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Hamas acted on a very real fear of a US-sponsored
coup
Washington's fingerprints are all over the chaos that has hit
Palestinians. The last thing they now need is an envoy called
Blair
By Jonathan Steele
06/25/07 "The
Guardian" ---
Friday June 22, 2007 -- Did they jump or were they pushed?
Was Hamas's seizure of Fatah security offices in Gaza
unprovoked, or a pre-emptive strike to forestall a coup by Fatah?
After last week's turmoil, it becomes increasingly important to
uncover its origins.
The fundamental cause is, of course, well known. Israel, aided
by the US, was not prepared to accept Hamas's victory in last
year's Palestinian elections. Backed by a supine EU, the two
governments decided to boycott their new Palestinian
counterparts politically and punish Palestinian voters by
blocking economic aid. Their policies had a dramatic effect,
turning Gaza even more starkly into an open prison and creating
human misery on a massive scale. The aim was to turn voters
against Hamas - a strategy of stupidity as well as cynicism,
since outside pressure usually produces resistance rather than
surrender.
The policy shocked even moderate western officials like James
Wolfensohn, the former World Bank chief, whom the Americans had
appointed to help Gaza's economy before the Hamas election
victory. "The result was not to build more economic activity but
to build more barriers," he said this week while explaining why
he resigned in disagreement with US and Israeli strategy.
It is also well known that Hamas was as surprised by its
election victory as everyone else and that it offered its rival,
Fatah, a coalition government of national unity. The offer was
refused. If this was done initially out of wounded pride,
Fatah's rejection of Hamas's regularly repeated overtures
increasingly appeared to be coordinated with Washington as part
of the boycott strategy.
Reports have been circulating for months of a more sinister side
to the boycott. According to them, the US decided last year on a
plan to arm and train Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard in a
deliberate effort to confront and defeat Hamas militarily.
Israel has already locked up several dozen Hamas legislators and
mayors from the West Bank. The next stage was to do the same in
Gaza but have Palestinians, rather than Israelis, run the
crackdown.
Arming insurgents against elected governments has a long US
pedigree and it is no accident that Elliott Abrams, the deputy
national security adviser and apparent architect of the anti-Hamas
subversion, was a key player in Ronald Reagan's supply of
weapons to the Contras who fought Nicaragua's elected government
in the 1980s.
Documents doing the rounds in the Middle East purport to have
evidence for Abrams's "hard coup" strategy. One text recounts
Washington's objectives as expressed in US officials'
conversations with an Arab government. These are, among others,
"to maintain President Abbas and Fatah as the centre of gravity
on the Palestinian scene", "avoid wasting time in accommodating
Hamas's ideological conditions", "undermine Hamas's political
status through providing for Palestinian economic needs", and
"strengthen the Palestinian president's authority to be able to
call and conduct early elections by autumn 2007".
The document is dated March 2, less than a month after Saudi
Arabia brokered the Mecca agreement under which Abbas finally
agreed with Hamas on a unity government. The deal upset the
Israelis and Washington because it left Hamas's prime minister
Ismail Haniyeh in charge. The document suggests the US wanted to
sabotage it. Certainly, according to Hamas officials whom a
depressed Abbas later briefed, Abbas was told to scrap Mecca at
every subsequent meeting he has had with Israeli prime minister
Ehud Olmert or with US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and
Abrams.
Most ominously, the document of US objectives outlined a $1.27bn
programme that would add seven special battalions, totalling
4,700 men, to the 15,000 Abbas already has in his presidential
guard and other security forces, which were also to be given
extra training and arms. "The desired outcome will be the
transformation of Palestinian security forces and provide for
the president of the Palestinian Authority to able to safeguard
decisions such as dismissing the cabinet and forming an
emergency cabinet," the document says.
Alastair Crooke, a former Middle East adviser to the EU foreign
policy chief, Javier Solana, and current head of a research
institute in Beirut, points out that Israel blocked some arms
deliveries. It was wary of sending too many into Gaza for fear
Fatah might lose them, as indeed has happened. In this sense,
only part of the plan went ahead. (Britain has played a small
part in helping Abbas's security forces. It has provided about
£350,000 of "non-lethal" equipment this year for protecting the
Karni freight crossing between Gaza and Israel.)
But Crooke says Hamas was irritated that the Mecca deal was
being sabotaged, notably by the refusal of Mohammed Dahlan,
Fatah's long-time Gaza strongman and head of the Preventive
Security Forces, to accept the authority of the independent
interior minister appointed to the unity government. "Dahlan
refused to deal with him, and put his troops on the streets in
defiance of the interior minister. Hamas felt they had little
option but to take control of security away from forces which
were in fact creating insecurity," Crooke says.
Ahmed Yousef, a Hamas spokesman, confirms the movement thought
it had to move fast. In his words, last week's events were
"precipitated by the American and Israeli policy of arming
elements of the Fatah opposition who want to attack Hamas and
force us from office".
While Hamas has successfully blocked the US-Fatah plans for
Gaza, Abbas is trying to implement them in the West Bank by
forming an emergency government. The policy is doomed since the
constitution says such a government can only last 30 days.
Parliament has to renew it by a two-thirds majority, and
parliament is controlled by Hamas. The only sensible policy for
Abbas must be to end the effort to marginalise Hamas. He should
go back to the Mecca agreement and support a unity government.
Even now, Hamas says it is willing to do so.
Where does all this leave the White House idea to involve Tony
Blair as a Middle Eastern envoy? It creates a "coalition of the
discredited" - Bush, Olmert and Blair - and sounds like
something from a satire since Blair has no credibility with
Hamas or most other Palestinians. Better to leave it to the
Saudis to revive the Mecca deal, or wait until Abbas realises he
has fallen into a trap. Neither common sense nor democratic
principles, let alone time, are on Fatah's side.
j.steele@guardian.co.uk
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