[Peace-discuss] What's up in Palestine…

[Morton K. Brussel]

An analysis of the conflicts among Palestinians, and how it is  
abetted by U.S., European,  and Israeli policies. --mkb

The (Anti-) Palestinian Authority

The real rift in Palestinian society is between those fighting to  
preserve the class privileges of Oslo and their opponents who uphold  
the essentials of the Palestinian cause, writes Joseph Massad*


One of the most important measures that the Israeli and Palestinian  
architects of the Oslo agreement took in order to guarantee the  
structural survival of what came to be known as the Oslo "peace  
process" was the creation of structures, institutions, and classes,  
that would be directly connected to it, and that can survive the very  
collapse of the Oslo agreement itself while preserving the "process"  
that the agreement generated. This guarantee was enshrined in law and  
upheld by international funding predicated on the continuation of the  
"Oslo process", as long as the latter continued to serve Israeli and  
US interests as well as the interests of the corrupt Palestinian  
elite that acquiesced in it.

The five main classes that the architects of Oslo created to ensure  
that the "process" survives are:

- A political class, divided between those elected to serve the Oslo  
process, whether to the Legislative Council or the executive branch  
(essentially the position of president of the Palestinian Authority),  
and those who are appointed to serve those who are elected, whether  
in the ministries, or in the presidential office.

- A policing class, numbering in the tens of thousands, whose  
function is to defend the Oslo process against all Palestinians who  
try to undermine it. It is divided into a number of security and  
intelligence bodies competing with one another, all vying to prove  
that they are most adept at neutralising any threat to the Oslo  
process. Under Arafat's authority, members of this class inaugurated  
their services by shooting and killing 14 Palestinians they deemed  
enemies of the "process" in Gaza in 1994 -- an achievement that  
earned them the initial respect of the Americans and the Israelis who  
insisted that the policing class should use more repression than it  
had to be most effective.

- A bureaucratic class attached to the political class and the  
policing class and that constitutes an administrative body of tens of  
thousands who execute the orders of those elected and appointed to  
serve the "process".

- An NGO class: another bureaucratic and technical class whose  
finances fully depend on their serving the Oslo process and ensuring  
its success through planning and services.

- A business class composed of expatriate Palestinian businessmen as  
well as local businessmen -- including especially members of the  
political, policing and bureaucratic classes -- whose income is  
derived from financial investment in the Oslo process and from profit- 
making deals that the Palestinian Authority (PA) can make possible.

While the NGO class mostly does not receive money from the PA, being  
the beneficiary of foreign governmental and non-governmental  
financial largesse that is structurally connected to the Oslo  
process, the political, policing, and bureaucratic classes receive  
all their legitimate and illegitimate income from the PA directly. By  
linking the livelihoods of tens of thousands of Palestinians to the  
Oslo process, the architects had given them a crucial stake in its  
survivability, even, and especially, if it failed to produce any  
political results. For the Palestinian elite that took charge of the  
PA, the main task all along was to ensure that the Oslo process  
continues (regardless of whether it produced results or not) and that  
the elite remain in control of all the institutions that guarantee  
the survival of the "process". What the elite did not anticipate was  
that they could lose control to Hamas, a public opponent of the Oslo  
process that in accordance with expectations had boycotted the 1994  
gerrymandered and Fatah-controlled elections. The 2006 elections,  
which Fatah was confident it would win, constituted an earthquake  
that could destroy all these structural guarantees and with them the  
"process" they were designed to protect.

If under the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) the "cause" was  
that to which Palestinians were normally dedicated, under the PA it  
would be the "process" to which they were urged to devote themselves.  
It is in this context that the financial incentives of joining one of  
these classes would guarantee that Palestinians remain committed to  
the process. The recent panic that the political, policing and  
bureaucratic classes of the PA are manifesting is directly related to  
their perception that unless they reverse the Hamas victory, their  
very continuation as beneficiary classes will be in the balance.  
Indeed even intellectuals and technicians who are members of the NGO  
class began to explain that the "Hamas" win was not as large as first  
believed, providing meticulous analysis of voting districts and the  
like, as well as providing advice and counsel to the three PA classes  
on how to undermine Hamas. The Palestinian business class itself held  
a meeting in London, essentially urging Hamas to support the "process".

Thus, as soon as Hamas won the elections, members of the political  
class began to meet openly and secretly with American and Israeli  
officials to plan to undermine it. These plans would soon involve  
neighbouring Arab countries equally as dedicated as is the PA to  
serving American and Israeli interests. The PA political class no  
longer cared if its game plan became public, hence the spectacular  
arrest of a Hamas official for bringing foreign donations into Gaza,  
an offence he would not have been arrested for had he followed the  
corrupt tradition of Fatah and PA officials who regularly steal  
Palestinian public funds and smuggle them out of Gaza, rather than  
into it! The policing class has been going on the rampage to reassert  
its power, revealing itself to be nothing less than gangs of thugs  
bent on repressing all Palestinians in the service of the process.  
The bureaucracy refused to cooperate with Hamas officials and began  
to threaten them and refuse them entry into their own ministerial  
offices. The latest attack on the prime minister's office and the  
Palestinian Legislative Council building in Ramallah, setting them on  
fire, is clear indication that these three PA-created classes will do  
anything and everything to ensure continued financial benefits from  
Oslo.

Talk of the tens of thousands of PA employees not receiving their  
salaries for two months would have been more moving to a Palestinian  
population that had a regular income. Since the majority of  
Palestinians have had minuscule income, if at all, since the second  
Intifada began, the situation of PA employees was rightly seen as not  
unique or more tragic than that of the rest of the Palestinians.  
Indeed, it is the equalisation of the Oslo- benefiting classes with  
the majority of the Palestinian population (who are in fact Oslo- 
losing classes) that seems to gall the PA classes. They are therefore  
determined to prevent their loss of class privilege at any cost.

Hamas's electoral victory is indeed helping to unify Fatah, which was  
rent with divisions and internecine fighting before the elections, so  
much so that as late as January there was talk among Fatah elements  
that if Mahmoud Abbas postponed the elections they would assassinate  
him. Abbas, who unlike Arafat has no popular or Fatah-based  
constituency, has a freer hand than the late leader in pandering to  
the Americans and Israelis if they would ensure the continuation of  
the "process". Fatah is now rallying to Abbas, just as he is rallying  
to Fatah. Indeed Abbas recently made peace with what is left of the  
PLO -- which he, like Arafat before him, had continued to dismantle  
-- by mending fences with Farouq Qaddumi and Suha Arafat after months  
of rancour. It remains unclear, however, if the PA will resume paying  
Suha and her daughter multi- million dollar cheques. Even the  
mutinous Mohamed Dahlan, who wants the whole pie to himself, is  
coming to the aid of Abbas.

Indeed, as he is consolidating and centralising authority in his own  
hands for the first time since he came to power, Abbas has recently  
created a Praetorian guard to ensure his safety as supreme guardian  
(or is it godfather?) of the "process". Israel rushed to allow  
weapons to enter the occupied territories to outfit the new  
repressive force. As is clear from Abbas's public statements, the  
only time he speaks out against the Israelis is when Ariel Sharon and  
later Ehud Olmert threaten to end the "process" with unilateral  
action. Otherwise, Abbas has been quite amenable to any and all  
Israeli and US proposals.

Hamas, on its part, is playing a game reminiscent of Salvador  
Allende. Like, Allende, Hamas continues to insist on the democratic  
game, as its thuggish and gangster opponents observe no limits on  
their conspiratorial and treasonous actions. It is true that the  
attack on Ismail Haniyeh's office is not of the magnitude of the  
assault on La Moneda on 11 September 1973, but the thugs are  
demonstrating that they are ready to go as far as Pinochet had in  
serving Fatah and Israeli interests. Despite all this, Hamas seems to  
have shown curious restraint. Hamas could, for example, arrest the  
entire top (and many of the mid- level) leadership of Fatah and the  
PA on corruption and national treason charges for which it has ample  
documentary proof, bringing them to open and fair trial. It could  
mobilise the population against these corrupt figures through  
demonstrations and the media. That it has not done so testifies to  
its commitment to preserving a semblance of the peace and not  
responding to the instigation of a civil war that the defeated PA  
elite wants to bring about as a possible way of restoring the "process".

While the PA and its benefiting classes are fighting a battle to keep  
the "process" alive, the Israelis have shown every indication that  
the "process" ended for them a long time ago. For them, the Oslo  
process was a necessary but historically finite step designed to co- 
opt the Palestinian leadership, solidify Israel's grip on stolen  
Palestinian lands, and normalise Israel's diplomatic status in the  
Arab world as well as globally. As the Israelis have achieved all  
these goals, the process no longer serves any purpose for them. At  
the moment, their continuing campaign to bomb and assassinate  
Palestinian civilians and pro- and anti-"process" politicians in the  
West Bank and Gaza has shown no sign of abating. As the Oslo process  
has brought calamity after calamity on the Palestinian people, its  
only reason for continuing is the survival of the PA classes that are  
its main and only beneficiaries.

Make no mistake about it, this is what the ongoing battle in the West  
Bank and Gaza is all about. What lies in the balance is the fate of  
nine million Palestinians.

* The writer is associate professor of modern Arab politics and  
intellectual history at Columbia University. His book, The  
Persistence of the Palestinian Question , was recently published by  
Routledge.
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