Gaza withdrawal a test for Palestinian statehood

By Wafa Amr

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – As Palestinians prepare to celebrate
Israel’s pending pullout from Gaza, their leaders face the
formidable challenge of proving they can run a territory
peacefully.

For any chance of winning statehood, they must dim the
appeal of violence by bringing good government and economic
hope to Gaza while obtaining a halt to Israeli settlement of
the much larger West Bank, officials and diplomats say.

“This is a test. We need to convince the world we deserve a
state that would be a stabilizing factor in the region. If we
fail, history will not forgive the Palestinians,” said Jibril
al-Rajoub, security adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s unilateral
“Disengagement Plan” entails removing all 21 Jewish settlements
in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank in an operation due to
begin on Aug. 17 and projected to last a month.

Palestinians welcome Israel’s exit from Gaza. But they fear
Sharon designed the plan as a tradeoff for permanent control
over much of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, occupied
along with Gaza by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Most Palestinians expect the pullout to go smoothly given a
six-month-old truce heeded by most militants and shored up this
week by a religious edict from the top Palestinian Muslim
cleric against any disruption of the process.

But afterward, Palestinian officials say it may be hard to
restrain militants if Israel continues expanding main West Bank
settlements and keeps Gaza sealed off from the world on
security grounds, dashing hopes of reviving its economy.

CONFIDENCE GAP

“Abbas must narrow the confidence gap between him and the
people by bringing order and development to Gaza. But if Israel
doesn’t help by freezing West Bank settlement, Abbas’s policy
of non-violence will fail,” a Western diplomat said.

“Our test is freighted with questions,” said Palestinian
cabinet minister Mohammad Ishatyeh. “We are not the key players
in this pullout. Our success will hinge entirely on the
cooperation of Israel and the international community.”

Israel says Abbas is strong enough to crush militants,
including the main opposition Islamist faction Hamas that is
sworn to smashing the Jewish state, but lacks the will. Sharon
rules out talks on statehood before militants are disarmed.

Abbas’s aides believe any such crackdown while West Bank
settlement surges ahead would discredit Abbas among his people
and trigger civil war. They accuse Sharon of posing terms for
peace talks designed to ensure they do not happen.

European and Arab diplomats say Abbas has been damaged in
dealings with militants by U.S. acceptance of Sharon’s view
that West Bank settlement blocs are vital to Israeli security
and need never be ceded for a final peace deal.

For now, Abbas’s aides are focusing on talks with Israel to
give Gaza the means of reversing an economic meltdown and
ensure the limited pullout establishes a vital link with the
West Bank.

Palestinians want Israel to relinquish control of Gaza’s
border with Egypt, its sole outlet to the Arab world, and to
give a green light for a Gaza seaport, airport and a trade and
travel corridor across Israel to the West Bank.

“The Palestinian Authority needs to claim ownership of the
withdrawal by negotiating elements of disengagement now so that
Gaza doesn’t end up a ghetto,” Palestinian analyst and pollster
Khalil Shikaki told Reuters.

FATAH TURMOIL BOGS DOWN ABBAS

Abbas’s toughest problem may be the decay of his mainstream
Fatah party into factions pitting elderly veterans against
young gunmen as well as Hamas, which has carved out de facto
power in Gaza where Palestinian Authority institutions have
broken down.

He wants to import better arms and equipment for security
forces as part of his law-and-order drive directed against
lawless Fatah militias and Hamas gunmen. But Israel refuses,
saying security men have often doubled as militants. “The
Authority has the capacity to impose law and order but it has
very weak political leadership and this could lead to civil
war,” Shikaki said. “Hamas has managed to create a state within
a state in Gaza since the Authority has proven impotent.”

Popular perceptions that the Authority is fragmenting
invite anyone with a gun to challenge it, creating an
atmosphere of anarchy. Hamas routed police in gunbattles in
July after officers tried to stop renewed rocket fire on
Israelis.

Abbas has invited Hamas to join a unity government to
foster order, solidify the truce and broaden his peacemaking
mandate. Hamas rebuffed the offer as a sham, saying it wanted a
general election first it hopes will deliver it a real share of
power.

Hamas says it is concerned Abbas will use force against it
to exclude Islamists from decision-making after the withdrawal,
but that it will continue to rule out disarming.

Parliamentary elections have been slated for January. Polls
suggest Fatah will re-emerge as the largest party. But Hamas
could gain a third of the vote, riding a public backlash over
the perceived corruption and ineffectiveness of Fatah.

That could be enough for Hamas to demand a veto over peace
steps with Israel and possibly a place in an Authority cabinet.

“We do not want to rule alone (even if) we win a majority.
We favor a coalition. There are many complications that would
prevent us forming a government on our own at this stage,”
Ghazi Hamad, editor of the Hamas newspaper al-Risala, told
Reuters.

Any surge toward power by Hamas, which the United States
and Israel brand a terrorist group not to be dealt with, would
probably put any possible peace process in deep freeze.

In any case, Western and Arab diplomats believe a
mistrustful Israel will avoid any “final status” peace talks
with Palestinians in the near future after the pullout.

This would make it harder for Abbas to maintain the
ceasefire and award Hamas an edge in coming power struggles.