September May Be Stormy – or Not

Palestinian officials promise that demonstrations in support of the unilateral declaration of independence will remain non-violent.

By DANIEL RUBENSTEIN
Palestinian rally 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Palestinian rally 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
You Israelis are really exaggerating about what will happen in September,” says Ghassan al-Khatib, the minister responsible for public information in Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad’s cabinet.
Interviewed in his offices in Ramallah, he tries to lower the heat surrounding the impending Palestinian bid for recognition at the UN.
“We don’t know what exactly we will do in the General Assembly, or whether we’ll go to the Security Council,” al-Khatib continues.
“What is clear is that we are asking for international recognition. We’ve had 20 years of direct negotiations that haven’t led to a settlement.
We Palestinians have fulfilled our obligations – stopping terror, for example – but the process has failed. We have to put an end to this situation, so we are going back to the international community to ask for help.”
Al-Khatib was once head of the Palestinian Communist Party, which changed its name to the People’s Party. He was part of the Fatah coalition, headed by Yasser Arafat, in the peace negotiations. He has served as a minister in several administrations, as well as vice-president of Bir Zeit University. Because he had also headed the Palestinian Press Office in East Jerusalem for many years, Fayyad asked him to head the government Public Information Office (PIO) in Ramallah.
The PIO is located in the Masyoun neighborhood in southern Ramallah. A visit there might surprise those who mostly hear about poor Palestinians who are barely surviving. A short drive through the streets of Masyoun and the neighborhoods to the west and north of the old city center reveals a tremendous building spurt. Entire streets have become construction sites for huge, elegant homes and new hotels (the most recently opened belongs to the Movenpick chain). Construction is seen everywhere – high-rises, residences and offices for the nascent high-tech industry.
For an entire hour, I stood at the PIO entrance, watching the busy traffic. Almost all of the cars were new models; quite a few were luxury cars or SUVs.
Palestinian journalists provide me with the standard explanation for this wealth: Ramallah is a bubble, the exception that proves the rule. And you can see the rule in Ramallah, too – just go down to the poor, crowded neighborhoods of al-Amari and Kadoura in the center of town or to the refugee camps of Jilazoun and Qalandiya.
Al-Khatib, his colleagues and the Palestinian media are very familiar with what they regard as the exaggerated Israeli panic over what might happen in September.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak referred to September as a “diplomatic tsunami”; Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called for cutting off relationships with the PA, which, he claims, is preparing for “unprecedented bloodshed”; and most recently, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz has suggested immediately ceasing the transfer of monies that Israel collects for the PA (in particular, customs duties that are collected by Israel and transferred to Ramallah, in accordance with the Oslo Accords). And if all that weren’t enough, the security establishment is discussing the redeployment of the IDF come September.
SAYS AL-KHATIB, “WE ARE STILL discussing what we will do, but we are not interested merely in diplomatic maneuvers. We are asking for the support of the masses. And for that reason, we have set September 20 as a day of demonstrations – non-violent demonstrations – throughout the West Bank.”
The Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency has reported on recent meetings in Ramallah between US representatives and heads of the Palestinian security services to discuss how the PA will ensure that these demonstrations do not turn into violent confrontations with the IDF or the settlers. Palestinian newspapers are reporting that the demonstrations are supposed to take place in the city centers, as far as possible from checkpoints and settlements.
In Ramallah, for example, the demonstration will take place in Manara Square, in the center of the city, and in Bethlehem they are supposed to be held in the Manger Square in front of the Church of the Nativity.
“There were demonstrations on ‘Naqba Day’on May 15, and they didn’t turn violent,” says al-Khatib. “We are planning quiet and organized demonstrations in September, too.”
Acquaintances in Ramallah agree with al- Khatib’s predictions that the demonstrations will be non-violent. Not thanks to any efforts on the part of the Palestinian security services, but rather because its not clear if the crowds will even turn out. One of the Hamas websites, known for mocking the PAin Ramallah, reads, “Why should we even come to the demonstrations that you are calling for in September? For 20 years, you’ve led the Palestinians along a deceitful and misguided path. You’ve made mistakes one after the other. Now you have to sleep in the bed you made, and we’re not going to be there with you.”
Despite the hostile relations between the PA and Hamas, PA President Mahmoud Abbas phoned the head of Hamas in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, to wish him well during the holy month of Ramadan. During their polite formal conversation, which was published in the press, they spoke of the need to improve relationships between them and to keep the reconciliation agreement.
Yet al-Khatib believes that the reconciliation agreement has already failed. “At the beginning, we thought that it was pretty clear that Hamas wants reconciliation. The governments in Iran, Syria and Egypt were pressuring them to reach a compromise, and in Gaza they really wanted Egypt to open up the Rafah crossings. But events over the past few months in the Arab world have shown that Hamas’s excitement about the reconciliation has waned.”
According to al-Khatib, these events led Hamas to change its positions. A year ago, Syrian President Bashar Assad wanted, for various reasons, to get rid of the Hamas leadership in Damascus and had forced Hamas’s central figure, Khaled Mashaal, and his colleagues, who reside in Damascus, to act more moderately. And Iran, in an effort to improve its relationships with the new regime in Cairo, tried to pressure Hamas into more conciliatory positions, while in Egypt, thousands had demonstrated in favor of opening up the Rafah crossings.
But the situation is different now. Assad is weak and wants the Hamas leadership to remain in Damascus to curry favor with the opposition Muslim fundamentalists. The Rafah crossing is back to where it was during the last days of the Mubarak regime; despite their promises, the Egyptians have not opened it up to allow trucks and goods to pass through and open it only occasionally for individuals with special permits, such as students.
The hostility has returned. Hamas continues to harass and persecute Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip and the security forces in Ramallah are arresting Hamas activists.
Several times, Abbas has tried to arrange a meeting in Gaza, but the Hamas leadership puts him off each time, offering various excuses and claiming that the timing isn’t right, that the security risk is too high, and so on. According to Hamas Internet sites, a Fatah investigative committee has allegedly discovered that it was Muhammad Dahlan who poisoned Yasser Arafat as part of a plan for a military coup in Ramallah.
This is an obvious attempt by Hamas to fan the flames of dissension among the leadership in Ramallah. Head of the investigative committee, Azam al-Ahmad, who leads the Fatah faction in the paralyzed Palestinian parliament, has utterly denied these accusations.
The Hamas security apparatus in Gaza wants to maintain relative quiet and is taking precautions to prevent the extremist jihadi organizations from firing missiles into Israel – at least in this sense, Hamas is a partner to Abbas’s attempts to maintain quiet on the West Bank. But it doesn’t seem likely that Hamas activists will pay attention to the calls issued by the PA in Ramallah to participate in the demonstrations in September. And without active Hamas participation, it’s hard to imagine that there will be any large-scale demonstrations.
DESPITE FORECASTS THAT SEPTember will not bring any dramatic or violent events, it is not inconceivable that things will turn out differently.
Revolutions in the Arab world and the long years of Israeli control over the Palestinian territories have taught us that even quiet demonstrations can spin out of control.
Analysis of the demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo, for example, prove that the police did not initially intend to open fire on the demonstrations, yet when the unarmed masses charged the police and army, they felt that their lives were in danger and opened fire.
The bloody events at the beginning of the second intifada, in the fall of 2000, began as mass demonstrations but quickly deteriorated into violent battles following two unexpected events: the lynching of two Israeli soldiers who blundered into Ramallah by a crowd of Palestinians; and the shooting of Mohammed al-Dura, the child who died in his father’s arms at the Netzarim junction in the southern Gaza Strip.
The situation escalates when the context and the specific circumstances are right. In the year 2000, the context was the failure of the Camp David summit between Arafat and prime minister Ehud Barak. The Palestinians were deeply frustrated by the dead-end in the diplomatic negotiations. According to a popular Palestinian folk saying, “Water stagnating in a puddle for a long time is filthy and starts to stink.” It needs to be stirred.
And what is the current political context? We’re in deadlock again, accompanied by mutual recriminations and a sense that the Oslo Accords are all but dead. Definitely similar to the stagnant waters in that puddle that need to be stirred.
The Palestinians intend to conduct a comprehensive political campaign that will lead to condemnation and boycotts of Israel and international isolation. But they have no interest in violent confrontations, and so it is likely that September will bring a diplomatic tsunami but little more.