A new leader, same old issues
Intifada fatigue among Palestinians, more than upcoming elections, may shape events
TULKARM, WEST BANK--On first glance, Mahmoud, a veteran guerrilla of the deadly al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, appears up for battle. Waiting in a crowded gymnasium to pay condolences to the families of three comrades killed in a 2 a.m. Israeli ambush, he has a submachine gun slung over his shoulder and a pistol under his olive-green military jacket. But up close, he looks exhausted. His eyes are bloodshot. Mahmoud, 37, who won't give his last name, doesn't sleep much anymore. He's on the run day and night from Israeli soldiers. After more than four years of fighting, he says he's ready now to put down his guns. "The intifada is over; we're only defending ourselves," he concedes quietly. "If the Israelis stop coming after us, we won't do anything to them."
Not the sort of words ordinarily associated with the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, whose bombings and shootings struck fear in Israelis, keeping all but the most defiant or fatalistic off downtown streets and buses for so long. No more, though. Now Israelis are bustling about freely, while Palestinian terrorists are in hiding. Guerrilla attacks haven't stopped but aren't remotely as successful as before, now threatening mainly Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, not civilians in Israeli cities. Because of the Army's killings or arrests of several thousand Palestinian militants, its siege of Palestinian cities, villages, and refugee camps, and its erection of a high, concrete-and-barbed-wire security barrier in the West Bank, the intifada has failed--and the Palestinians now admit it. "People are very, very tired. We've lost everything in the past four years. There's no economy, no work, and the Israelis have killed most of the fighters," says Abu Khaled, 31, a political activist sitting in a Tulkarm cafe. "The intifada has set us back 50 years."
Historic moment. It is this turn of events, and this weakening of Palestinian fighting morale, that make the January 9 election for president of the Palestinian Authority a potentially historic watershed, a possible shift toward a brighter future for Palestinians and Israelis both. The result of the election, called after the November 11 death of erratic, belligerent president-for-life Yasser Arafat, is a foregone conclusion. Mahmoud Abbas, 69, the most eminent gray eminence of the Palestinian national movement's "old guard," has no serious challenger; he is expected to get about 60 percent of the vote.
But while Abbas has departed from Arafat's path by criticizing the "militarization" of the intifada and calling for an end to violence, he is no savior. He is not a strong leader; he cannot command Palestinian security forces to confront the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad as Israel and the United States insist. All he can really do is talk and hope people listen, and after his expected election, his voice should gain at least some added authority. But it is not Abbas's new presidential prestige that could, perhaps, lead Palestinians to silence their weapons and start back toward peace with Israel; rather, it is their own resigned understanding, after four years of futile warfare, that he happens to be right.
There is no vibe on the Palestinian street for this presidential race, the first since 1996 when Arafat won with 88 percent of the vote. One reason is the lack of suspense. Abbas's only strong challenger, Marwan Barghouti, the popular intifada commander serving multiple life sentences in Israeli prison, aborted his bid after Abbas's dominant Fatah movement threatened to expel him if he didn't. Hamas, second in strength to Fatah, is boycotting the election because it doesn't include local races, where the Islamic organization would stand to do well. (In recent West Bank municipal races, though, Hamas won nine to Fatah's 12.)
As for Abbas himself, the best Palestinians have to say about him is that he's sensible; his opponents, though, vilify him as a corrupt Fatah apparatchik and puppet of Israel and America. Such contempt was apparent near the Israeli Army checkpoint outside Jericho, where a line of Palestinian taxis was delayed for hours during security preparations for Abbas's visit to the city. "The Israelis wouldn't be doing this for Abu Mazen if he wasn't working for them," said one driver, using Abbas's nom de guerre. "F- - - his mother," said another. When Abbas's convoy of Jeep Cherokees, Mercedes-Benzes, and BMW s, escorted by Israeli security forces, drove through the checkpoint, the cab drivers taunted his entourage for its fancy cars. "Here's where the money for the revolution went. Here's the money they stole," a cabbie shouted to Abbas's aides, who stared straight ahead as the soldiers waved them past. The dozen or so hacks all said they would skip the election. "Why should we vote?" scoffed one. "Abu Mazen is going to win no matter what because Israel and America want him to."
Guerrillas have responded to Abbas's call for an end to the fighting by challenging him to get the Israelis to stop first. "A cease-fire should be mutual. We cannot accept a cease-fire while the Israeli aggression is continuing and escalating," says Hamas activist Ismail Haniyeh. Yet Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says the first step is for the Palestinians to stop terror, and in this Sharon has full backing from the Bush administration. What Israel and the United States demand from Abbas is police action to neutralize the guerrillas, whatever it takes.
However, no one has found the Palestinian policeman who would obey such an order, and Abbas makes it clear that he will never issue it. Referring to Hamas and Islamic Jihad in a campaign speech outside Ramallah, he says, "They told us, 'You have to uproot them.' We will not uproot. They told us, 'You have to strike them.' We will not strike. They are part of our people, and we will include them."
Opportunity? The containment of the intifada, the Palestinians' disillusionment, and the anticipated rise of a moderate like Abbas offer the potential for a break in the conflict. But few hereabouts discount Murphy's Law--"If anything can go wrong, it will." The distance between Abbas's intentions and the Palestinians' stated readiness for a mutual cease-fire, on the one hand, and actually reaching the point of shutting down all intifada violence, on the other, is great indeed. Nor would it be easy getting Israel to scrupulously keep the peace, given the Army's problem with overeager soldiers and hostile settlers in the Palestinians' midst.
So if the election of a new Palestinian president--the official kickoff of the post-Arafat era--offers the opportunity for change, it is at best a slim opportunity hedged with doubts. "I'm going to vote for Abu Mazen because I want to give him a chance. We're tired, and we need hope," says Maher Zaghloul, 23, an unemployed hotel administrator from Bethlehem who is waiting for the tourists to come back to the Holy Land. "But realistically, I don't expect anything to improve. Abu Mazen will get elected, and then things will go on like this for another five years, 10 years--who knows how long?"
This story appears in the January 10, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.