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Palestinians, Israel, and the Quartet

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Palestinians, Israel, and the Quartet PALESTINIANS, ISRAEL, AND THE QUARTET: PULLING BACK FROM THE BRINK Middle East Report N°54 – 13 June 2006 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS................................................. i I. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 II. THE INTER-PALESTINIAN STRUGGLE ............................................................... 2 A. HAMAS IN GOVERNMENT ......................................................................................................3 B. FATAH IN OPPOSITION...........................................................................................................9 C. A MARCH OF FOLLY? .........................................................................................................13 D. THE PRISONERS’S INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM................................................................16 III. THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY AND THE PALESTINIAN CRISIS.. 21 A. PA BUDGETARY COSTS, DONOR CONTRIBUTIONS AND DONOR ATTITUDES ..........................21 B. A NATION UNDER SIEGE .....................................................................................................26 C. CAN A HUMANITARIAN COLLAPSE BE AVOIDED WITHOUT DEALING WITH THE PA? ........27 IV. CONCLUSION: WHAT SHOULD BE DONE? ....................................................... 32 A. SUBVERTING HAMAS? ........................................................................................................32 B. STRENGTHENING ABBAS? ...................................................................................................34 C. A DIFFERENT APPROACH ....................................................................................................35 APPENDICES A. MAPS OF OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES .................................................................40 B. EXCERPTS FROM PRISONERS’ INITIATIVE DOCUMENT .........................................................41 C. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP .......................................................................44 D. CRISIS GROUP REPORTS AND BRIEFINGS ON THE MIDDLE EAST .........................................45 E. CRISIS GROUP BOARD OF TRUSTEES ...................................................................................47 Middle East Report N°54 13 June 2006 PALESTINIANS, ISRAEL AND THE QUARTET: PULLING BACK FROM THE BRINK EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Throughout years of uprising and Israeli military actions, as if it remains in opposition. It invokes steadfastness as siege of West Bank cities and President Arafat’s de a substitute for policy and has proved incapable so far of facto house arrest, it was hard to imagine the situation adjusting to its new status, while introducing provocative getting worse for Palestinians. It has. On all fronts – measures of its own. Palestinian/Palestinian, Palestinian/Israeli and Palestinian/ international – prevailing dynamics are leading to a In this increasingly bloody power struggle, both camps dangerous breakdown. Subjected to the cumulative effects (as well as the myriad camps within camps) are mobilising of a military occupation in its 40th year and now what is armed militias, stockpiling weapons, resorting to killings effectively an international sanctions regime, the Hamas-led and spreading bedlam. The latest move was political. Palestinian Authority (PA) government cannot pay salaries Mahmoud Abbas, PA President, Chairman of the Palestine or deliver basic services. Diplomacy is frozen, with scant Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Committee and prospect of thaw – and none at all of breakthrough. And Fatah Deputy Chairman, on 25 May 2006 threatened Hamas’s electoral victory and the reactions it provoked that if Hamas did not accept within ten days a proposal among Fatah loyalists have intensified chaos and brought signed by a number of Israel’s most prominent Palestinian the nation near civil war. There is an urgent need for all detainees – the Prisoners’ Initiative – which implicitly relevant players to pragmatically reassess their positions, endorses a negotiated two-state solution, he would with the immediate objectives of: submit it to a popular referendum. Making good on his ultimatum after a short extension, he issued a presidential avoiding inter-Palestinian violence and the PA’s decree on 10 June calling for a referendum on 26 July. collapse; The result has been an increasingly bitter, and perilously encouraging Hamas to adopt more pragmatic policies rather than merely punishing it for not violent, relationship, bringing the Palestinians to the brink doing so; of internecine conflict. The National Dialogue that was launched in late May to forge a political consensus appears achieving a mutual and sustained Israeli-Palestinian to be as much about partisan posturing as about strategic ceasefire to prevent a resumption of full-scale compromise. While Abbas understandably is averse hostilities; and to interminable negotiations, his determination to hold a referendum opposed by Hamas carries a serious risk of preventing activity that jeopardises the possibility further polarisation and violence – the very outcome that, of a two-state solution. by seeking to bring the Islamists into the political arena, Of all the dangers threatening the Palestinians, the most he had tried to avoid. Today, the situation is but one tragic acute may well be internal strife. Facing one of the most step – the assassination of a senior Fatah or Hamas leader, hostile external environments in its history, the national for example – from all-out chaos. movement also confronts one of its most acute domestic crises. Even as Hamas and Fatah leaders repeatedly profess Faced with the intensifying inter-Palestinian struggle, the their determination to avoid violent conflict, they act in calculus of the Quartet – the U.S., EU, Russia and the UN, ways that promote it. Fatah, unable to digest its electoral who have been in charge of the disappearing peace process loss, is behaving as if still in power. It treats the new – and other outside actors has been simple: pressure the government as a usurper, blatantly subverting its ability to government, count on popular dissatisfaction with its govern, relying on its partisans’ overwhelming presence (non-) performance and find ways to strengthen Abbas and throughout the civil service and, especially, the security ensure the Hamas experience in power comes to a rapid forces. Hamas, unprepared for its triumph, is behaving and unsuccessful end. The approach comes in different Palestinians, Israel and the Quartet: Pulling Back from the Brink Crisis Group Middle East Report N°54, 13 June 2006 Page ii variants, from the more confrontational (seeking to buttressing jihadi Islamists at the expense of their more subvert the Hamas-led government through political political counterparts. and economic isolation), to the more subtle (hoping to circumvent the government through Abbas’s Starved of resources, confronting an increasingly hostile empowerment). Yet in both cases outside actors, by openly population and unable to realise its agenda, Hamas may bolstering one faction against the other, exacerbate internal well fail. But with widespread violence, chaos and a strife. collapse in Palestinian institutions, it quickly would become hard to chalk up its failure as anybody’s success. Instead, Of late, limited signs of pragmatism have come from what is required today is a more sophisticated, nuanced Washington regarding the need to prevent collapse within approach, pursuing the priority objectives described above the occupied territories. However, the U.S. still appears with the specific policies summarised below. reluctant to endorse a European proposal to fund priority social sectors while bypassing the government or at least RECOMMENDATIONS wishes to postpone implementation of such a mechanism until after a referendum is held and the political context To the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and altered. The tightness of the grip aside, all, including Israel and even Arab states, appear convinced that squeezing the Palestinian National Resistance Movement (Fatah): government unless it meets the Quartet’s three demands 1. Reach and implement agreement on the composition (recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence, and and role of the Palestine Liberation Organisation acceptance of past agreements) is the best way to end its (PLO), including the integration of Hamas and tenure and accelerate the restoration of its more pragmatic recognition of the PLO’s responsibility for political predecessors. negotiations with Israel. There are important elements of Hamas’s ideology and 2. Form, with the participation of other Palestinian charter, including its refusal to recognise Israel and the political movements and independents as appropriate, call for its destruction, that are incompatible with the a national coalition government whose program international community’s principles for a resolution of includes endorsement of the 2002 Arab League this conflict as well as the views of most Palestinians; Beirut Initiative and/or the 2006 Prisoners’ Initiative; pressure certainly needs to be brought upon it to change designation of the PLO as responsible for political these. Without this necessary evolution, it cannot expect negotiations with Israel; ratification by national international recognition, nor can the government it leads institutions and/or a national referendum of any
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