Time to Move out: The
Problem with Mahmoud Abbas and His Authority
By Ramzy Baroud
January 07, 2015 "ICH"
- "Palestine
Chronicle"-
It was the moment many had been waiting for.
On January 2, Palestine’s United Nations
envoy, Riyad Mansour
formally requested membership at the
International Criminal Court (ICC).
“We are seeking justice for
all the victims that have been killed by
Israel, the occupying power,” he said.
There was no explanation
why Palestine’s membership of the Rome
Statue (through which the ICC is governed)
was
delayed in the first place; of why no
justice was ever sought for thousands of
victims in Gaza, and many in the West Bank
and Jerusalem, although such membership
would have been granted much earlier.
In fact, in 2012,
Palestine’s status at the UN was upgraded,
from an observer entity to an ‘observer
state’. The move was largely symbolic, since
it was an attempt at breathing life in the
two-state-solution, which was long dead. But
it had one single practical benefit – the
coveted membership at the ICC. Finally,
Israel could be held accountable for its war
crimes; finally, a measure of justice was
possible.
Shifting Strategy?
Yet, for two years, the
Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas
delayed. Not only did Abbas hesitate and
carry on with the same tired charade of
peace process, but he seemed keen on
ensuring that Palestinian unity, even if
achieved politically,
remained pointless and ineffective.
But isn’t it better late
than never?
Agency France Press
described Abbas’ move as a “shift in
strategy .. away from the US-led negotiation
process.” Indeed, the US seemed peeved by
the move, describing it as
“counterproductive”. It will take some
imagination to consider what a ‘productive’
alternative might be, considering that the
US’ unhinged bias, and
unconditional support of Israel had
emboldened the rightwing government of
Benjamin Netanyahu into carrying out the
most hideous of war crimes.
Yet this is not exactly
about the killing of nearly 2,200
Palestinians, mostly civilians during the
51-day Israeli war on Gaza last summer. Nor
is it about the more than the 400 children
who were killed then. Or even the siege on
the Strip, the occupation and illegal
settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Certainly Abbas had
numerous chances to admonish Israel in the
past, cement unity among his people, use his
leverage with Egypt to at least ease the
siege on Gaza, devise a strategy that is
centered around national liberation (not
state-building of a state that doesn’t
exist), end the ongoing theft of Palestinian
resources by the PA itself, establish a
system of accountability, and so on.
Instead, he kept his faith in Washington,
playing the wait-and-see game of Secretary
of State John Kerry centered on a single
premise: pleading with Netanyahu to change
his ways and freeze settlement construction,
which never happened.
Conventional analysis
suggests that Abbas’s ICC move was the
direct outcome of the expected
failure of a UN Security Council resolution
that was put to vote a few days earlier. The
US, Israel’s main political guardian was,
naturally expected to veto the resolution,
which would have imposed a deadline on
Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian
territories. The US used the veto, and only
eight member states voted in approval. A day
later, Abbas signed the application for the
ICC, among others; the following day, the
application was formally submitted.
But a ‘shift in strategy’
it was not.
Abbas’ Balancing
Act
The current political
strategy of the PA reflects the unique
qualities of Abbas himself, and is a
testimony to his impressive abilities to
find the right political balance, ultimately
aimed at assuring his survival at the helm.
If Abbas’s own political
subsistence largely depends on Israel’s
acquiescent and US backing, one can rarely
imagine a scenario in which Netanyahu and
his war generals are arraigned as war
criminals before the ICC.
It is unconceivable that
Abbas had finally decided to break away from
the restrictive role of being an active
member of the US managed club of Arab
‘moderates’.
To do so, it would mean
that Abbas is ready to risk it all for the
sake of his people, which would be a major
departure from everything that Abbas – the
‘pragmatic’, ‘moderate’ and conveniently
corrupt Arab leader – has ever stood for.
So what is Abbas up to
exactly?
Since the late 1970’s,
Abbas began his quest for an elusive peace
with Israel, which ultimately lead to the
signing of the Oslo accords in Sep 1993. It
was Abbas himself that signed the accords on
behalf of the PLO.
Let alone that the accords
wrought disaster on Palestinians, and failed
to meet a single deadline including the
final status agreement, which was
meant to actualize in May 1999; it
introduced a bizarre culture of
revolutionaries-turned-millionaires,
operating within the confines of militarily
occupied Palestinian territories.
Year after year, the
corrupt PA maintained its privileges as
Israel strengthened its occupation. It was a
massive barter that seemed to suit the
interests of Israel, selected Palestinians,
and of course, the US itself, which, along
with its allies funded the whole scheme.
Ten Years of
Tragedy
Late leader Yasser Arafat
was clearly not suitable for the job
expected of him. Flexible at times as he
was, he still had political boundaries that
he would not cross. In 2003, Abbas, the
‘moderate’ was imposed on Arafat by both
Israel and the US as a prime minister, a
post that was invented with the sole purpose
of containing Arafat’s control. Following a
brief
power struggle, Abbas resigned. Shortly
afterwards, Arafat died from
possible poisoning, and Abbas returned
to power, this time unchallenged.
Abbas’ mandate, starting
January 15, 2004, should have ended in early
2009. But he decided to extend it by another
year, and another, and has since then ruled
over the fragmented, occupied nation, with
the help of Israel, without a shred of
legitimacy, except what he, and his
supporters bestow on him.
It has been almost exactly
a decade since Abbas ruled over
Palestinians. They were years of tragedy,
political failure, economic crisis,
disunity, and unprecedented corruption.
Yes, the 80-year-old
leader has survived, partly because Israel
found him the most flexible of all
Palestinians (he wouldn’t end security
coordination with Israel even after he
himself described as the
genocidal war on Gaza); the Americans
too wanted him to remain in his post, for
there is yet to be an alternative leader,
who places US-Israeli priority ahead of his
own people.
But he also survived
because he used billions of dollars funneled
by international donors to construct a
welfare system, creating a class of
Palestinian Nouveau riche, whose wealth was
a result of the occupation, not despite it.
While the new rich basked in their
underserved wealth, the fate of millions of
Palestinians were tied to pay checks, which
were not the outcome of a productive economy
but international handouts.
While Israel was spared
the burden of looking after the welfare of
the occupied Palestinians as
dictated by the Geneva and other conventions,
it was left with abundance of funds to
expand its illegal settlements.
Somehow it all worked out
for all parties involved, save the
Palestinian people.
The Search for
‘Victory’
In a sense, Abbas was
never really a leader of his people as he
didn’t place Palestinian national priority
as the prime motivator of his action. At
best, he was a political manger, whose
management strategy is predicated on finding
political balances, and catering to those
with greater power and influence.
Following the expiration
of Kerry’s deadline of April 29, 2014 aimed
at reaching a final status agreement, and
another major Israeli war on Gaza that
ignited massive anger in the West Bank,
which is itself on the verge of an uprising,
Abbas’s burden was too heavy to bear.
To create distractions,
and to deny the Gaza resistance any claim on
victory, he began to hunt for his own
‘victory’, which he would then promote back
in Ramallah, amid major fanfare and
celebration of his supporters. With every
such symbolic victory, Palestinians were
inundated with new songs of Abbas’ supposed
heroism, as his mouthpieces traveled the
globe in a desperate attempt to reassert
Abbas, and the PA’s relevance.
And after much of delay
and haggle, Abbas was forced by sheer
circumstance to resort to the ICC, not to
criminalize Israel, but to win political
leverage, and to send a message to Israel,
the US and others that he still matters.
The move to join the ICC
has little to do with the war crimes in
Gaza, and much with Abbas’ growing
unimportance among his allies, but also his
own people.
The problem with Abbas,
however, is bigger than Abbas himself. The
ailment lies in the very political culture
and class that sustained and benefited from
political corruption for over 20 years.
Even when ‘President Abbas’
is shoved aside, due to old age or whatever
else, the malaise will persist; that is
until the Palestinians challenge the very
culture that Abbas has painstakingly
constructed with US money, and an Israeli
nod.
- Ramzy Baroud has
been writing about the Middle East for over
20 years. He is an
internationally-syndicated columnist, a
media consultant, an author of several books
and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com.
He is currently completing his PhD studies
at the University of Exeter. His latest book
is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s
Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).
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