AxisMundi Jerusalem

“Little Palestine”

Palestinian reconciliation efforts suffered another setback when President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree for presidential and parliamentary elections on Jan. 24, a move that was rejected by the Islamist group Hamas. Egypt has been mediating for over a year to heal the split between Abbas’ Fatah party and Hamas but the two rivals have continuously failed to reach a unity agreement. (Read our Q&A to understand why the two Palestinian factions fail to reach an agreement on Cairo’s latest proposal.) Most Palestinians believe a unity deal is crucial to achieving Palestinian statehood but don’t think an agreement is likely. However, the rare case of successful Fatah-Hamas partnership in the West Bank village of Beita might convince them otherwise.

Elected leaders of this town come from different backgrounds and political affiliations but all serve on the same council, working in synergy to build a robust independently-funded infrastructure – a rarity in the Palestinian territories.

In the 2004 municipal elections, Beita village produced an 11-member council comprised of 6 Hamas and 5 Fatah members, with Sheikh Arab from Hamas as mayor. Shortly after the elections, Sheikh Arab joined forces with Abu Haitham, a former mayor of 8 years who had headed the Fatah ballot list, and together they worked to start building what they call ‘Little Palestine’.

“We asked ourselves this question, ‘Why did we come to this council?’ and all 11 members answered: ‘We came here for the good of the town,’” Sheikh Arab told Reuters. “We cooperate on what we agree and we pardon one another on issues we do not agree. We try to pretend as if Beita is Little Palestine with all of its problems – political, social, economic, and security issues.”

Like most Hamas leaders in the West Bank, Sheikh Arab was arrested by Palestinian forces loyal to Abbas in 2007, the year Hamas wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah. He was released in 2009 and now serves as deputy to the current mayor, Abu Muhanad, a Fatah member who last held the post while Sheikh Arab was in detention.

“Outside the walls of this municipality, I am still Fatah and defend Fatah, and he is Hamas and defends Hamas. But we defend the right things and what is wrong on what we all agree is wrong,”  Abu Muhanad said about his relationship with his deputy mayor.

Unity and cooperation within the leadership isn’t the town’s only achievement, said Abu Haitham, the former mayor who oversees various investments and development projects. “On top of the slogan to have unity and cooperation, we have adopted another principle and that is how to move from relief to development. In this respect, we concentrated on investments and how to rely on our income,” he said.

Mahmoud Abbas “on trial”

A youth group in the Gaza Strip held a mock trial for the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday. The Youth Parliament, a group under the media department of the Islamist group Hamas, prosecuted Abbas on charge of “betraying the blood of the martyrs and the injured”.

The charge was in reference to Abbas’s agreement to defer the vote on the Goldstone Report at the United Nations Human Rights Council earlier this month. Many human rights groups have been pressing nations to endorse the UN report critical of the Gaza War seeing it as a way to hold both Israel and Hamas accountable for the hundreds of civilian deaths in the devastating war. The vote on the Goldstone Report was delayed to next March, which looked like a victory for Israel, and some Palestinians charged his decision had raised serious questions about Abbas’s leadership. Abbas, doing some damage control, pledged to push for an exceptional UNHCR session, which is being held on Wednesday. (Read more here.)

A panel of three teen judges presided over this trial held at the Hamas media offices in Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip. A man with a similar physique as the Palestinian Authority president acted the part of the defendant, wearing a mask with a picture of Abbas’s face, standing handcuffed and chained at the ankles throughout the trial. He also mimicked Abbas’s accent and intonation.

The prosecutor’s opening statement was followed by testimonies from a human rights group representative, an Arab League representative, Abbas’s defense lawyer, and Mahmoud Abbas “himself”. A young girl, representative of “the children of Palestine”, claiming to have come straight from school to testify against the “traitor”, spoke as a “witness to the crimes committed against the children”.

Abbas was unsurprisingly found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison. His personal property is also to be seized for public use, the mock verdict said.

The Parliament is comprised of 50 girls and boys under the age of 18. It has already “tried” several politicians: former U.S. President George W. Bush towards the end of his term and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon shortly before he fell ill a few years ago.

Fatah’s “Palestinian Hebrew” Councilman

The elections for Fatah’s sixth conference, which just ended in Bethlehem, had an unusual first: their first Jewish Israeli member elected to the 120-member Revolutionary Council. Uri Davis, an Israeli citizen living in the West Bank, has been a member of Fatah for 25 years.

Here are some excerpts from Reuters correspondent Ali Sawafta’s article on new council member Uri Davis for Reuters Arabic-language service:

Uri Davis, who calls himself a “Palestinian Hebrew”, joined the Fatah movement in 1984, and told Reuters he plans to work in the Council’s committee for foreign relations.

“I am of Jewish descent, and was born in Jerusalem in 1943 before the establishment of the racist State of Israel. I oppose Zionism.”

Davis hopes to work towards restoring Fatah’s relations with foreign volunteers who worked with Fatah over the years to fight Israeli occupation.

“I spoke at the sixth conference and said there are hundreds of non-Palestinians who served Fatah and there are thousands who volunteered in all parts of the resistance and the International Solidarity Movement. They worked to defend the rights of the Palestinians, educationally and socially, politically and even militarily. But these reserves have returned to their countries. In the past years Fatah has neglected to connect with them.”

Davis, who lives in Ramallah with his Palestinian wife, is currently a lecturer at Al-Quds University, and was a friend of the late Yasser Arafat, and used to frequent the Palestinian leader’s headquarters.

Davis is one of the 81 members just elected to the Revolutionary Council (the rest will be appointed by the president.) The election results were considered promising for reformists, as 70 of those elected were new faces, including 11 women.

Many believe that members of Fatah movement, which has the support of the West, will be in a better position to seek reconciliation with the Islamic Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, and to restore of a degree of unity among Palestinians.

“The movement will come out of this conference more powerful and united,” said Davis. “Some believed that the conference would lead to a split in the movement, but Abu Mazen (PA and Fatah president Mahmoud Abbas) succeeded in choosing the right time and place. It was a brave decision.”

In an interview with Reuters, Davis said that there may be more Jewish Israelis who would participate in Fatah in the future. It used to be illegal, he says, but since the mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization under the Oslo Accords, it is now permissible. He hopes to be the first of a more substantial presence in future Fatah conferences,, which could be similar to “the small minority of white members in the ANC when South Africa was an apartheid state” .

Check out the clips from our interview with Davis above, where he discusses his personal background and his political stance on recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.

You can learn more about Uri Davis and his political and academic work at his website.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss?

Will Fatah supporters get fooled again?

As election results for the Central Committee trickle in, general opinion has swayed back and forth as to their probable significance.

With at least half of the names announced this morning considered “fresh faces,” the mood today started out upbeat. Our correspondent, Ali Sawafta, noted that about three political generations were represented in the new Committee, offering a wider spectrum of viewpoints reformists say are neccessary to revive the movement.

Some signs considered positive were the election of the Israeli imprisoned Marwan Barghouti (read more here), who is a popular leader seen as a potential future president.  There were several big names to make the list of elected members to the Central Committee, such as Mohammed Dahlan and Sa’ab Erekat. Read their short profiles here.

“This is an unexpected result. It’s a big change, a huge change,” said Naser al-Kidwa, in our latest article. Kidwa, a nephew of Yasser Arafat, just won a Central Committee seat.

But enthusiasm waned as the afternoon wore on and conference delegates announced that election results were not final. Four candidates were elected with only one vote difference between them, making the results highly contested. There have now been two recounts, leading many to suspect there is some dirty play at hand.  Some voiced concern that old Council members who lost their seats might try to regain a spot under the cover of the recount process.

But even before counting began yesterday, Fatah reformist member Hussam Khader complained about election procedures. “It is not just that the procedures were dubious, it’s the mentality. There is no culture of democracy,” he said. Khodar made headlines early on in the conference when he challenged Mahmoud Abbas for not having compiled any reports of spending and political procedures in the movement since its last conference, held 20 years ago in Tunis. 

An ageing body politic

The ageing executive body of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction is trying to emerge from its current congress in Bethlehem with a “new look” and a “new image”  – not easy when the youngest member of the executive is 70-years-old and the oldest 87.

“I am sorry. I have Alzheimers,” joked one Fatah member during the congress when he realised he had forgotten to bring the list of candidates that he was supposed to vote for in the group’s first get-together in 20 years.

Even the group’s one-time ’young guard’ has grown old between congresses.

One of the drivers working for a member of Fatah’s Central Committee told me that he was shocked (and a little amused) when he asked his elderly passenger for a destination expecting somewhere in Bethlehem or nearby Ramallah and was told to drive to Beirut.

Five posts of the Central Committe have remained vacant for the past two decades while members waited for this congress to elect a new committee.

On Sunday, the Congress voted to elect new members to the Central Committee in a bid to have a new Fatah that would strengthen the credentials of its leader Mahmoud Abbas. For full story click here.

About half the members of the Central Committee are seeking re-election, including Salim al-Zanoun, the 87-year-old man. For his sake, and for the faction’s, it is hoped the next Congress can be organised before 2030 or there might be a lot of seats coming vacant before the next round of elections.

Out with the Old Guard, in with the New?

The (20 years) long-awaited Fatah conference drags on in Bethlehem this week, as Fatah members from over 80 countries gather to try and put their derailed movement back on track and bring in “new blood” to revive the movement. 

Most Palestinians agree that Fatah is in need of major change to revive support. Fatah, vying with the Islamist group Hamas, is the main contender to be the political representative of the Palestinian people. It will be a crucial player in future peace talks.

Younger generations of politicians argue they can offer change, but can’t get a good foothold in the movement because “Old Guard” politicians have clung to top positions since the last Fatah conference in Tunis in 1989. There are  only 9 spots in Fatah’s Central Committee for which the incumbents are not running–they were vacated by death.

In spite of this, conference delegates say the movement will bring in fresh faces. But even if it does, how would that actually affect the Fatah movement?

Qaddoura Fares, of the “New Guard” is running for the Central Committee. He says there’s actually not much difference between the generations on a political or ideological level. But he argues that the newer generation will be better at handling some of Fatah’s biggest challenges, like the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation.

Fatah was the party that became a “realist” about making peace with Israel, says Fares. It is time to be “realists” about Hamas as well, something that newer generations are more willing to do, he says. “There are two ways to deal with Hamas. One is to ignore and isolate it, which isn’t working. The other is to find a way to engage Hamas in the political process.”

More importantly, says Fares, his generation has an interest in bridging the gap between the Palestinian street and the political elite.  Political leaders “shouldn’t be like princes,” he said. “[Palestinians] have to feel like we are part of the community.”

The division between “old” and “new” isn’t completely clear, however. There is a group of younger politicians who are aligned with what’s commonly called the old guard. For that reason, Azzam al-Ahmed, an “old guard” himself, and president of the Fatah bloc in the  Palestinian Legislative Committee, bristles at this terminology. He says that such labeling was started by Israel, the US, and Europe to divide the party and weaken it.

“I  think America and Europe believe that the generation raised here under occupation will have a mentality much more inclined to peace…The original leadership did, after all, base its slogans on America and the West as the enemy.”

But al-Ahmed insists that older politicians are crucial to pushing forward the peace process. They remember having tried all the other options before. “I am certain that military operations will not end this struggle,” he said.

The balance between the old and the new, says Nabil Shaath, a veteran member of Fatah’s Central Commitee, will be crucial to pushing the movement forward. “You need that partnership,” he says, to both re-energize Fatah while having the “lessons learned transferred, the contacts, and some of the wisdom.”

The problem is that while the older politicians agree they need “new blood,” most of them are still running for re-election to their old posts in the party. It seems that while they agree the old generation needs to step down, none think that this applies to themselves.  ِ

One member of the old guard, also running to retain his spot on the central committee, admitted “it is hard to let go of power.”

(You can check out Reuters coverage of the conference here, and for more information on the Fatah movement see our Q&A here).

PHOTO: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas speaks at the Fatah conference in Bethlehem. August 4, 2009. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun

The Ghost of Fatah Past

Driving from Ramallah to Bethlehem for the Fatah conference, you can’t miss the countless images and posters of deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the founder of Fatah.The Fatah conference’s own publicity campaign has itself capitalized on Arafat imagery in its advertisements, from posters with the aging leader waving in the background, to TV advertisements with emotional music and Arafat’s image lightly transposed over footage of current leaders meeting. Old clips of Arafat and his followers, huddled together during the Israeli siege the Palestinian Authority headquarters, are being played now and then on the Palestinian TV station Al-Quds.

Arafat’s larger-than-life presence haunts the Palestinian street’s views on Fatah. Talk to Palestinians lingering in the square outside the closed conference proceedings, the conversation quickly turns to Arafat.

He was “part of the people, modest, and he listened to the average Palestinian’s concerns,” the narrative goes. Asked for an opinion on the conference, and most give apathetic responses, as if Fatah has nothing to do with them. More than one person responds by saying “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.”

Whether it’s true or not, Palestinians remember Arafat as representing their needs, which many say they don’t see in Fatah anymore. It will be important for that feeling to be rekindled in light of the goals of the Palestinian Authority, made up mostly of Fatah members, to push on toward a two-state solution.

A recent article in the New York Review of Books sounded the death knell of the two-state solution, because under Mahmoud Abbas, the head of Fatah and the president of the Palestinian Authority, that solution had morphed from what Palestinians saw as a national cause under Arafat, to a “foreign” (i.e. an Israel and Western-backed) idea that no longer represented Palestinian interest.

“If [Abbas'] actions are to be seen as legitimate and his endorsement of an agreement is to carry weight, he cannot appear as the president of only some Palestinians but must appear as the president of all… [the politicians ] currently speak and act as if they are at the head of some Palestinians-the more respectable ones-while leaving it to others to handle the more troublesome lot. All of which diminishes the PA’s standing, even in the eyes of many otherwise most prone to support its program, and inflates its opposition, even among many who share nothing in common with the Islamists’ agenda.”

Driving to the Intercontinental hotel, where most conference delegates are staying, one cab driver ( Christian) mocks the media focus on the Fatah conference: “And they still wonder why we voted for Hamas?”

Waiting in the wings?

The “Palestinian Rothschild“, the “Messiah on the Hill“, “The Man Who Built a Palace in the West Bank“: Munib al-Masri has amassed epithets from journalists in the kind of abundance with which he has amassed his collection of rare artworks. One description he would treasure now, though, would be “unifier of the Palestinians”, the “healer”, perhaps. And some of his compatriots have, not for the first time, been suggesting a more formal title, too – “Prime Minister“.

A bright spring morning spent today with the wealthy international oilman walking the grounds of the extraordinary Palladian villa he has built overlooking the tumbling lanes of his native Nablus left me in little doubt about the strength of his personal commitment to overcoming the rift between Fatah and Hamas that has crippled Palestinians’ efforts to negotiate their statehood with Israel.

But despite talk that Masri, long a confidant of the late Yasser Arafat, might be an acceptable compromise prime minister by the parties, the man himself insisted he harboured no such personal ambition – his 75 years and a series of heart surgeries counted against him, he said. Those did not stop him striding boundingly around his newly terraced young olive groves atop Mount Gerazim, a Biblical site his palatial home shares with a heavily guarded Jewish settlement and the tiny remnants of the ancient Samaritan religious sect. Nor have they dimmed the passion with which he expounds his vision of a dynamic Palestinian state, accepting the borders left by the war with Israel of 1948 and enriched by education and the investments of a returning diaspora following his own example.

Two years ago he helped found a political movement, the Palestine Forum, that intends to push a unifying, independent “third way” between Arafat’s long dominant Fatah, now headed by President Mahmoud Abbas and Islamist Hamas, now running the Gaza Strip. Masri has been involved in the reconciliation talks that are scheduled to resume in Cairo next week under Egyptian mediation. He expects to be back again, pressing for agreement on forming a unity government that could reunite Gaza and the West Bank for a year or less until elections can be held.

Abbas’s prime minister, Salam Fayyad, has tendered his resignation, although many expect him to carry on for now beyond the end-March deadline he effectively set for replacing him with a new, unity administration. Could Masri fill the gap? Perhaps not. It’s not the man that matters, he says, but the programme. But watch this space.

Why did Fayyad resign?

A stated desire to open the way for the creation of a Palestinian unity government wasn’t the only reason why Prime Minister Salam Fayyad tendered his resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas on March 7.

While the move could help Abbas’s Fatah faction and Hamas Islamists bury the hatchet in a reconciliation dialogue in Cairo, it also stemmed from Fayyad’s growing sense of frustration over his acrimonious relations with Fatah stalwarts, confidants said.

Fayyad, a former World Bank official who does not belong to any Palestinian faction, has had to battle constantly behind closed doors with some Fatah leaders opposed to Western-praised reform policies that include transparency in the Palestinian Authority finances.

And with Fatah still licking its wounds from the loss of the Gaza Strip to Hamas Islamists in internal fighting in 2007, a non-Fatah Palestinian prime minister — especially one who has toured West Bank towns and villages offering financial support — boosted fears among the long-dominant faction’s faithful that they were losing political influence.

Close aides to Fayyad said he had wanted to quit several months ago but Abbas refused to accept his resignation.

Fayyad then thought about stepping down before an international conference convened last month in Egypt to fund reconstruction in the Gaza Strip after the 22-day offensive Israel launched in December.

Waiting, in Gaza

Walking in the street, travelling in a car or sitting in a cafe in the Gaza Strip these days, you can hear people talking about and analysing one central issue - whether new Egyptian-sponsored efforts to reconcile the rival Islamist Hamas and the secular Fatah groups can work.  Another thorny thought common in almost every discussion is whether Cairo would be able to turn the current lull in fighting between Israel and Hamas into a durable, sustainable ceasefire that will allow a proper opening of crossings into the coastal territory. Gaza’s 1.5 million popupation was relieved when Israel and Hamas declared separate ceasefires in January following 22-day of Israeli military strikes that killed 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. But relief is still mixed with doubt and unease a month later.

People who lost their houses remain homeless, living with friends, with relatives and in rental apartments and their hopes to rebuild their homes seem remote following news of a setback in Egyptian efforts to reach a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas earlier this month. In daylight those people visit tents they established on and near the rubble of what were once their houses in order to receive Arab and other foreign visitors who visit to assess the damage and promise aid to come. International donors will discuss funding at Sharm el-Sheikh in neighbouring Egypt on Monday. Bulldozers have cleared streets in areas where the Israeli army operated in January but the rubble of houses, offices and Hamas security headquarters remained unremoved. Hamas policemen helped by United Nations teams acted to remove several unexploded bombs from several locations after two children were killed playing with an object recently.

Visitors are often received by appeals, anger, despair and some of mistrust by those who lost their houses or loved ones. International envoys have urged Hamas and Fatah to reunite in order for the donors to find an official recognised party to deal with over Gaza reconstruction plans. But for aid to come and crossings to open and allow construction materials into the coastal territory, efforts by Egypt need to succeed to recocile Hamas with both President Mahmoud Abbas Fatah movement and, up to a point, with Israel.

There are many questions that torment Gazans when talking about these issues and the failure in previous initiatives to reconcile Hamas and Fatah hover like a ghost over conversations. Will Abbas and Hamas be able to form a unity government, one Israel, the United States and the West would agree to cooperate with and support? In a visit to Prague on Monday Abbas said Hamas needed to respect existing peace deals with Israel to be a partner in a unity government with his Fatah group.

“God’s willing it will work. Enough is enough,” said Hassan, a Fatah activist, whose brother was detained by Hamas. “We want to see an end to this. Since Fatah and Hamas leaders met recently we have begun to feel better and we hope it is going to be really better,” he said. Hamas activists also want an end to arrest campaigns against them by Fatah security services in the Fatah-run, Israeli-occupied West Bank. The issue of prisoners foiled Egypt’s efforts to reconcile the two groups on November and it remains an issue of dispute that cast a shadow of doubt over the current Cairo intervention. Hoping to corner the factions and push them to reconcile, the Egyptian proposal has stitched the thorny files together - a truce with Israel, reconciliation talks and Gaza reconstruction, and any failure in one of these files would heavily affect the other.

“If you want a sack of cement, you need Fatah and Hamas to unite and you need a truce. If you need fuel, you need peace between Hamas, Fatah and Israel,” said Abu Mohammed Ali, who works for a telephone company. “It is like a scorpion’s web.”