BICOM

Key Points

• Various factors involving all the main players are making it difficult to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, but the situation is exacerbated in particular at the moment by uncertainty over Palestinian parliamentary and presidential elections.
• The elections crisis is part of the ongoing and deep split between the Fatah-dominated West Bank and Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Though an Egyptian-brokered arrangement aimed at paving the way for Palestinian elections remains on the table, it is difficult to see Hamas and Fatah coordinating free and fair elections.
• The ongoing Palestinian division is placing political constraints on Abbas with regard to the peace process.
• Whilst the international community is committed to restarting peace negotiations, which remain an essential component for progress, these complexities need to be factored into a realistic assessment of what is achievable.

Introduction

The latest indications are that Palestinian presidential and national elections, due in January, will be postponed due to lack of agreement between Hamas and Fatah. This uncertainty within Palestinian politics deeply complicates the question of how the peace process will be resumed.  Several factors have contributed to the current impasse. Criticism has been aimed at Washington’s role, the Israeli settlement dispute and the reluctance of Arab states to get involved as the Obama administration had hoped.[i]  Whilst all of these factors are significant, there is particular uncertainty at the present moment in the Palestinian arena, fuelled by the entrenched Palestinian political split and interrelated elections crisis.  This analysis focuses on these developments and their impact on prospects for peace talks.

The context of crisis

Two sets of elections are technically due to be held in January.  One is for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), or parliament, whose members were last elected in January 2006.  Hamas defeated Fatah in that election. The other ballot is for the Palestinian president.  Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas was elected for a four year term in January 2005. He extended his term by 12 months last January, arguing that the two sets of elections should be synchronized. An acute political crisis has characterised Palestinian politics since Hamas’s violent coup against Fatah in Gaza in June 2007 created two rival Palestinian governments. Hamas has explicitly rejected Abbas’s legitimacy throughout 2009.

The viability of holding elections as scheduled has been mired in uncertainty as a result of the Fatah-Hamas split. An Egyptian-brokered inter-factional deal would have created an agreement from all sides to hold elections in June 2010. It stalled, and Abbas decreed in October that elections should take place as scheduled on 24 January.  Hamas immediately rejected this call, and continues to assert that it will not permit elections in Gaza before the factions have reached agreement. Though being seen to delay elections could prove unpopular, the Islamist group currently has an interest in avoiding the polls. Fatah has significantly increased its lead over Hamas in recent opinion surveys and looks more likely to win.

Abbas’s election conundrum

In this context, the Palestinian electoral commission announced last Thursday that it does not have the capacity to carry out elections in January. Abbas is faced with a choice to proceed with elections in the West Bank only, or to allow Hamas to determine the electoral timetable for the Palestinian territories in full.

Dr. Zakaria al-Qaq, co-director of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), has said the outcome of an election confined to the West Bank would be ‘worse than the two Koreas’.[ii]  The Fatah-Hamas division is in any case entrenched, but Abbas still wants to avoid the domestic perception that he formalised it.  He is currently consulting with Palestinian institutions and legal advisers, but senior PA officials have already told reporters that it is his intention to postpone the elections.[iii]

Uncertainty about the timing of elections is coupled with doubts about whether Abbas, aged 74, will run for a second term.  His recent statement that he has ‘no desire to run’ makes it unclear whether he will do so.[iv]  At events last week in the West Bank, marking five years since Yasser Arafat’s death, Abbas’s supporters urged him to stay. According to Palestinian law, the speaker of the PLC, Hamas’s Abdel Aziz Dweik, is supposed to assume the position of President if Abbas resigns.

Constrained diplomatically by disunity within

The disunity at the root of the elections problem is also at the heart of Abbas’s decision-making dilemmas at the wider diplomatic level. Over the last two decades, Abbas has pursued the diplomatic path with Israel and he condemned the Second Intifada at its height. According to pollster Khalil Shikaki, Palestinian public support for Abbas and for Fatah increased in the aftermath of the faction’s Sixth General Conference in August, at the expense of Hamas and its Gaza-based political leader, Ismail Haniyeh.[v]

However since then, Abbas has come under increasing domestic pressure.  He was heavily criticised following his initial consent to delay pushing for international action on the Goldstone report, which he then reversed.  Pressure grew on him as the US acknowledged Israeli concessions in order to try to jumpstart negotiations.  Even though Israel has not agreed to a US demand for a complete settlement freeze, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave Israel credit for agreeing to ‘restraint’ in the settlements in order to get talks moving. The Palestinians perceived this as an American u-turn.

Abbas continues to face a diplomatic dilemma, exacerbated by the split with Hamas.  If Abbas agrees to negotiations with Israel without Israel agreeing to a complete settlement freeze, he will be castigated by his rivals for having climbed down. If he continues to refuse to negotiate, the PA may be perceived internationally as being obstructive. The Hamas leadership could exploit this too, because in Palestinian eyes, it is their movement, not Fatah, which offers the authentic voice of ‘muqawama’ (resistance).

Is ‘reconciliation’ on the cards?

Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman has led multiple rounds of inter-factional talks this year, and there is support for a deal on the Palestinian street. But a national unity power-sharing between Hamas and Fatah, akin to the short-lived 2007 Mecca Agreement, is not on the cards. In a sense, the notion of ‘national reconciliation’ is misleading.  The differences between the two camps are ideological and cultural as well as political.  They have contrasting outlooks towards Israel and violent struggle but also competing visions of Palestinian society itself. Western-backed Fatah represents secular nationalism. Hamas promotes radical-Islamist ideals, falls within Iranian and Syrian spheres of influence, and is ideologically opposed to recognition of Israel.

Cairo is conscious of the depth of division and has focused its efforts towards reaching the minimal cooperation required for elections. Even this has proved to be gruelling. It is trying to establish a committee that could orchestrate elections next year, whilst Gaza and the West Bank would continue to be governed separately in the interim. There is speculation that an arrangement along these lines might emerge before the end of the year, but hopes of an agreement have been raised before and failed to materialise. Even if there is an agreement, whether both sides are really able to cooperate on holding a free and fair election is far from assured.[vi]

Towards a Palestinian state?

The PA has made substantial advances in building credible and effective institutions in the West Bank, thanks largely to external assistance and the roles played by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, US General Keith Dayton and Quartet special envoy Tony Blair. Israel has cooperated with these efforts. The PA and Israel have a shared interest, supported by western and Arab states, to contain the Hamas threat.  The security and economic climate in the West Bank has improved dramatically compared to a few years ago.

It is at the top-down level that progress is lacking, and here, again, there is crossover with the elections issue and internal disunity. On the one hand, Palestinian analysts note that if Abbas is unable to present a viable peace track to his people, Fatah’s chances of winning an election may be diminished.[vii]  On the other hand, any sign of concessions by Abbas in negotiations with Israel could play into the hands of Palestinian rejectionist elements.

Israelis increasingly recognise that stagnation is not in Israel’s interest. There is an ongoing policy debate about what is pragmatically achievable and in what timeframe, but centre ground consensus in Israel about the need for diplomatic progress is strong. Kadima Knesset member and former IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz, last week promoted a new peace plan which places him firmly among the growing list of prominent Israeli politicians who stress the urgency of making progress towards a two state solution.

In Israel, Netanyahu has seen his public support grow since he declared readiness to negotiate the two-state solution, according to a new Haaretz poll.[viii]  His recent public statements are marked by heightened efforts to convey his sincerity. He stated in a speech to North American Jewish leaders last week: ‘My goal is not negotiations for negotiations sake.  My goal is to reach a peace treaty, and soon.  But to get a peace agreement, we must start negotiating.’  Last week, Blair repeated his belief that Netanyahu is serious.

Despite this, in the absence of progress on the diplomatic front, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told the Al-Ayyam newspaper over the weekend that the Palestinians would push to declare unilateral statehood.  Netanyahu has responded to this initiative by saying that Israel will take its own independent steps if this is to be the case, affirming that in his view there is no substitute for negotiations.[ix] 

Conclusion

There is a pressing need to advance the peace process but political deadlock, heavily influenced by the internal Palestinian dynamics, are shrouding the situation in uncertainty. Fatah’s rivalry with Hamas means that Abbas faces an acute dilemma with regard to even commencing peace talks. This does not bode well for his capability to make the compromises necessary to move forward once those talks have begun. Whilst the international community is committed to restarting peace negotiations, which remain an essential component for progress, these complexities need to be factored into a realistic assessment of what is achievable.

 

---

[i] See, for instance, Robert Satloff, ‘Stuck in Neutral? Diagnosing the Impasse in the Middle East Peace Process’, PolicyWatch #1601, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 13 November 2009; Elliott Abrams, ‘Next, Locusts?’, ‘The abject failure of the Obama administration’s Middle East policy’, The Weekly Standard, 16 November 2009.

[ii] Mohammed Assadi and Douglas Hamilton, ‘Plan B for Abbas – Palestinian unity or bust’, Reuters, The Jordan Times, 30 October 2009.

[iii] Mohammed Assadi, ‘Abbas to accept Palestinian election delay – officials’, Reuters, 13 November 2009.

[iv] For wide-ranging discussions of Abbas’s statement, see Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel, ‘PA President Abbas pressures U.S.: I will not run for re-election in January’, Haaretz, 6 November 2009 and ‘Abbas Makes His Move’, New York Times, 5 November 2009.

[v] Polls showed the gap between Abbas and Haniyeh widening from 5 percentage points to 14 percentage points and for Fatah against Hamas from 8 percentage points to 16 percentage points. Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 13-15 August 2009.

[vi] ‘Dweik: Hamas will sign Egyptian proposal by end of month’, Maan News Agency, 11 November 2009; ‘Hamas is keen on achieving national reconciliation’, 14 November 2009; ‘Hamas is keen on achieving reconciliation’, Al Qassam, 14 November 2009.

[vii] See, for instance, ‘The Peace Process, Circa 2009’, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 17 October 2009.

[viii] According to the poll, 43 percent of Israelis consider Netanyahu “most appropriate to serve as prime minister”, as opposed to 27 percent who voted for Kadima chair Tzipi Livni.  Yossi Verter, ‘Haaretz poll: 57% of Israelis support plan to talk to Hamas’, Haaretz, 13 November 2009.

[ix] ‘Netanyahu: If Palestinians act unilaterally, so will Israel’, Haaretz, 15 November 2009.