Challenges facing the new Palestinian president

Demands for fresh elections were made by reformist elements among the Palestinians who feared loss of international legitimacy of the PA and PLC and of the bodies running the risk of becoming moribund. Compared to Israeli democratic vibrancy where Prime Ministers come and go and governments fall sometimes at alarming rate (though maintaining constancy in the persecution policy in the occupied lands), the unchanging faces of the Palestinian leadership, albeit in step with the tradition of having absolute monarchs and long duration Presidents in the Arab world, has been causing discomfort among some Palestinians. Despite Yasser Arafat's undying devotion to the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people's devotion to him, Arafat rarely felt bound by rules and regulations and was used to administer without feeling any need for accountability. Indeed it was in reaction to Presidential domination (and also due to President Bush's conviction that Arafat was the main obstacle to Middle East peace process) that the PLC amended the Basic Law to transfer much authority to a Prime Minister. Though Arafat accepted the amendment he paid scant regard to its implementation resulting in continuous tussle between the President and the Prime Minister. The election of Mahmoud Abbas promises a degree of stability in the Palestinian political institutions.

One, however, is not so certain whether election of Mahmoud Abbas is not a schematic exercise in democracy. Palestinian political analyst Omar Barghouti sees the election "while still under the boot of an occupier (as) oxymoron. Sovereignty and occupation are mutually exclusive". Barghouti points out that the election will be that of the President of the PA, an offspring of the 1993 Oslo Agreement, and not of the President of the Palestinian people. PA at best represents only a minority of the Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza strip while the majority of the Palestinians are refugees in various countries or are Palestinian citizens of Israel not represented in the PA. Question has, therefore, been raised as to how a President elected by only one third of the Palestinian people can conclude agreements on behalf of the entire Palestinian community particularly because he may have to barter away the future of a very large number of Palestinian refugees' right to return. But then this is no ordinary time. Oslo agreement, criticised by many as a betrayal of the Palestinian people had to be concluded if only to institutionalise the Palestinian Authority (PA).

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Many who thought that Oslo accord would produce a just peace had limited their analysis to the text of the agreement that met only the minimum aspirations of the Palestinians. They, perhaps, forgot to take into consideration a constant in the policy of various Israeli governments to exploit the asymmetric balance of power between the occupier and the occupied. In 1993 then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had told CNN that his vision of peaceful co-existence meant Israel as a Jewish state with united Jerusalem as its capital and "a Palestinian entity, less than a state, that runs the life of Palestinians". This vision of "peaceful co-existence" was nothing but another formula to solve the main paradox faced by Israel after 1967 war as to how to take control of the resources of the occupied lands without taking any responsibility for the people living in the occupied territories. Effectively Israeli strategy emboldened by almost unconditional US support has been not to negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinians but to impose a set of conditions as victors impose upon the vanquished. It remains to be seen how Mahmoud Abbas's election as the President of the PA will help to change the fundamental equation based on asymmetrical balance of power between the parties.

Exit of Yasser Arafat from the political scene accords with President Bush's June 2002 statement that "peace requires new and different Palestinian leadership so that a Palestinian state can be born". This was an effective call for regime change without taking into consideration the facts that Yasser Arafat was not only the duly elected leader of the Palestinian people but he was also recognised as the legitimate head of state of Palestine by most of the countries of the world. But then the behavioural pattern of the Colossus, which British historian Niall Ferguson has termed the United States, is not expected to conform to the universally recognised standard of behaviour of others. It is true that Morton Klein, President of American Zionist Organisations, was shocked by the fact that President Bush was the first American President to publicly endorse a Palestinian state ­

- his shock strengthened by the unreserved support of large number of Senators and Congressmen and women calling on the US administration not to ask Israel to make concessions until Palestinians took steps to contain terrorism against Israel. This unstinted support by the US legislators may be seen in the backdrop of two US Congress resolutions of May/June 1997 calling on the US administration to affirm that Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel, prohibiting US government business with the PA in Jerusalem, and allowed Israel to be recorded as the place of birth of American citizens born in Jerusalem.

American legislators' mind on the status of Jerusalem appears to have already been made up. What then Mahmoud Abbas can deliver to the Palestinians on Jerusalem, final borders of the Palestinian state, and on the sticky question of the return of an estimated five million Palestinian refugees? Reportedly during President Clinton's attempt to midwife a settlement at Camp David in the Year 2000 Israeli Prime Minister Barak had proposed that Jerusalem remain united under Israeli sovereignty leaving the Palestinians control over East Jerusalem and Muslim holy sites. Yasser Arafat was reportedly willing to accept Israeli control over Jewish quarters of Jerusalem but sought sovereignty over East Jerusalem particularly over Haram-al-Sharif/Temple Mount. Even after Barak's resignation pending elections in Israel President Clinton suggested that Israel cede sovereignty over Haram-al-Sharif/Temple Mount and Arab neighbourhood in Jerusalem, 96 percent of the West Bank, all of the Gaza strip, and Jerusalem be the capital of the two countries. While Arafat was seeking further clarification on congruity of the Palestinian state territory, the division of East Jerusalem and the refugees' right of return, Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister and declared the results of the Camp David negotiations "null and void". This was followed by a statement by the first Bush administration that Clinton's proposals were no longer the United States' proposals.

Though Bush administration was comparatively less engaged in the Middle East due to its conviction that Yasser Arafat was the main obstacle to peace, yet one of the conclusions drawn from the carnage of 9/11 terrorist attacks was to find an urgent solution of the Palestinian crisis which was seen as fuelling discontent among Arab and Muslim youth. On 30th June 2003 President Bush made public the Quartet (US, UN, EU and Russia) Road Map for a solution of the Middle East crisis. While the Palestinians agreed to implement the Road Map Israel came up with a number of reservations. Meanwhile Ariel Sharon announced his unilateral disengagement plan of troops withdrawal from Gaza ­

- a move welcomed by both President Bush and the PA. In April last year President Bush discounted the possibility of Israeli withdrawal to the armistice line of 1949 and advocated the return of the refugees to the Palestinian state and not to Israel.

In the backdrop of the complexities of the problem Mahmoud Abbas has an unenviable task of restoring a Palestinian economy which is on the verge of collapse due to Israeli closures, military incursions, innumerable checkpoints separating Palestinians from Palestinians and Palestinians from vital services. Abbas on his part will have to check lawlessness in parts of occupied territories caused by Israeli assault on Palestinian authority and its security apparatus. The US has to extend political and financial support to Mahmoud Abbas and bring the two sides to the negotiating table. The world must realise that Mahmoud Abbas cannot do what Yasser Arafat could do because of his iconic stature. He would, therefore, need all the help that can be given to him particularly by the US that has to keep a tight leash on Israeli militaristic behaviour in the name of ensuring security. The US and the West may wish to take a global view of the Middle East problem and realise that Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a war of religion but one of politics that has remained unresolved for more than half a century.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and ambassador