Abbas' Dangerous Game

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is playing a dangerous game, working at every level to undermine the democratically elected Hamas administration in the Palestinian Authority. He is not viewing the Hamas-led government as part of the Palestinian Authority which he heads, or as the government he appointed and was sworn in before him; he sees it as a rival.

Hamas' landslide election victory shocked the world and the Palestinian political establishment. Because Hamas won fair and square, it has been hard for those unhappy with the result to overturn it outright. So a broad-based coalition of election result rejectionists presented Hamas with a long list of demands. This despite the fact that Hamas had committed itself to good governance, fighting corruption and maintaining the year-long truce that it had initiated with Israel despite ongoing Israeli war crimes against Palestinian civilians and resistance organisations.

Although the "international community" said Hamas should be given a chance, it wasted no time cutting off aid, making threats and spurning the political openings presented by the Hamas leaders who indicated their readiness to break with long-held positions.

That such a hostile siege and boycott should come from the usual suspects -- Israel and its American and EU allies, as well as Kofi Annan's discredited UN -- is no surprise in our unjust world. What is more unusual is the position of the Fateh-led PA which was neither prepared for defeat nor willing to let go of power. Abbas and his allies were apparently concerned that a Hamas takeover would further expose a scandalous record of incompetence, corruption and collusion with the occupation.

Just after the election, the PA public prosecutor announced that an investigation was under way into the disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars. But since it targeted only low-level officials, many observers suspected it was merely a ruse to head off any Hamas effort to lift the lid off the vast reservoir of rot that Fateh had created. That investigation, like other corruption probes before it, seems to have disappeared without a trace.

Right after the election, Fateh rejected any suggestion that it would join a coalition with the winners despite Hamas' efforts to form a "government of national unity". The claim that there was failure to agree on a political programme was simply an excuse. Fateh wanted to deprive Hamas of taking a leading role in a broad-based administration in which the defeated party would play a minor role and, more importantly, Fateh wanted Hamas to fail. In its last days, Fateh hastily convened the expired Legislative Council and passed all sorts of laws and appointments designed to entrench its own allies and tie Hamas' hands. This included giving powers to the Fateh-appointed constitutional court to overturn laws passed by the majority.

Without resources to pay salaries, as a result of the international sanctions against the new, democratically elected governing authority, it was hoped that popular anger would turn against Hamas, thus isolating it internally and externally. Some international donors said they would channel financial aid through Abbas' office. The proper thing for Abbas to do would have been to refuse and insist, as a matter of respect for his people's democratic choice and for the institutions of his government, that aid be directed through the normal channels. Instead, his entourage, already acting as a parallel authority, encouraged these initiatives. At the same time, Abbas and his retinue are doing their best to articulate the language which most pleases Israel and its allies in order to further distinguish themselves from Hamas. In another cynical manoeuvre, Fateh leaders now claim that the PLO, not the PA, is the true international voice of the Palestinians. This might be believable if Fateh hadn't spent the last fifteen years gutting the representative institutions of the PLO and rendering it nothing more than an empty shell under its own control.

A key reason Palestinian voters rejected Fateh was its failure to curb the growing lawlessness which, on top of the immense suffering caused by the Israeli military dictatorship, blights the daily life of Palestinians. In fact, Fateh's private armed militias, which do not obey commands even from Abbas, are responsible for much of the chaos. Since the Fateh-controlled PA security forces have refused to submit to the command of the democratically elected authority, Hamas understandably attempted to create a new security force to restore law and order, under the leadership of Popular Resistance Committees' head Abu Samhadanah. Again failing to show any solidarity, or deal with the matter discreetly if the move was indeed not compatible with the law, Abbas decreed that this was illegal. Even as Israel openly threatened to murder Abu Samhadanah and other Hamas ministers, Abbas maintained his willingness to deal with any Israeli official who would tolerate him. Up to now, there is none.

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