The end of an era and the decline of Abu Mazen
IN 2003 Mahamoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was imposed as Arafat's Prime Minister by both the Bush administration and the Ariel Sharon regime. This was in the middle of an Israeli campaign to eliminate the Arafat regime. They succeeded for a short period of time until the Palestinians realized that Abu Mazen could not really replace the leadership of Arafat. Arafat died under mysterious circumstances in 2004. Immediately after Arafat's death in November 2004, Abu Mazen was elected as the next president of the Palestinian entity. He ran the Palestinian Authority as the second leader of the PLO, the first after Arafat. Abu Mazen immediately began to cooperate with the US envoys, General Dayton and General James Jones, in reorganizing the Palestinian security forces, mainly in the West Bank. Most of the Palestinians were unaware that Abu Mazen's main agenda was to maintain his security regime in that area. He calmed his relations with Ariel Sharon and the Israeli government and agreed to the new American strategy of the Road Map, which corresponded to his new vision for the Middle East. The Bush Doctrine, which mainly aimed to marginalize the Palestinian issue, perceiving it as a supplementary issue in order to implement the War on Terror, coincided with Abu Mazen's conduct, in which he started to get American and Israeli support for his regime. Abu Mazen began to receive recognition from Europe and other countries in the spirit of the new Bush Doctrine of the Road Map and creating a Palestinian State by 2005. Bush and his Secretary of State never implemented this promise to Abu Mazen. The Israeli government also began to conduct negotiations with him for the sake of negotiations. It started with Sharon and continued later with Olmert. During this period, both Abu Mazen, who was responsible for the political and international relations of the PA, and Salam Fayad, who was responsible for the financial sphere, continued to conduct the same policy of wanting to implement part of the Road Map. At the same time, the national security advisor, Mahamoud Dahlan, was responsible for the security forces in Gaza and the West Bank. During the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006, the US policy, as part of the Bush vision, called for conducting elections in the Palestinian Authority as part of the democratic track of the American policy in the Middle East. In January 2006, Abu Mazen lost the election to Hamas though he retained the presidency by a slim margin. He agreed to create a National Unity government with Hamas. Hamas, having been strengthened, nominated Ismail Haniya as Prime Minister. The Israeli government, the US and the Quartet boycotted this Hamas government, asking first for recognition of Israel by Hamas. Abu Mazen, however, continued with his business as usual. Problematic arrests and clashes between Israel and Hamas increased. On 25 June 2006 an Israeli soldier was captured by Hamas. Israel used this incident in order to escalate its attacks against Hamas. On 12 July 2006 another incident occurred; two Israeli soldiers were captured and eight killed by Hezbollah. As a result, the Olmert government was in a panic. Olmert and the military establishment, embarrassed by both operations, immediately waged a war against Hezbollah. The results were obvious. The Israeli army did not reach all of its goals and targets. Israel fiercely attacked Lebanon demanding the return of its two soldiers. In the end, Olmert agreed to exchanging prisoners with Hezbollah, and implementing UN Resolution 1701. After the conclusion of the Lebanon issue, Olmert came back to Abu Mazen and conducted an endless series of negotiations under the umbrella of the US foreign policy, and later participated in the Annapolis Summit in the summer of 2007. Mahamoud Dahlan, with American, Israeli and Egyptian support, tried to conduct a coup de etat by sending a High Command, headed by Mahamoud Dahlan himself, sophisticated weapons and armed personnel into Gaza. All the troops and the arms were discovered by Hamas, which neutralized the coup by attacking and arresting nearly all the troops intending to infiltrate into Gaza from Egypt. Hamas now totally controlled Gaza and kicked out all of Abu Mazen's troops. The total control of Gaza by Hamas strengthened Hamas and weakened Abu Mazen. Following events in Gaza, Abu Mazen began intensive talks with the Olmert government. Olmert exploited the talks to carry out further attacks on Hamas, both in Gaza and in the West Bank. During a number of attacks, the IDF killed hundreds of Hamas personnel in Gaza and arrested hundreds more in the West Bank. With the approach of the end of the Bush era, coupled with promises from the Bush administration, the Bush regime revived "Annapolis", which would lead to, according to the "promises" of Condoleezza Rice, a Palestinian State. The problem was that Abu Mazen continued to believe both Olmert's promises and the Bush presidential promises to create a Palestinian State. Rice and Bush continued with the slogan of the Palestinian State in order to market their policy in the Gulf and the Arab world. In the end, Bush applied his containment policy toward Iran and in the radical elements of the Arab States by selling more promises and goodwill in regard to the creation of the Palestinian State. Olmert also used the track of talks with Abu Mazen in order to strike Hamas and to survive domestically after the Vinograd Commission. At the same time, Abu Mazen tried to strengthen his regime by travelling from capital to capital of as many countries as possible to invite more pressure on Israel by the United States. In reality, Abu Mazen lost touch with his own people. He continued the state of hostility with Hamas but was used by both Israel and the US as an instrument for their own national security interests and policies. Currently, I can say that the unity effort is not dependent on Abu Mazen, rather on both Israel and the US. Both countries can use a veto against any reconciliation of Abu Mazen's policy towards Hamas or other movements. Abu Mazen can move towards Hamas only for the protocol. Azam El Ahmadi, an important figure in the PLO, said that it is blatantly clear that the Palestinian Security forces are committed to the Americans. That means that Abu Mazen cannot move alone. Although Abu Mazen began a dialogue with Hamas in Cairo, he failed to release the great majority of Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank. The rise of Netanyahu and the other ultra-national parties will create a dilemma for Abu Mazen. To continue with the same dialogue he has been conducting with Olmert will present him as an empty-minded leader lacking any strategy on how to reach his goals. The marginalization of the Netanyahu government will push Netanyahu to a dialogue with Abu Mazen. Abu Mazen, however, might be forced to confront an additional challenge, the release of the most famous Palestinian prisoner, Mr. Marwan Barghouti. If this release transpires after the release of Gilad Shalit, it will mark the end of the Abu Mazen era. Abu Mazen's main strategy is to survive. For a long time he has been conducting endless negotiations with Israel without any political purpose. He is not even talking about a Palestinian State with concrete borders. He is not looking for real Egyptian nor Saudi support. He lacks the charisma and emotional intelligence needed in any dialogue with his partners. He receives his international guests in Ramallah by giving the impression that he has a sovereign entity or independent statehood. However, he cannot move one meter without Israeli logistics support. When all is said and done, Abu Mazen was imposed on the Palestinians after Arafat's death and the release of Barghouti will bring about the end of Abu Mazen inside the Fatah Movement. Eventually, he will lose his entire political base by January 2010. Currently, however, Abu Mazen will try to achieve two main goals: 1. To give the impression that he is conducting a real dialogue with Hamas while at the same time making all efforts to neutralize this dialogue by demanding from Hamas, for instance, recognition of Israel before any lasting peace, and 2. To try to obtain most of the financial support allocated to the Palestinians at the Sharm el Sheich Summit for the Palestinian Authority. The Sharm el Sheich Summit will not succeed if the 85 countries that pledged the money do not find free passage by air, ground and sea for the goods, which aim to carry out the construction in Gaza. Confronting all these issues rests in the hands of the Israelis. Both sides need to quickly reach an agreement for a Tahdea and ceasefire for the interests of both sides.
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