The holiday goes on, Wednesday, October 05, 2005

The lead stories on the radio news through this morning were the traffic reports – deadly accidents and parking problems at parks and beaches – followed by some international news. But at eleven, Israelis listening to the news got a reminder that the Palestinians are not on holiday. No, it wasn't a terror attack, at least not one against Israelis. It was a report from Gaza that PA police had 'kidnapped' two Hamas men. Hamas used the term 'kidnapped.' The PA police were using the term arrest.

The move came against the background of dramatic political events. The Palestinian Legislative Council, up for reelection in January, voted 43-5 to threaten a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie's government, and gave President Mahmoud Abbas two weeks to name a new government. It is almost certain that Qurei' will not be renamed premier and speculation in the PA has begun over who Abbas will choose. Presumably, he'll want someone unafraid of confronting the armed groups – but someone who agrees that everything must be done to avoid a Palestinian civil war.

But some form of clash with the armed groups is inevitable, if they refuse to comply with the basic premise of statehood – that there cannot be more than one armed forces under more than one authority in a country, democracy or not. At a meeting in Damascus today, Hamas secretary general Khaled Mashal and Fateh chief Farouk Kaddoumi agreed that there would be no fighting between those two groups. That's good in theory, but in practice a showdown between the two might be impossible to prevent because the grass roots of Fateh in the territories nowadays is frustrated by the apparent ascendancy of Hamas.

The irony is that Fateh far outnumbers Hamas as far as armed are concerned, of one counts the many policemen and other members of the PA armed forces who came out of the ranks of the Fateh as a political party. Indeed, the 30,000-40,000 uniformed members of the PA armed forces are ten times as many as the 3,000-4,000 Hamas men presumed to be armed and trained to use their arms. The difference is that an average Hamas man is far better equipped than an average PA cop – and that is what the PA now says is the real problem in enforcing the laws against public displays of weapons by anyone other than PA troops.

True, none of this interests the Israeli street, which for the first time since 1967 is enjoying a Rosh Hashanah weekend without troops – or settlers – in Gaza and the northern West Bank. It's also been – so far -- a very peaceful Rosh Hashanah. There was a strange case of a 37-year-old Palestinian mother of six who tried to knife an Israeli woman soldier at a West Bank checkpoint. The mother of six was shot and later died in hospital, the soldier was treated for wounds to her face. A cell of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – the armed wing of Fateh established during the intifada as a Fateh counterweight to Hamas's own Azzadin Qassam Brigades – claimed responsibility for the attempted knifing.

That claim is as good an example as any of the problem that Mahmoud Abbas faces – even ostensibly Fateh-controlled cells are not really under his control. And even if the woman had nothing to do with the Fateh's armed wing, the mere fact that someone in it would think that it is a good idea to claim responsibility for such an attack, is a sign of the incohesion of Palestinian politics nowadays – especially because every poll of the Palestinians nowadays shows exactly what polls of Israelis show: they are hopeful for the future, want an end to the violence, and understand that there has to be negotiations with the other side. Nonetheless, the noon news also carried a story about a second attempted knifing at a West Bank checkpoint. The Palestinian was shot dead.

But the end to the conflict, which seemed so close only five years ago, is still over the horizon. Sharon and Abbas will meet, perhaps as soon as next week but as of now definitely before the Abbas trip to Washington for his meeting with President Bush. They'll talk about prisoner releases and lifting checkpoints, in other words, goodwill gestures. But with neither side ready to take overnight action to fulfill their commitments according to the roadmap (Israel isn't moving to remove illegal outposts, the PA is still only very tentatively enforcing the law against displaying weapons and is far from rolling up terror network cells), there's no anticipation of full fledged political negotiations for a permanent status agreement.

Still, a year ago, most people doubted the disengagement from Gaza would take place. Nobody expected Yasser Arafat to be dead within weeks, and few believed Sharon was determined to empty Gaza of its settlers and the troops protecting them. Perhaps 5766 has as many surprises in store for us as did 5765.

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