Crisis in the Palestinian Authority

The failure of the American effort to restart the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians over the final settlement has created a political crisis in the Palestinian Authority. On November 5, PA president Mahmoud Abbas announced that he does not intend to run in the general presidential and Legislative Council elections scheduled for January 2010. Abbas’ announcement may reflect a real political crisis liable to lead to the collapse of the PA, or a tactic designed to put pressure on the United States and Israel.

An examination of the process that led to Abbas’ announcement may help to analyze the depth of the crisis and its implications. As part of the Annapolis process during the Olmert government, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were ongoing in two channels. The first involved a direct dialogue between Abbas and Olmert, and the second, parallel channel involved negotiations over specifics between the two negotiating delegations, headed by Israeli foreign minister Livni and Palestinian negotiator Abu Ala. In late 2008, the negotiations were halted because of the war in the Gaza Strip and the announcement of early elections in Israel. The negotiations had not reached any conclusions, though the gaps in several areas, particularly the territorial question, were significantly narrowed. The Israeli election results led to the establishment of a government comprising primarily right wing parties that were not keen on continuing the Annapolis process, as many government members did not feel that negotiations over a final settlement were in Israel’s best interests.

The Palestinians, remembering their negotiating experience with Netanyahu’s first government, placed little hope in effective negotiations with the new government. They did, however, pin great hopes on President Obama’s new administration, which from the outset announced its intent to transform relations with the Muslim world, in part through intensive efforts to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – seen as one of the central reasons for friction with the Muslim world. The administration presented an ambitious goal: reaching a settlement based on the two-state solution within two years. In the meantime, almost a year has passed and the American effort to restart the negotiations is completely bogged down, in part because of flawed tactics. The American idea was to restart the negotiations by taking two steps in tandem: pressure Israel to freeze the Jewish settlements and pressure the leading Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, to take steps towards normalizing relations with Israel. The assumption was that this would create an appropriate atmosphere for starting effective discussions.

However, the opposite occurred. It is hard to imagine any Israeli government capable of fully freezing construction of Jewish settlements, including those inside Jerusalem; it is certainly impossible for a government based primarily on right wing parties. Similarly, it was possible to foresee Arab opposition to any gestures towards Israel as long as there was no progress in talks with the Palestinians. When the United States understood that it could extract from Israel only a partial and time limited freeze, a perception of a Netanyahu victory over Obama and the Palestinians was created, which strengthened the Israeli prime minister’s internal political standing.

Along with the internal political weakness of President Abbas, this result has created a situation whereby Abbas cannot renew the negotiations without being portrayed in Palestinian public opinion as having ceded to Israeli and American pressure, something that will weaken him even further. He certainly cannot do so after the severe political blow he suffered when he bowed to American and Israeli pressure and withdrew the request to discuss the Goldstone report at the Human Rights Council.

Since Hamas’ takeover of Gaza in June 2007, the improved standard of living in the West Bank, the success of the reforms in the security apparatus, and the comparisons with Hamas’ poor performance in Gaza have somewhat strengthened Abbas’ political standing, yet it remains quite fragile. Abbas and the Fayyad government suffer from a lack of public legitimacy. First, Abbas' term in office expired and was artificially extended; Fayyad’s government was never elected. Second, Abbas represents Fatah and the national wing in Palestinian politics, which since the Oslo process has chosen the political route as the way to achieve the national aspirations of the Palestinian people; this is their central standard. In the absence of a viable political process they are losing their raison d'être in the eyes of the Palestinian public. If the alternative is a return to violence, then their national-Islamists (Hamas et al) rivals are more attractive and in that approach have proven to be much more effective.

Abbas is torn between the need to renew an effective political process, which would give him and his movement some breathing room, and his inability to renew negotiations, as he is seen as conceding to an Israeli government uninterested in real negotiations that may lead to a settlement acceptable to the Palestinians. Hence Abbas' despair, disappointment, frustration, and being caught in a dead end, and a consequent decision not to run in the coming elections. As such, this is a real decision and not a tactical threat.

Practically, Abbas will remain in his position as long as there are no new elections, but given the split in the Palestinian arena and the impossibility of elections in Gaza, chances are there will be no elections in January 2010. This is one of the reasons people tend to think of Abbas’ announcement as a tactic. Nonetheless, it seems that Abbas is serious, and there is a high probability that he will act on his intention at a later stage by announcing his resignation. Such an announcement would generate a deep political crisis. According to the PA’s constitution, the president’s deputy in such a case is the chairman of the Legislative Council – now a Hamas representative. The chances are good that the Fayyad government will follow suit and also tender its resignation. Such forecasts have led to the radical assessment that the PA could collapse quickly. At this stage this scenario seems unlikely because the bureaucratic mechanisms of the PA, which employ thousands of Palestinians, would continue to function. However, it would likely be a weakened PA in a constant state of crisis, especially as there is no Palestinian figure who is Abbas’ natural heir. In that case, the processes of reform and constructing institutions, including the Palestinian security services, would draw to a halt and might even collapse.

Naturally PA personnel are using this crisis to pressure Israel and the United States to renew the negotiations on acceptable terms with two opposing threats. The first is the threat of the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, including an appeal to the Security Council to recognize such a state within the 1967 borders. The second threat is to give up altogether on the two-state solution and adopt the South African model: one state, one person, one vote. To a large extent, such threats reflect a feeling of weakness, despair, and the hope that perhaps the Obama administration will rouse itself and do something extraordinary.

The major risk to Israel is the loss of a partner for both the political process and the management of relations between the two sides as long as the conflict remains unresolved. The current partner indeed suffers from several weaknesses, but this is the partner that chose to resolve the conflict and make peace with Israel, and proved its ability to lead an effective process of nation-building.

Israel will have to examine whether what seems in the short term like tactical victories over the Palestinians and the pressures exerted by the American administration are not liable in the long term to be more like a Pyrrhic victory causing much harm to Israel’s vital interests.