Similarities between Israeli and Palestinian politics, Thursday, September 22, 2005

In both struggles, ideology and cronyism, ideals and corruption -- and the course of each nation for the next stage in the political process between them -- are the currency for the rhetorical debate. Sharon’s opponents inside the Likud include those who regard him as a traitor to the cause of settlements in the biblical lands of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, a Rightist turned Leftist, and ‘extreme Leftist’ at that. Others call him a mafia boss ready to sacrifice his own sons, let alone the country, for the sake of his personal welfare. He’s depicted as an anti-democratic tyrant and dictator who refuses to obey the orders of his party; and he is the pawn of foreigners. All these forces are being led by Binyamin Netanyahu, who despite all his practiced rhetoric as the son of a man whom Menachem Begin considered too radically Rightist to be given a position of responsibility, is perceived as an unbridled opportunist who performs best in a TV studio. As his sidekick is Uzi Landau, an ideological purist with a reputation for honesty – but like everyone else in Israeli politics seeking reelection and with the connections, was in the U.S. the past several weeks raising money among American Jewish (and in some cases fundamentalist Christian) donors for his own campaign for the Likud leadership.

Technically, next week’s vote in the party’s all-powerful – and notoriously emotional – central committee, is whether to advance the party’s primaries, in which the contenders for prime minister seek the vote of the Likud rank and file, an estimated 150,000 voters. Practically, it is an attempted putsch against a reigning prime minister, by forces within his own party. With what has become a not atypical twisting of the principles of democracy, Sharon’s opponents are arguing that if he is indeed pushed out of the chairmanship of the party, he must remain in the party. But the polls are consistent: Sharon wins by a landslide if he leads the Likud – or if he leads another party. Netanyahu at the head of the Likud, say the polls, brings in less votes than Labor’s Shimon Peres. The reason – besides the memory of Netanyahu’s term in office, when his main policy was to obstruct the Oslo process and turn various sectors of the population against one another – is obvious: as finance minister, Netanyahu added some 600,000 people – about ten percent of the population – to the ranks of the working poor, with neo-Thatcherite and Reaganesque trickle down economics and no signs of anyone except the rich getting better off. Netanyahu’s apparently decided that he can put together a neo-American coalition of the religious and corporate Right. But the populist Likud could always counted on the poor for votes, to the chagrin of the Left. If Netanyahu heads a Rightist Likud, while Sharon takes the Center with the Left, it will indeed change voting trends that had become embedded in stone in the last 30 years.

Meanwhile, on the Palestinian side, no less interesting developments are taking place. Fateh has decided on the rules of its primaries, now likely to take place in November, right after Ramadan. Fateh has as many rank and file members as the Likud – some 150,000 – and it too is being torn by internal fighting, and as in the Likud, cronyism, nepotism and general corruption is one of the issues at stake. So is the party’s magnetism for the secular Arab public, which is the majority, in both parts of Palestine, Gaza and the West Bank.

For decades, under Yasser Arafat, Fateh regarded itself as a revolutionary movement, but it failed miserably under his leadership once it was given the opportunity for some state- and nation-building starting in the 1990s with the establishment of the pre-state Palestinian Authority. He filled the ranks of his government’s administration with cronies from the old days, payoffs became a standard procedure to getting anything done, internecine fighting broke out between ‘old guards’ and ‘younger generations’ and the Palestinians of the territories found themselves often ruled by people who had spent their entire lives in the Palestinian Diaspora and knew nothing of life under the Israelis.

But with Arafat out of the way, Mahmoud Abbas, who spent 40 years in Arafat’s shadow has emerged as a much different type of leader, and with very clear goals of nation building. His problem is that he inherited a corrupt regime from Arafat and meanwhile, Hamas, which holds no primaries or elections and believes that all of Palestine, from the sea to the river, belongs to the Waqf, the Islamic Holy Trust, has both claimed victory in the armed struggle to rid Gaza of the Israelis and has a squeaky clean image as a social welfare organization that provides schools, clinics and, of course, religious facilities.

The common reading of the situation in Palestine is that Hamas is therefore ascendant, so much so that Israel is huffing and puffing that it can’t allow Hamas to get elected in the coming Palestinian elections.

But just as there are contradictions in the Israeli polls – for example, the same Haaretz poll today shows that the narrow plurality that wants to vote in favor of early primaries in the Likud also wants the general elections to take place as scheduled, next November – so are the polls on the Palestinian side contradictory. For example, while a majority of Palestinians agree that the Hamas armed struggle – the suicide bombers, the Qassam rockets, the landmines, the snipers – were the reason for the Israeli evacuation of Gaza, a majority of Palestinians are in favor of negotiations with Israel, and even more striking, according to respected pollster Khalil Shkaki, Fateh is once again commands a long lead over Hamas in the polls – 47 percent to 30 percent.

The Israelis meanwhile follow the official line of the military regarding what to do about the Palestinians. Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin’s remarks yesterday to the press were clear: it’s his agency’s assessment that Fateh is in total disarray, the PA is hopelessly helpless, that Hamas is on the way to complete control. Israel cannot allow them to run for power in the PA, Diskin reportedly said. At least, it can’t allow them to run if they are armed. How armed, asked reporters. Estimates are that the Hamas has as many as 10,000 men who have received some form of weapons training, and about 3,000 who actually have weapons. The PA has more than 40,000 men in uniform, though most are not armed with much more than a carbine and a handful of bullets.

Even Hamas is in a bit of disarray. With the departure from Gaza, Hamas now has three leaderships: in Damascus, Gaza, and the West Bank, and seemingly the further away they are from Jerusalem, which is in the center of the West Bank, the more radical they are. Thus, Hamas saw a controversy break out in the last few days over comments made by several of its West Bank leaders who say they can foresee a change in the Hamas covenant (which calls for the elimination of the state of Israel), while in Gaza and Damascus, spokesmen were saying Hamas would never change its position regarding the ‘Zionist entity.’

Abbas, in any case, has been meeting with Hamas leaders and with leaders of other, smaller armed groups, and there were reports this morning that he won agreement from all of them that as of Saturday afternoon, there will be no more marching with weapons through the streets of Palestine, except by PA troops. And there is also talk of a new meeting in Cairo, of all the Palestinian factions, to shore up and further consolidate the ceasefire, which despite all the fear-mongering on the Israeli side, is holding. Sharon, in any case, is hoping that it holds through Monday’s vote in the central committee. The last thing he needs right now is a Qassam hitting Sderot in the Negev.

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