wing party, the Likud, with no new program other than an
acceptance of the need to make some concessions to the Palestinians. In the
Likud, the strength of the fanatical Zionists had become an obstacle to the
policy of negotiations demanded by the United States as well as the section
of the Israeli ruling class daunted by the cost of unending war with the
Palestinians. With Sharon’s departure from Likud, right-winger Netanyahu
took over party leadership.
On the Palestinian side, the
conciliationist leadership represented by the PA president, Abu Mazen
(Mahmoud Abbas), seems less and less able to offer what Israel is demanding
in return for concessions that would allow a Palestinian government to
function. In the municipal elections held so far in the electoral period,
the main Islamist party, Hamas, has been scoring stunning victories at the
expense of Abu Mazen’s Fatah. In the major West Bank city of Nablus, it got
75 percent of the vote.
In the run-up to the PA legislative
election, Fatah itself split into two slates, one representing the younger
and more militant activists, the other the old leadership headed by Abu
Mazen. The split followed a series of armed demonstrations by the militants
at the polls in the Fatah primary elections. In the primary elections, the
big winner was Marwan Barghouti, who is serving multiple life terms in an
Israeli prison and is the hero of the younger militants.
On the eve of the PA election, the two slates
merged under the pressure of a looming Hamas victory. As a single,
cobbled-together slate, Fatah may be able to maintain a relative majority,
even if hard pressed by a big upsurge for Hamas.
Armed actions against Israel are carried
out by the military organizations of all the Palestinian parties, including
Fatah. But Hamas talks a more intransigent line, formally opposing any
modus vivendi with Israel and calling for its destruction as a Zionist
state.
It also has won a reputation for charitable
work, financed by contributions from Muslims in the oil states, and it is
seen as less corrupt than Fatah, which has been living off foreign state
subsidies to the Palestinian Authority (mainly from the European Union).
EU leaders have made threatening noises
about cutting off the subsidy to the PA if Hamas takes it over or becomes a
major force in it. In an interview published Dec. 27 on the web page of Al
Jazeera, the Arab nationalist TV station, Hamas leader Nayef Rajoub said
that the independence of the Palestinian Authority was more important than
the EU’s money. He also said that he thought the EU should take a fairer
approach to the Palestinian conflict and denounce Israel’s abuses more.
In fact, it is unlikely that the EU will
cut the PA off as long as there is any possibility that it can serve as a
means to blunt the Palestinian struggle and buy off its leaders. And even
if it wins the legislative elections, Hamas is unlikely to change the basic
character of the PA.
On the other hand, Rajoub was not clear
about whether Hamas would participate in the PA government, although he
said he thought it was most likely that it would not. Asked about Hamas’s
aim of destroying Israel, he replied that Israel was trying to destroy
Palestine. But the implication of that could be that both sides need to
lower their sights, that is, negotiate, except that Hamas would be tougher
than Fatah.
The fact is that Hamas has no political
program that can mobilize the force necessary to destroy Israel as a
Zionist state, so the most likely result of its rise is negotiation but
with tougher language. And to the extent that it takes power within the
present framework, it is not likely to perform much differently from Fatah.
Hamas is currently in a truce with Israel,
but the ceasefire was scheduled to end at the end of 2005, and the Islamic
organization says that it has no intention of renewing it. In fact, the
Israeli military has not been observing a ceasefire. It has continued to
assassinate Palestinian militant leaders and has declared a free-fire zone
in Gaza in response to rocket launchings against Israel. So, the conflict
is simply continuing.
The greatest danger on the Palestinian side
is that the escalation of the rhetoric and gestures of the Palestinian
groups and the growing tensions in the besieged community will lead to
social breakdown and a proliferation of irresponsible armed gangs, as
happened in Lebanon in the time of the civil war there. There are already
signs of this.
It is more and more urgent for the Palestinian
movement to find a political strategy for a successful struggle against
Zionist repression and genocide. The only one that has been mooted is a
fight for a united democratic Palestine in which Jews and Arabs could live
on the basic of equality. And that would require the dismantling of the
reactionary and corrupt capitalist structures that continue to dominate
both peoples.
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