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Perhaps never before in contemporary Palestinian history has the
Palestinian ship been as badly captained as it is being at present and
has been in recent times. This has led many Palestinians to believe that
the real crisis in Palestine is primarily one of leadership.
The inter-Palestinian conflict, however, is not new to Palestinian
culture. In modern Palestinian history, inter-ideological differences
and conflicts between the various ideological factions have been a
normal part of Palestinian political life. In past decades, major
Palestinian parties have witnessed splits and division’s .The Marxist
faction's which established the democratic front of the liberation of
Palestine split from the popular front for the liberation of Palestine
in the late sixties was also based on ideological differences, the
anti-Arafat faction within Fateh split from the party in 1983 and
engaged in military conflict with the pro-Arafat forces in North Lebanon
and the Bekaa valley. Yet most Palestinians believe that the current
splits are potentially fatal because those forces opposed to
Palestinians' right to self-determination have had an active influence
on the current conflict. Recent public opinion polls carried out in
Palestine show that a high percentage of Palestinians feel that all the
red lines have been crossed in the current conflict between Fateh and
Hamas, and most Palestinians believe that their national project will be
at risk if this inter-party conflict continues.
Abbas' recent speech to the Italian media has poured more oil onto an
already incendiary situation. In accusing Hamas of offering Al-Qaeda a
safe haven in Gaza, Abbas is making a grave political mistake, which
seems more like political suicide than anything else. If his message was
intended to reassure the Americans, eager to depict every force opposing
their policy as Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaeda sympathizers, he is mistaken for
three reasons, the first is that Hamas is known to follow the middle
line in Islam, known as Al Wasat trend which contradicts Al Qaeda
doctrine.Second, because of the simple fact that US support for his
policy cannot, to say the least, replace the support of his people.
Third, Abbas is giving the impression that he runs a Vichy styled
government rather than a Degoul government. Abbas' most grave mistake is
that he has apparently forgotten that he was elected as the president of
all Palestine, not only of his party.
Instead of maintaining a balanced role in the presidency, Abbas has
chosen to weaken the role by playing party leader so that, instead of
working to create the right atmosphere for the restoration of national
unity, he agitates against a party which has the majority in the
parliament.
Abbas' proposal to deploy UN forces in Palestine would be a good thing
if the intention behind it were to stop the construction of the racist
wall and of more Zionist settlements, and to help in the decolonization
process in occupied Palestine. Yet the strange thing is that Abbas is
calling for the deployment of UN forces in Gaza, which is free from
settlement, rather than to the West Bank, where land is stolen almost on
a daily basis. This position can be easily interpreted as his being
wholly concerned with the minor conflict with Hamas at the expense of
the major conflict with occupation. How, otherwise, are we to understand
his call to deploy the UN in Gaza and not the West Bank? This policy has
put many question marks over Abbas' strategy, which is increasingly
sending a message that he is failing to assume the role of the captain
of the Palestinian ship in ensuring the safety of all passengers on
board. Abbas must be suffering from vast delusions if he believes that
his policy will appease the Zionists, whose cornerstone doctrine is to
weaken the Palestinians national project, regardless of who is in charge
of it.
It is unsurprising, then, that an increasing number of Palestinians are
warning against the gradual creation of a Vichy government in Palestine.
Even if this concern is not necessarily real right now, the leadership
of the Palestinian Authority must convince the Palestinian masses that
its primary focus is on the historical and natural Palestinian rights.
Apart from the two major parties' responsibilities, the democratic
trend, which represents about 15 percent of the population, must be
given a greater say in current Palestinian politics. These political
forces could each play a balancing role, were they to agree on a unified
single political program. The active role of these parties would
consolidate the Palestinian national project, thus hindering any attempt
towards attaining more concessions. The active role of the democratic
trend would also consolidate the pluralist political culture, which is
part of the strength of Palestinian society.
There is no doubt that the Palestinian ship is sailing on rough seas at
present. Yet the real challenge is how to establish a team from the
three major trends, the national, the religious and the left wing, which
can jointly sail the ship safely to a happy berth, bearing in mind that
failure would put Palestinians in the position of Sisyphus in the Greek
myth, forever forced to descend the mountain to the bottom and start
again each time he is about to reach the summit.
* The witer is a Palestinian Norwegian historian.
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