Accurately or not, Palestinians consider Dahlan the prime U. While no longer occupying an official position in one of the security branches, Dahlan still seems to be very much in charge and working from behind the scenes, apparently occupying an independent office in his former ministry Civil Affairs in Ramallah. He never scores more than two percent—averaging his very low support in the West Bank with somewhat higher support in Gaza—in opinion polls. Like Dahlan, Rajub no longer occupies an official position in the security domain.
Rajub enjoys some support in the West Bank, particularly in his native region of Hebron, and has been able to increase his popularity all over the West Bank in recent years by heading the Palestinian Olympic Committee and the Palestinian Football Association.
Although no longer occupying an official position, Tirawi still seems to play an important role advising Abbas. Even so, he is probably even less popular with the public than Dahlan or Rajub, and draws strong objections from Israel and Hamas as well. Whichever eventually succeeds, the Bethlehem Conference underscored an interesting trend; it is the security figures in Fatah who probably will control the future of the movement. Even a charismatic leader such as Marwan Barghouthi, who has a mass following but is unable to operate freely at present, probably cannot compete.
The Fatah security leaders will give him lip service and use his name, without granting him a role in the decision-making process. Another important trend is the dominance of U.
This influence is exercised primarily through the security sector, where, unlike in the rest of the PA, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has not been able to establish full transparency and civilian control of incoming funds. On the contrary, large cash payments continue to be made to the major Palestinian security agencies Preventive Security and General Security. This undermines not only the role of civilian leadership, but also any chance for democratic transformation.
Yet another possible combination would be for such a Fatah security leader to align himself with a capable technocrat such as Fayyad who is a political independent in order to compensate for a lack of local and international popularity and to make a successful bid to lead the PA. Helga Baumgarten is professor of political science at Birzeit University, Palestine and is completing a book on the conflict between Fatah and Hamas to be published in autumn Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
The PLO chairmanship was one of three positions held by Arafat, and it was the most important. Fattuh was to be sworn in on Thursday as the interim PA president, officials said. General elections for president are to be held within 60 days. Long-time Arafat confidant Qaddumi, who had opposed the Oslo accords with Israel that Abbas helped negotiate, cast his vote for Abbas by telephone from Paris.
Kaddumi had been considered a potential contender for the post. Smooth transition. Arafat's rejection of institutionalization and refusal to create a clear chain of command helps explain why he has refused to name a chief deputy.
This approach has its costs—it inhibits continuity, efficiency, economic development, democracy, and discipline—but it is consistent with his approach to power.
Arafat's method of rule also illuminates why he does not even permit anyone to aspire to the position of number-two Palestinian leader. Contrary to rumor and media reports, competition to succeed him is very limited: showing too much interest in this position brings on a strong reaction from Arafat.
A popular West Bank story points to Arafat's determination to have no understudy: he builds a five-story house, the tale goes, so he tells his lieutenants they can build four-story homes. But each time one of them reaches the third level, Arafat orders him to stop all construction completely.
So complete is Arafat's refusal to delegate power or trust his deputies that nearly all Palestinian Authority activity stops when he leaves the country, even for a day. Further, Arafat often prefers loyalty over competence from his subordinates. Along with Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, he is threatened by energetic men with "lean and hungry" looks, and so prefers the "sleek and fat" men, often corrupt and slothful ones—the careerist PLO officials and the less capable members of wealthy West Bank families.
Potential successors recognize that battling Arafat would be very unpopular and that splitting the Palestinians would weaken their chances of succeeding in negotiations with Israel, perhaps even "giving Israel an excuse" to stop the peace process altogether.
For these many reasons, Arafat remains the Palestinians' only conceivable leader. This said, he is in the twilight of his career and a successor has to emerge. The question is, from what party, sector, and political orientation?
Arafat's successor cannot be identified with any certainty, or the main candidates' chances rated, but the succession issue reveals a great deal about Palestinian factions and power centers. The power groups that will produce that successor—and those which have no chance of doing so—are well-defined. Here are some that will not determine the winner:. Foreign influences. There is already much speculation in Arab circles about outside powers weighing in on the identity of the next Palestinian leader, including wild rumors about the United States and Israel.
Suha, Arafat's wife, for example, has said that his death would trigger "a destructive war," fomented by Israel. In fact, however, outside powers will probably have very limited leverage over the succession battle. Instead, short of Arafat clearly designating a successor, his heir will be chosen by internal coalitions. The mere suggestion that someone is the American or Israeli favorite would likely destroy his chances.
Arafat's successor certainly would not be from the Islamist opposition. Hamas could hope to gain power only via an armed uprising, which it has no intention of trying, if for no other reason than knowing that such a rebellion has little chance of success. Arafat has showed himself able to manage Hamas-sponsored terrorism, either by stopping it 2 or permitting it to happen.
Finally, Arafat's permissiveness toward Hamas—leaving its infrastructure alone and not conducting propaganda against it—has made the organization less willing to confront Arafat's system. Further, if the Islamists act too aggressively and divisively, they give Arafat or his successor a rationale to suppress them, something that would be widely popular.
For although Hamas does have significant support, it is very much in the minority. While support for anti-Israel terrorism has gone up and down among Palestinians depending on the peace process's current situation, backing for Hamas itself has dropped sharply—the most accurate Palestinian public opinion polls seem to show by 40 percent—between and In other words, many more Palestinians approve of Hamas's killing of Israelis than support it as a political movement.
Meanwhile, Arafat's regime has steadily consolidated control if not always popularity. This predicament has spurred a sharp debate within Hamas. One line of argument—paralleling the PLO's strategy—demands unlimited armed struggle to sabotage the peace process and destroy Israel. This is especially but not exclusively prevalent among Hamas leaders outside the PA-ruled areas. A second approach—paralleling the PLO's "two-stage" strategy of —urges that Hamas cooperate with Arafat to obtain a Palestinian state, then take it over to complete the struggle against Israel and also make Palestine an Islamic state.
The idea is to become a partly loyal opposition, something Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, newly released in October from an Israeli prison, supported when he said he would work with the PA "to lay the foundations for Palestinian national unity. Other opposition groups. Hamas' rival Islamic extremist group, Islamic Jihad, is small and highly factionalized, while its Iranian backing makes it vulnerable to charges of foreign loyalties. The radical nationalist groups that historically disregarded Arafat's leadership in the PLO have only marginal popular support.
Moderate, pro-democratic forces are weak and divided. PLO long-time leadership. The PLO's founding generation, most of them about Arafat's age, is gradually passing from the scene. The two most likely heirs from among that veteran group, Abu Jihad Khalil al-Wazir probably the only man Arafat ever envisioned for this role and Abu Iyad Salah Khalaf , are dead, both due to violent circumstances.
Also, any candidate to succeed Arafat must be active within the PA arena, and this effectively rules out most of the old guard, which came overwhelmingly from the ranks of the refugees those from lands that became part of Israel. The refugees generally have more difficulty coming to terms with a compromise solution than do natives of the West Bank and Gaza.
Faruq Qaddumi, an unreconstructed hard-liner very popular in the PLO, represents this historic establishment. But by staying abroad, he has isolated himself and rendered himself largely irrelevant. Intifada activists. It is far from ready to assume power, but should Arafat live long enough, it could produce a leader.
More likely, the generational transition will take some years. In "constitutional" terms, he is Arafat's designated successor, at least for sixty days after Arafat's demise and until new elections. Nevertheless, this type of candidate, who seems so appealing to Western journalists, is far less attractive to the masses and power-brokers. Fatah leadership. Fatah remains by far the most important political movement in the PA areas, but it has not turned into a political party—largely due to Arafat's desire to monopolize power—and its leaders lack clout.
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