Mahmoud Abbas' war against the Palestinian people

By Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 10 August 2007

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7160.shtml

"Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was apparently more
delighted by the banquet prepared for him by the wife of
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat than he was with
meeting President Mahmoud Abbas in Jericho the day before
yesterday," the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported on
its website on 8 August, citing Israel's Channel 10
television station.

Channel 10's correspondent spoke of the "hospitality and
warmth" that marked Abbas' reception of Olmert and his
delegation, noting that "Erekat's wife insisted on
personally preparing and serving" the banquet. Olmert, the
report added, "was unable to conceal his delight and
appetite for the rich food and for the hospitality and
generosity" the Israelis received from their Palestinian
hosts.

Behind all the theater, the results of the meeting were as
meagre as can be expected. Olmert publicly affirmed his
commitment to the "two-state solution," while spokesmen
briefed the press that Israel was not ready to discuss any
fundamental issues, such as borders, halting colonial
settlements, or the rights of refugees. The exercise was
aimed at maintaining the fiction of a "peace process" from
which Abbas will supposedly one day be able to deliver
results.

Yet while he treats Olmert to delicacies in Jericho, Abbas
is doing his best to ensure that Palestinians in Gaza
continue to suffer and starve due to the closure of the
commercial and civilian crossings and tightened siege
imposed by Israel since Hamas fighters routed US- and
Israeli-backed Fatah militias in early June.

A source who works directly with Abbas' ministers in the
unelected and illegal "emergency government" of Salam
Fayyad in Ramallah wrote to me that "Abbas has explicitly
ordered the Rafah border to close and remain closed with
the purpose of strangling Hamas." The source, who was
motivated to speak out by his outrage, but requested
anonymity because he fears reprisals, added that Abbas "is
ready to see his own people die for his political games."
The source added that while Abbas' official public
relations pronouncements are that the border is to be
opened at once, "what is going on in the meetings is the
opposite."

What my source confirmed had already been revealed by
Haaretz in a 8 July article that reported that Abbas
"asked Israel and Egypt prevent the movement of people
from Egypt to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border
crossing" and that "Abbas and a number of his aides asked
that the request not be made public" ("Abbas asks for
Rafah Gaza-Egypt crossing point to remain closed,"
Haaretz, 18 July 2007).

Abbas' policy of colluding with Israel to starve his own
people is having its effect. The United Nations agency for
Palestinian refugees UNRWA issued a desperate appeal for
the borders of the besieged strip to be reopened. Filippo
Grandi, the agency's deputy commissioner general warned in
a 9 August statement that within weeks Gaza could "be one
hundred percent aid dependent" (Press Statement by Filippo
Grandi, Deputy Commissioner General, UNRWA, Gaza City, 9
August 2007.)

All 600 garment factories in Gaza have shut down because
they cannot import raw materials and 90 percent of
factories involved in the construction industry have
closed, the BBC reported on 9 August, citing figures given
by the UN. As many as 120,000 workers in Gaza are likely
to lose their jobs, and even UNRWA and the United Nations
Development Programme have had to halt construction of
shelters for refugees. ("UN warns over Gaza economic woe,"
BBC News, 9 August 2007.)

In what might be a tacit admission of Abbas' complicity,
Grandi made a direct appeal not only to Israel, but to the
"Palestinian authorities" to take "immediate steps to open
up the Karni Crossing, to imports and exports, as well as
humanitarian goods." He added, "Only this will allow the
little that remains of Gaza's economy to survive."

As the people in Gaza suffer strangulation, thousands of
their relatives were stranded in desperate conditions on
the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, refugees
exiled even from their place of exile. Many are people in
poor health who went to Egypt to seek medical treatment,
and at least 31 have died while waiting to return home.

On the political front, Hamas has continued to react to
Abbas' escalating war with equanimity, issuing daily calls
for dialogue, reconciliation and a return to a national
unity government. Despite the siege, it has also continued
to hold its own successfully, paying the wages of
thousands of government employees whose salaries Abbas and
Fayyad had confiscated.

Abbas, while literally embracing the occupier and
colonizer, has continued to angrily reject any
intra-Palestinian dialogue. Yet it is doubtful how long
this position will be tenable. Abbas, under a veto from
the Bush administration refuses to talk, even as some
senior Israelis have started to advocate direct dialogue
with Hamas.

One of those is Efraim Halevy, the former head of Israel's
Mossad intelligence agency. Speaking to the Wall Street
Journal, Halevy said, "I don't say we should talk to Hamas
out of sympathy to them. I have no sympathy whatsoever for
Hamas. I think they are a ghastly crowd ... But I have not
seen anybody who says the Abbas-Fayyad tandem is going to
do the job" ("What if Israel Talked to Hamas?
Ex-Spymaster's Plan, Seen as Heresy by Some," Wall Street
Journal, 1 August 2007).

Halevy expressed doubts about the US strategy of trying to
prop up Abbas and isolate Hamas, calling it "political
fantasy." He called for Israel to negotiate a long-term
truce with Hamas, something the movement has already
offered. Halevy, the Journal reported, "is part of a small
band of public figures who now say that, because of
Hamas's growing clout, it is becoming impossible to avoid
such a dialogue. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell
joined the group in a recent interview with National
Public Radio."

Unashamed, Abbas carries on; he recently received another
large arms shipment -- 1,000 rifles -- coordinated by
Israel and Jordan to strengthen his militias against
Hamas. All these provocations are having an effect. While
Hamas' civilian leadership continues to offer olive
branches, the rank and file of the resistance movement are
showing signs that their patience is wearing thin.

Following Fayyad's recent call for all resistance forces
to unilaterally disarm in front of the occupation, and the
subsequent publication of his "government program" that
omitted mention of armed struggle, the Palestinian
Resistance Committees (PRC) issued an ominous warning. In
a 28 July press conference a spokesman for the group -- a
coalition of resistance fighters from various factions
including Fatah, responsible for capturing the Israeli
prisoner of war Gilad Shalit -- "dubbed Abbas, Fayyad and
other members of the government the 'Ramallah traitors'
and vowed they will receive an 'identical response as to
the Israeli occupation'" ("PRC: Fayad and 'Ramallah
traitors' targets for attack," Haaretz, 28 July 2007).

Meanwhile, another Hamas member, Mou'aiad Bani Odeh, 22,
died in an Israeli hospital after being transferred from
al-Juneid prison, run by Abbas' forces. Bani Odeh, Hamas
alleges, succumbed to injuries resulting from torture
inflicted by Abbas' men, who continue their campaign of
repression against Hamas members throughout the West Bank.
("Hamas member dies after being tortured in jail run by
Palestinian Authority," Ma'an News, 10 August 2007.)

The signs are that unless Abbas and his entourage reverse
course and end their war against the Palestinian people,
the apparent calm that now prevails will soon be shattered
by another storm.

Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and
author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the
Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.