Why U.S. Support for Palestinian President Abbas May Backfire
Still, the Hamas challenge doesn't leave much of an alternative
This is not the first time the Bush administration has tried the Abbas option. After Abbas spoke out publicly and repeatedly against the terrorism of the intifada, the administration pinned its hopes for Israeli-Palestinian peace on him, backing him in the PA presidential election held in 2005 after Yasser Arafat's death. Winning easily, Abbas promised to end the mafia-style rule that Arafat had brought to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but there were simply too many thugs in the PA with too many guns and too much seniority.
Backlash. Good intentions or not, Abbas carried on where Arafat left off, and the Palestinians, whose intifada had been broken by Israeli military might, grew bitter and turned to the uncorrupted Hamas—less out of enthusiasm for Hamas's religious calling than out of revenge against Fatah. The Bush administration's attempt to bolster Abbas in the January 2006 legislative elections backfired when Hamas upset Fatah, and its subsequent policy to boycott the Hamas-led Palestinian government and train Abbas-allied troops to take back Gaza's streets resulted in a bloody fiasco.
The curse of the Palestinian territories is that Hamas and Fatah are the only contenders. Abbas may have used his emergency powers to appoint a largely independent, technocratic government, with internationally respected World Bank veteran Salam Fayad as its prime minister, but the guns, patronage, economic monopolies, intimidating reputations—the instruments of power—remain in Fatah's hands.
The Mideast often falls victim to the law of unintended consequences, and all the international attention on Abbas risks having just the opposite of its intended effect—as happened with the parliamentary elections. The more the United States and Israel show their support for Abbas, the more he appears to many Palestinians as a collaborator with the enemy. "Bush is turning him into a CIA agent," said a currency changer at Manara Square.
For now, Hamas doesn't have the firepower in the West Bank to overthrow Fatah as it did in the Gaza Strip. But if Fatah doesn't transform itself, it risks facing a future Hamas-inspired popular revolt in the West Bank. And Abbas has shown that he is no transformative leader. "The era of militias is over," he has declared. "We will impose law and order in all the Palestinian territories." One thing about Abbas—he's always been good with words.
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