The
Men Who Would Sell Palestine
By Ali Abunimah
27 April, 2003
David Hirst, the veteran correspondent for The Guardian, reported in
1996 on fears in Yasser Arafat's entourage that the Israelis would turn
the Palestinian security forces against the Palestinian leader. According
to Hirst, a Palestinian official said that the Israelis had so "penetrated"
the security forces "that some of its leaders now depend on them
at least as much as they do on Arafat. The time is coming when the Israelis
decide that Arafat - who argues too much - has served his purpose."
The official told Hirst that, "the Israelis are grooming Abu Mazen
[Mahmoud Abbas], one of the secret negotiators of the Oslo accord, to
take Mr. Arafat's place, and that they will count on Muhammad Dahlan,
head of Preventative Security in Gaza, to lead the putsch."
Seven years
ago such fears and infighting could be dismissed as so much paranoia.
And yet, as I write this, Arafat clings desperately to the rubble of
his bombed-out headquarters, the Israelis having declared him "irrelevant,"
while the US- and Israeli-chosen Palestinian 'prime minister' Mahmoud
Abbas is locked in a dispute with Arafat over the formation of a cabinet.
The key sticking point is Abbas' insistence that Dahlan be placed in
charge of security. Arafat's paranoia appears in this case to have been
justified. Even the most level-headed observer is tempted to see in
this a conspiracy.
Abbas and Dahlan
have been enjoying a positive press in the United States recently. The
Los Angeles Times noted that Abbas' supporters hope he "will help
Arafat's Fatah party break loose from a corruption-plagued past."
As for Dahlan, a New York Times editorial called him the "tough
Gazan," who "has pressed Mr. Arafat to crack down on Hamas
and other militant groups," and noted that "he has often dealt
with Israeli and American officials, who hold him in high respect."
This gentle
treatment coincides with the fact that chief among the supporters are
Tony Blair, and George W. Bush, who declared himself "pleased"
at Abbas' appointment. It is impossible to find any mention of the fact
that Abbas and Dahlan are steeped in the corruption that plagued the
Palestinian Authority from its inception. In an earlier column, I recalled
Abbas' $1.5 million villa built amidst the squalor of Gaza. Dahlan too,
built himself a villa, one so lavish that it began to sink into Gaza's
sandy soil, and had to be propped up with special supports.
A 1997 investigative
report by Ha'aretz journalists Ronen Bergman and David Ratner ("The
Man who swallowed Gaza," April 4, 1997), detailed the sources of
some this wealth. Dahlan, according to this report and numerous others,
profited from a monopoly on the import of gasoline into Gaza. Palestinian
gas station owners were forced to buy product at inflated prices and
Dahlan's Preventive Security Service spent much of its time protecting
Israeli tankers.
More serious
perhaps -- and equally forgotten -- is that Dahlan's security services
were the target of numerous allegations from Palestinian and international
human rights organizations of serious abuses including torture.
The extent of
Palestinian Authority corruption, in which Abbas and Dahlan are marinated,
was known from the first days. However, in the 'good old days' of Rabin,
Peres, Clinton and 'Special Middle East Coordinator' Dennis Ross, the
only people who spoke about it vociferously and consistently were Palestinians
themselves, and, ironically right-wing Israeli opponents of the Oslo
accords who seized on any information to discredit their enemies. Ross,
when asked last year by the Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick why the
Clinton administration never showed much concern about this corruption,
responded, "Well, it wasn't as if the Israelis were particularly
concerned about the problem." Ross was of course concerned only
with Israel's priorities, and those were summed up by Rabin's hope that
Arafat would fight "terrorism" without interference from Israel's
"Supreme Court and the human rights group B'Tselem." The fact
that Palestinian legislators and activists were going to jail or worse
merely for speaking of the corruption never spurred the United States
to act.
The tolerance
of corruption extended also to the role of Israelis. Last year, Israel's
Ma'ariv newspaper sparked a furor when it revealed the extent of the
business and financial relationship between Arafat and his cronies,
and Yossi Ginossar, the former head of interrogations for Israel's Shin
Bet. Ginossar is accused among other things, of managing secret Swiss
bank accounts for Arafat. Israel's attorney general has launched a full-scale
criminal investigation into what many Israelis view as treason. Yet
the 1997 Ha'aretz report alleged that Ginossar was already acting as
a personal go-between for Arafat's closest associates in corrupt deals,
and taking five percent from each side. What took the Israelis so long
to find their outrage?
Under the guise
of "reforming" the Palestinian Authority for the sake of "peace,"
we are witnessing Rabin's formula being resurrected with only the names
changed. The vague promises of the Oslo accords have been replaced with
the vague promises of the "Road Map." Abbas is being promoted
not because he represents the future for the Palestinians, but precisely
because he represents a past in which private profit and privilege were
secretly traded for fundamental rights and interests of the Palestinian
people.