After weeks of internal political turmoil, Palestinians have been struggling to arrive at a consensus regarding a plan of action based on conducting municipal, presidential and parliamentary elections, writes Lamis Andoni Elections, many Palestinians now argue, are the only way to prevent Israel from using an erosion of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as an excuse to implement its own plan for the de facto creation of scattered Palestinian "cantons" -- created by the apartheid wall, the annexation of lands and the permanent cutting off and isolation of the Gaza Strip. "We cannot afford to give Israel the pretext of a Palestinian power vacuum," said a Palestinian leader. But if declaring dates for elections is viewed as a necessary step to prevent Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from implementing his own plan for a final solution -- under the title of unilateral "troop evacuation from Gaza" -- the Palestinian leadership is still far from adopting a clear political strategy. In retrospect, Sharon, by launching his proposal for unilateral troop withdrawal from Gaza, has successfully deepened Palestinian divisions and increased confusion over national strategy. The seemingly waning rebellion, backed by former Security Chief Mohamed Dahlan under the banner of "reforms", underscored how some leaders -- driven by a combination of naked political ambition and despair brought on by Israeli strangulation of the Strip -- have sought to pressure Palestinian acceptance of the Sharon plan. "Some Palestinians have illusions that the Sharon plan can be built on. It is a trap that has thrown many Palestinians into confusion," said Haidar Awadallah, a member of the former communist Palestine People's Party (PPP), reflecting a view that has become an element of a national consensus that Palestinians have been trying to build. In the absence of a unified strategy, many Palestinians in the PLO leadership and the PA have, instead, been pushing for elections, using this as a vehicle to "put the breaks" on the Sharon plan and "cleanse the authority of some symbols of corruption". The Palestinian leadership is said to have tentatively agreed to start a three-month voter registration process by 2 September and urged President Yasser Arafat to declare a date for the presidential and parliamentary elections by the end of February, ie prior to the presumed -- but not guaranteed -- start of the implementation of the Sharon plan. "Arafat was cautiously positive, but we have yet to see if he will deliver," said an official who attended the meeting. Arafat's strong endorsement of the elections proposal is crucial if he is to convince his Fatah movement to accept other groups' demands for proportional representation, ie a "quota system", in the parliamentary and municipal systems. This would guarantee the participation of different Palestinian factions, including Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. US and Israel are also wary that the outcome would either restore Arafat and/or produce "hard-line" dominated Palestinian municipalities and parliaments. Senior American officials have openly raised such concerns with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei at recent meetings in Ramallah and Abu Dees. But elections are considered "a vehicle" that could be part of a strategy that is still obviously lacking. The so-called Sharon plan, which was endorsed by the American administration, leaves Israel in control of the sea, land and air traffic into and out of the tiny Strip. But reactions to the plan have underscored residual resentment in Gaza against the dominance of the political elite of the West Bank. The rebellion -- initiated by the abduction and release of the former and unpopular Public Security Chief Ghazi Al-Jabali and followed by mostly armed protests demanding reforms -- soon emerged as a political attempt to weaken, if not unseat, Arafat and to mount pressure to accept the Sharon plan. Although Dahlan denies that his "criticism" was aimed at unseating Arafat, his statements revealed an unequivocal challenge to the Palestinian leader. But more significantly, Dahlan's statements have revealed that the former heroic figure of the first Palestinian Intifada was pushing a strong political agenda while riding the popular wave of political reforms. In interviews with the media Dahlan likened Sharon's proposal to "the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon". In his view, Sharon was forced to withdraw from Gaza under the blows of the Palestinian Intifada and should be recognised as such. Dahlan's pronouncements, on Al-Arabiya TV and in the Arab press, prompted many Palestinian leaders as well as Arab analysts and observers to accuse him of trying to lead a separate "Republic of Gaza". The former negotiator and chief of the Preventive Security Service invoked an old PLO slogan that "liberating an inch of Palestine" is a stepping-stone towards an independent Palestinian state. Dahlan is not alone in his analysis. The Hamas leadership, at least in the Gaza Strip, shares part of Dahlan's assessment but argues that an Israeli withdrawal would enable the Palestinians to "establish an authority free from the constraints of the Oslo agreements". Obviously Hamas, which has refrained from supporting the Dahlan-backed "reform movement", sees in the Sharon plan an opportunity to play a greater role and wrest power from the PLO leadership in Ramallah. Arafat, partly in reaction to the Hamas position, has been reaching out to the Islamic movement, especially its leadership in the West Bank and abroad, to negotiate their inclusion into "a future national coalition government". Jibril Rjoub, the former Preventive Security chief in the West Bank, who sided with Arafat against Dahlan, announced that talks were under way "to ensure Hamas's participation" in such a government. In an apparent continued attempt to secure public support for acceptance of the Sharon proposal, several newspapers on Monday reported that Marwan Barghouti, the popular Fatah leader who is serving five life terms in an Israeli prison, has authored an initiative on how Palestinians should run Gaza after an Israeli withdrawal. But his wife, Fadwa Barghouti, who has become the spokesperson for thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, said that the thoughts published "were responses that Marwan sent [via lawyers] to questions and consultations by activists and leaders about how to maintain Palestinian national unity in case of an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza". Palestinian divisions, however, go beyond differences over the Sharon plan on how to pursue a strategy to end Palestinian occupation and to deal with American and Israeli initiatives. One example is last year's Geneva Accord, which represented the first unofficial agreement of its kind in which prominent Israelis and Palestinians agreed on the two-state solution as the final outcome of negotiations. This, however, was in return for Palestinian agreement in principle to the annexation of blocs of Israeli settlements and the procurement of Israeli approval for the repatriation of Palestinian refugees, in terms of both scope and numbers. Last week, the Palestinian signatories of the controversial agreement tried unsuccessfully to secure backing from their Israeli counterparts for a joint statement which demanded an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, condemned the West Bank separation wall and stressed that the withdrawal from Gaza be part of the roadmap. The Palestinian theory that the Geneva Accord was a prerequisite for building an Israeli-Palestinian peace camp in contravention of Sharon's policies failed its first test miserably. More than half the Israeli signatories, led by former Israeli Labour Party prime ministerial candidate Amram Metsnaa, strongly defended the Sharon plan as "a dramatic shift in the Likud position that should be built upon". Yossi Beilin led the other half, warning against Sharon's objectives and arguing that the plan "was aimed at obstructing the roadmap". But according to some, the biggest disappointment experienced by the Palestinians was the failure of all Israeli signatories of the Geneva document to speak out against the separation wall, despite the landmark ruling of the International Court of Justice in which it was declared illegal. The Israelis did not necessarily declare their support for the wall, citing Israeli public support for "a preventive measure against Palestinian attacks" to justify their refusal to sign a joint statement against its construction, according to Awadallah, who attended in his capacity as editor-in-chief of Attareeq, a monthly publication of "the Palestinian peace camp". Yet just as "the Israeli peace camp" ignored The Hague ruling, the Palestinian leadership is still reluctant to consider the unprecedented verdict, which delegitimised the Israeli occupation, as a cornerstone for a political strategy. "We have to stop dealing with any proposals based on compromising legitimate and national Palestinian rights as people under occupation. The Hague ruling has changed the equation," said Saleh Raafat, leader of the Palestinian National Democratic Union (FIDA), which has been a strong backer of the Oslo agreements and "peace process". Statements by Awadallah, from the new generation of the PPP, and Raafat, a veteran PLO leader, indicate an important emerging shift towards a clearer consensus partly brought about by The Hague ruling and by Israel's policies. But the Gaza power struggle highlighted that fact that the absence of a clear strategy, not to mention a national consensus, sets the scene for more volatile divisions in the future. While it is true that the crisis in Gaza seems to be ebbing, for the time being at least, and it has been confirmed that Dahlan is seeking reconciliation with Arafat, political divisions are far from eliminated. Such reconciliations, important for internal cohesion, remain limited to the realms of personal interests and a patriarchal system but do not constitute a strategy to counter Sharon's rapid bulldozing of Palestinian lands.
