The Night of Infighting Is Not Short

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

I am not trying, with this title, to be alarmist, but rather to give a warning. I have warned again and again, ever since the Madrid Conference of 1991, of infighting, and said that Palestinian infighting was unavoidable and would happen. Many did not listen, and some found in the warning something to mock and met it with derision. But infighting soon broke out between the Palestinian security services, and we soon saw the security services arresting Palestinians and throwing them into prison to meet Israel’s demands. The various factions were alerted to this issue and to what was to be expected, but in truth they were absorbed in currying favor with the Authority, and some of them used to visit Arafat in search of financial support and jobs. The objective truth facing the various factions now — who still row on, far from any scientific treatment of the Palestinian situation — is that they imagine announcements of a ceasefire in the infighting will bring the Palestinian arena back to the years gone by.

Whenever observers think the infighting in Gaza has gone for good, events take them by surprise, and they discover that their calculations were inaccurate. Gaza grows calm for a while and rests a little, then clashes erupt again between the Fatah and Hamas factions. The leaders of the two factions come out before the media with statements about an agreement to withdraw gunmen from the streets, and no sooner do they finish their press conference or their statements than the gunfire starts up again.

Where does the fault lie? Is the Palestinian people so reckless with the sanctity of its cause and the blood of its sons? The reasons do exist, just as recklessness with the people’s fate, with people’s sacrifices, tears, and pains, also exists. What follows are the reasons that lead to this infighting:

There are clear and obvious reasons that lead to this infighting; if it were not between Fatah and Hamas, it would be between Fatah and other factions. The reasons can be summed up as follows:

First: the Oslo Accord and the Taba Agreement, which serves as an elaboration of Oslo, both lay the groundwork for Palestinian infighting. Palestinian infighting is built into the agreements with Israel, because they pit Palestinian against Palestinian; indeed, one of the conditions for the success of these agreements is precisely that Palestinians confront one another. The Oslo Accord states that security coordination aimed at combating terrorism will take place between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, while the Taba Agreement obliges the Palestinian side to pursue terrorism and terrorists, and also obliges it not to hold collaborators and those who cooperate with Israel accountable. On this basis, the Palestinian Authority, in the 1990s, arrested people accused of belonging to Palestinian resistance factions, and I, the writer of this article, was among those subjected to repeated arrest.

This alone is enough to manufacture severe tension among Palestinians, hatred and enmity among people, and to create a cycle of vengeance. Had Hamas and Islamic Jihad not acted wisely at the time, and had they not chosen patience in the face of the Authority’s practices, bloody confrontations would have broken out long ago. The Oslo Accord, and the agreements built upon it, can find no path toward implementation unless the Palestinian Authority carries out this security role. This agreement places Israeli security above Palestinian security; indeed, it disregards Palestinian security for the sake of Israeli security.

Second: the Palestinian security services emerged from the agreements with Israel, and are responsible for pursuing terrorism and terrorists — that is, the Palestinian resistance and the resistance fighters. These security services have previously announced the foiling of martyrdom operations and the dismantling of explosives workshops, and have previously handed mujahideen over to Israel and transferred vast amounts of information to the Israeli security services. For this reason, the Palestinian leadership has always been careful to install, at the head of these services, people with a genuine will to implement the agreements. It was never to be expected that the Palestinian leadership would appoint people committed to resistance to lead the security services, nor would Israel have agreed to anything but the appointment of those it considered suitable for safeguarding its own security. This is why the security services do not really exist to defend Palestinian security, but rather to defend Israeli security.

Every faction defines the national interest in the way it sees as perfectly suited to its own vision and its own particular interests. And I have observed that the members of these factions build up, within themselves, a mutual hatred that is at times even fiercer than their hatred of the Zionist occupation.

Fourth: since 1994, the Palestinian Authority has thrown the door wide open for Zionist intelligence to send weapons and ammunition into the markets of the West Bank and Gaza, to the point that weapons came to be sold openly on street vendors’ stalls in public places. The ignorant and the delinquent (the thugs) in the Palestinian arena rushed to buy these weapons, and it was clear that the Palestinian people was heading toward a real tragedy concerning civil peace. Many people raised their voices demanding that Arafat put a stop to this, but to no avail. It happened repeatedly that these thugs opened fire on people, killing and wounding them, without ever facing punishment from the Palestinian Authority — some of them were even promoted or given special favor.

Fifth: the President of the Palestinian Authority, being a supporter of the Oslo Accord, cannot cooperate on security matters with any Palestinian Interior Minister who wants to establish security and peace independent of the Oslo Accord. If he were to do so, he would first have to dismiss the leaders of the Palestinian security services, and open the way for new leaders who believe in the necessity of correcting the state of Palestinian security. In this particular period, the President of the Authority cannot dismiss any security commander, because all the leaders of the security services are more powerful and more influential than he is, and he knows he would be putting himself at risk if he were to take such a step.

Sixth: Israel and America incite Palestinian infighting, and we know that America supplies Palestinian parties with money and weapons, and Israel has made no secret of the matter, having said repeatedly that it hands Abbas and some Palestinians new weapons.

Seventh: Hamas erred when it formed the government, which would have been better handed over to independents, and it erred when it created the Executive Force. The enemies of Palestine who cooperate with the occupation and receive money from America were delighted with what Hamas did, because they saw in it an opening for thoroughly sabotaging the Palestinian arena through infighting. Hamas was spoken to about this matter, and views and ideas were put to it, but it did not listen. It was told that the street would not distinguish between spies and non-spies once the infighting began, but wisdom was absent.

For it to be possible to stop the Palestinian infighting, there is no escaping the need to eliminate its causes. A televised or ceremonial remedy has no value, and our experience with the Mecca Agreement, which addressed the matter of the shooting while leaving the ground of the blaze itself unexamined, proved clearly to be a failure. The meaning is that the road ahead is long, and conditions give no indication that the leaders of the factions possess the balance needed to achieve calm and cooperation.

Resolving the Palestinian Security Crisis

Professor Abdul-Sattar Kassem

I had wished for my expectations to be disappointed regarding the worsening of the security breakdown in the Palestinian street, and regarding the bloody conflict between Fatah and Hamas, but the objective facts on the ground are far greater than any wishing could overcome. I have put forward many security proposals and plans over time, but I have not found a listening ear, even among the very public that calls for a solution every time it airs its security concerns. I renew here my proposal for restoring internal Palestinian security, and summarize it as follows:

Every weapon carried openly must be regarded as a traitorous weapon. The weapon of resistance is never carried openly;

A weapon licensed by Israel is not a national weapon and must be gotten rid of, one way or another,

Dissolve the Palestinian security services, with the exception of the police force, and dissolve the Executive Force established by the current Palestinian government;

Find employment for the members of the dissolved security services while maintaining their current salaries;

Dismiss the principal police commanders at the level of the West Bank and Gaza and at the level of the governorates, and appoint independent commanders with no ties to the Palestinian factions;

Make the police responsible for civil (internal) security in the West Bank and Gaza;

No person or party has the right to form a private guard force, even at the level of personal bodyguards.

The factions cooperate with the police in disciplining their own members and returning them to the activities they pledged to carry out toward liberation;

National security becomes the prerogative of the resistance factions, and these factions arrange among themselves to establish a joint, secret operations room, entirely separate from the political level.

A Palestinian charter is to be drawn up, on which Palestinians everywhere they may be found can agree, to serve as the compass that guides everyone and by which everyone is held accountable.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “ليل الاقتتال ليس قصيرا” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.