As it enters its fifth year, the Intifada is taking an increasingly militarised form and changing facts on the ground. Al-Ahram Weekly examines where the Intifada is heading Still seeking a vision It has been Sharon's year, and so will be the next without a fundamental change of Palestinian strategy, governance and policy, writes Graham Usher in Jerusalem One Israeli analyst dubbed 2004 "the year of the initiative". He was referring to Ariel Sharon's decision to dispense with even the illusion of a "peace process" ("roadmap", "political horizon", etc) in favour of his unilateral and entirely military plan to disengage from the Gaza interior and four West Bank settlements. Faced with opposition from his Likud Party and the settlers it is by no means clear disengagement will happen. It is clear the new turn brought to a head internal Palestinian dynamics that have long simmered beneath the surface of the Intifada, now entering its fifth year. These have little to do with a strategy to end the occupation or improve terms of negotiation (once the stated "reasons" for the uprising). They are rather the progressive collapse of the Palestinian Authority as governing, central authority and the demise of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction as a coherent, even vaguely unified movement. It is an open question whether these were Sharon's intentions behind his plan: it's certain they have so far been its Palestinian outcomes. The most public example of the collapse came in Gaza in July, when one segment of the PA's security forces took up arms against another over Arafat's appointment of his nephew, Musa, as their overall commander. But the critique through arms wasn't confined to Gaza. In June, militiamen from the Fatah- affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (AMB) in Jenin seized its then governor, Haidar Irshad, allegedly for "corruption". He was then dragged, humiliated and tried in the town centre "like a collaborator", said one Fatah leader. A few weeks later the headquarters of his successor was burned down for not dispensing "jobs to the fighters". Both men were rescued only through the intervention of Arafat. Irshad has fled the country. In Nablus, the "resistance" has collapsed into a myriad of rival AMB militias, sponsored by this or that PA official or foreign power (with Hizbullah, Iran and Syria the most often cited suspects), and fighting for rule in their shrinking realms of the Old City and the refugee camps. Here too the struggle has little to do with reform, still less the Intifada. It has everything to do with jobs, patronage and protection and who should receive them. Amidst this turmoil an "armed Intifada" of sorts continues, with the AMB and other militias dispatching younger and younger "martyrs" on suicidal missions that increasingly result in their deaths rather than anyone else's. Whatever Palestinian (and Arab) claims to the contrary, it is clear that the combination of Israel's wall, the re- activation of its informers' networks and its ruthless incursion and assassination policies has curbed the uprising. Palestinian deaths are now running at between 40 and 60 a month. "Revenge" operations are becoming fewer and further between. The "balance of fear" is now overwhelmingly on one side. In Gaza, a classic guerrilla war is still possible, with the militias occasionally mounting spectacular attacks on soldiers and settlements. But the cost to their people is enormous. In May -- following two ambushes that killed 13 soldiers -- Israel launched a ferocious blitz on Rafah that left over 40 Palestinians dead, 56 homes obliterated and over 1,000 people displaced, swelling a Rafah homeless population that already stood at 12,000. That onslaught was eventually called off due to an international outcry. But only slightly lesser Israeli assaults have continued in Beit Hanoun, Shijiyieh, Jabalyia and Khan Yunis, with the minimal of protest. Against the chaos in Fatah and the PA, Hamas appears to shine like a beacon, buoyed by its rising popular appeal and the belief that Sharon's "disengagement" represents a victory for its strategy of armed resistance. But Hamas has also incurred huge losses this year, not only through Israel's assassination of such leaders as Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdul-Aziz Al-Rantisi but also through its reach, which now apparently extends to the very heart of Damascus. Hamas is an underground movement, in Syria no less than in Gaza. It is also looking for an exit. This could be seen in its political -- as opposed to rhetorical -- response to the disengagement. While vowing to up the military ante ahead of any Israeli pullout, Hamas signalled that it was ready to observe a reciprocal ceasefire during the disengagement in return for a share of power in any new Palestinian administration in Gaza. It has also announced its readiness to participate in forthcoming municipal and -- in all likelihood -- parliamentary elections, with all the collective restraints such participation entails. The time has come, in other words, to translate military losses into political gains. There is a virtual Palestinian consensus that new local, national and presidential elections are now perhaps the only means the PA has to redeem popular legitimacy in its governance and stem the drift to collapse. It is less clear they will happen, despite the PA's decisions to launch a new registration of voters and hold 36 municipal elections in December. They will almost certainly face Israeli and US obstruction, and not only in occupied East Jerusalem. Neither Washington nor Sharon has any interest in a suffrage that will grant Arafat a new lease of presidential life or give Hamas a stake in government. There is also reluctance among many in the present Palestinian leadership, aware that their time will come once Palestinians are allowed freely to pass judgement on their performance. Others point out that elections will serve only to empower Hamas or cause Fatah to divide into rival lists, with the risk of violence between them. Nor is Arafat likely to tolerate a parliamentary vote without a presidential one. Still, all are aware that should the PA renege again on its commitment to new elections it may sever its last remaining shred of legitimacy to its people. Nor will elections alone solve the crisis, says PA minister and Fatah reformist, Qaddura Fares, even though he believes elections now are "absolutely necessary because there can be no reform without them, no real reform". Rather "the main obstacle we face in our struggle is that we have no one strategy or vision. We have different factions and fractions within factions pursuing different strategies." Can Fatah and the other factions agree to a "common policy"? Most believe the only possible one was that nearly agreed between the factions in Gaza in August 2002. This stated that the strategic goal of the Palestinian national struggle was a state in the West Bank and Gaza and a "just resolution" of the refugee question in line with UN resolutions; that resistance, armed and popular, should be confined to these territories; and that a united leadership should be formed pending "new democratic elections" throughout the PA areas. Hamas first approved then rejected the policy, under pressure from its outside leadership and some, like Al-Rantisi, in Gaza. But there are signs of a reappraisal, says Ghazi Hamad, editor of the Islamist weekly Al-Risala. "I think Hamas would now agree to the August document. At the very least they are ready to discuss it anew. This was Yassin's view before his assassination. The August document is the only policy on which all the factions could agree." Were the factions to agree on this policy, embedded in the judgement of their people as expressed through elections, would it make a difference? It might. In July -- just as Fatah was about to fight itself in Gaza -- the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that not only was Israel's West Bank wall illegal in its entirety, but so were its settlements, its "annexation" of East Jerusalem and just about every other facet of its military rule in the occupied territories. One hundred-and-thirty countries at the UN General Assembly agreed with that judgement, including all of the European Union, non-aligned and Arab nations. The message is plain. There is still enormous international support for the Palestinian struggle as long as it is grounded on international law and aimed at ending the "occupation that began in 1967". For the same reasons, there is little support for a Palestinian struggle that indiscriminately kills Israeli civilians, questions Israel's right to exist behind its 1967 lines or for a PA that exhibits neither leadership nor governance for its people. Sharon, clearly, is banking on these last three phenomena prevailing in the Palestinian arena so that he can realise his vision of a long interim arrangement based on Israel's isolation of Gaza and annexation of large swathes of the West Bank. As the Palestinians approach its fourth anniversary, it is time to answer the three long unanswered questions of their Intifada: What is its vision, who mandated it and through what means can it be attained?
