ANALYSIS: A rise in terrorism, and internal Palestinian violence, underline the growing instability in the West Bank — and the sense of an imminent leadership change
Here is a name that most of us have not heard in quite a while: Ahmed Qurei, also known as Abu Alaa. However improbably, he is currently the hottest of the possible successors to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).
Abu Alaa, a former PA prime minister (2003-6), is not even a member of Fatah’s leadership — its Central Committee. Yet he is widely touted in Ramallah as a temporary appointee (the operative word here being “temporary”), acceptable to the upper echelon of Fatah and the PLO. One of his key advantages: He’ll turn 80 in March (Abbas is 81), and wouldn’t likely fill the post for long, enabling a longer-term leader to emerge from the still mostly covert battles over the succession that Fatah’s highest-ranking members are waging.
Formally, if the Palestinian president should be unable to continue in office, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (parliament) is supposed to take his place for 60 days until general elections are held. But the speaker of the parliament is Sheikh Aziz Dweik, a member of Hamas. Formally, for that matter, parliament is supposed to confirm the speaker’s appointment to office every year. But parliament has not actually convened for nine years.
These little hiccups have produced an alternative plan: With the speaker a non-starter to fill in for Abbas, the thinking in Ramallah right now is that the PLO chairman could hold the fort until elections are held. (Which could be a very long time, since Israel would almost certainly oppose both Hamas participation in elections and any voting in East Jerusalem, without either which the Palestinians would not go ahead.)
Who is the current PLO chairman? Well, that would be Abbas, kind of. He actually announced his resignation from the post last summer.
How is a new PLO chairman chosen? The 22-strong PLO Executive Committee (the highest-ranking, and smallest, leadership group) could hold a vote, electing its preferred candidate by a simple majority. Fatah’s Central Committee might also choose its preferred candidate, most likely one of its own members, and submit the choice to the PLO Executive Committee. Or the approximately 120-strong PLO Central Council, which ranks just below the PLO Executive Committee, could choose the chairman.
If the Constitutional Court recently established by Abbas determines that the choice of chairman must be made by the PLO Central Council, this would probably trigger some bitter infighting in Fatah. It is one thing to win a majority in Fatah’s Central Committee, quite another in the larger PLO Central Council.
The way things look right now, rivalries within Fatah’s Central Committee are so deep as to make it impossible for a consensus candidate to emerge. Everybody is competing against everybody else, and everybody wants to keep Marwan Barghouti (jailed by Israel for his involvement in Second Intifada murders), the most popular would-be successor, out of the race.
One man whose name has been mentioned more than once as a potential compromise candidate is Nasser al-Kidwa, Yasser Arafat’s nephew. But it’s Qurei who is increasingly seen as the potential interim leader. Yes, Qurei was removed from Fatah’s leadership in the elections for the Central Committee at the “Sixth Convention” in 2009 — and the man who neutered him was Abbas, fearing him as a rival. But Qurei does sit on the PLO Executive Committee, and would therefore be potentially eligible.
Qurei is rightly regarded as a wily old fox — not only in negotiations with Israel, but also in everything connected with Palestinian internal politics and especially the machinations of Fatah. He follows developments in Israel closely and could dampen down some of the internal Fatah conflicts. Whether the young people of the West Bank would support him is another question entirely.
For now, the mood in the territories is reminiscent of “ASAK,” the vintage acronym Israeli soldiers use to describe the somewhat reckless atmosphere at the end of a training course. The Palestinian public, like many high-ranking members of Fatah, realize that Abbas is fast approaching his final days, and that not much is going to change as long as he remains in office. This could be why we’ve seen certain senior members of the PA and Fatah allowing themselves to issue particularly unpleasant and aggressive statements against Israel, such as that last week by Sultan Abu al-Einein, an odd politician from Fatah who made headlines when he promised that if he met an Israeli, he would slit his throat. Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai unsurprisingly promptly confiscated Einein’s VIP Israel-entry papers, and thus turned him into the hero of the moment for the West Bank masses.
Hence, too, the increasing number of internal shooting incidents among the Palestinians in the West Bank — all evidence of chaos or, to use the well-known Arabic term, fauda. Ramadan is always considered a dangerous month. Hunger, thirst, and the craving for a cigarette raise the levels of tension and frequently of violence. This year, Ramadan left more people dead and wounded than average in the internal Palestinian “tusha” battles — wars between families and clans, and between armed men and members of the security services. And then of course there was the upsurge in fatal terror attacks — the stabbing of Hallel Ariel and the drive-by shooting of Rabbi Miki Mark.
Gun battles in the West Bank between clans (in Yabed) and between armed men and members of the security services (in Nablus) claimed the lives of five Palestinians last week alone. The Nablus incident began when armed men fired at the home of a Palestinian police officer, wounding his wife. By the time the shooting was over, two officers were dead.
Ramadan is at its end now. But signs are that the internal Palestinian instability is not going away with it. Whether or not it’s Ahmed Qurei who emerges from the bickering Palestinian leadership, the beginning of the post-Abbas era seems close at hand.
As reported by The Times of Israel