Mahmoud Abbas
And
The Degeneration Of The Palestinian National Movement
By Jean Shaoul
And Chris Marsden
16 February 2005
World
Socialist Web
The
cease fire announced by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik comes
just weeks after Abbas was elected to office. It demonstrates the degree
to which his ascendancy has been bound up with the ruling Fatah factions
and the Palestinian Authoritys abandonment of any opposition to
the demands of Washington and Tel Aviv.
The cease fire has
been billed as the start to implementing President George W Bushs
Road Map and the eventual establishment of a Palestinian
state. But there was no agreement on when talks would start on the final
status of any Palestinian state, much less the thorny issues of
East Jerusalem and the right of return for the Palestinian refugees.
Sharon, under pressure
from the White House, agreed to end all military action, transfer security
control of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, release
900 prisoners held in Israeli jails over the next three months, and
implement other confidence building measures. But US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice has said that Washington would not pressure
Israel to make further concessions until after the disengagement
plan to withdraw settlers from Gaza and four outposts in the West
Bank was completed. Most importantly any further moves will be dependent
on Abbas suppressing all armed resistance to Israel, reining in the
militant Islamic groups and centralising the various security services
under his control. Rice even said that Washington would appoint a former
US general to supervise the reform of the Palestinian security forces.
Abbas has already
made strenuous efforts to appease Israel. Since coming to power on January
9, he has sought to persuade Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al Aqsa Martyrs
Brigade to end their campaign of bombings against Israel. He has offered
Hamas the prospect of sharing political power by agreeing to hold parliamentary
elections in July that, given its success in the recent local elections
in the West Bank and Gaza, should give Hamas political representation
in the Palestinian Legislative Council. At the same time he has deployed
over 8,000 police to Gaza in order to prevent rocket attacks on Israeli
targets, and arrest suicide bombers.
Although Abbas has
sought to cultivate Washingtons support by carrying through measures
against his own people that the Palestine Liberation Organisations
(PLO) long-time leader Yasser Arafat balked at, his present course nevertheless
expresses the degeneration of the Palestinian nationalist movement as
a wholea degeneration rooted in the bourgeois character of the
PLO itself.
The fundamental
perspective of the PLO for the establishment of a Palestinian state
has always been based on reaching an agreement with imperialism. This
goal has been pursued through two methodsnegotiations and the
armed struggle. While appearing to be opposed, they have always been
essentially complementary. The final aim of the armed struggle has always
been a negotiated settlement with imperialism, never the independent
mobilisation of working class and peasant masses. In other words, the
acceptance by Abbas and the PLO leadership of a ceasefire, and its imposition,
does not contradict the logic of the armed struggle but arises organically
from it.
The PLO was the
most radical of national movements and established a mass popular base
amongst broad sections of the Palestinian people due to its determined
advocacy of armed struggle against Israel. But in essence its leadership
represented the Palestinian bourgeoisie and its interests and not those
of the masses, as it professed. National bourgeois organisations, however
radical, are organically incapable of consistently leading an independent
struggle against imperialism along a progressive and democratic route
because their interests are, in the final analysis diametrically opposed
to those of the working class and peasantry.
Whereas the Palestinian
working class and peasantry saw the establishment of a national entity
from the standpoint of reclaiming the land stolen since 1948 and ending
oppression by imperialism and Zionism, the essential aim of the Palestinian
bourgeoisie in its conflict with Israel is to establish its own class
rulewhich centres on its right to exploit the working class. As
such its opposition to imperialism is always conditional and partial.
Its aim is not to end imperialist domination, but to establish its own
relations with the major imperialist powers that dominate the global
economic order. At all times it seeks to oppose any independent political
action by the working class that would threaten the basis of capitalist
rule. Hence, even in its most radical period, the PLO insisted that
it was recognised as the sole legitimate representative of the
Palestinian people and that its perspective for establishing a
Palestinian state on the basis of capitalist property relations was
unchallenged.
On this basis it
was never possible to resolve the problems of national oppression and
social exploitation. Not one of the states in the Middle East, even
where the national revolutionary movements have been able to throw off
colonial rule and had access to oil, was able to end the domination
of the transnational banks and corporations or alleviate the dreadful
social conditions of the working class and the rural poor. They have
instead exchanged their colonial rulers or puppet kings for corrupt
local bourgeois cliques. In this the PLO is proving to be no exception.
The oppression of
the Palestinian people is not just the result of Israels military
strength but the treachery of the Arab bourgeoisie. As a direct result
of its strategy of working through the various Arab regimes to achieve
a Palestinian state, Arafat and the PLO were never able to achieve any
independence from them or their imperialist backers.
Arafats reliance
on the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union for backing was no more
successful. For a period the contest between Moscow and Washington for
hegemony over the Middle East provided various Arab bourgeois regimes
with some bargaining power. But this was always limited by the dictates
of the Stalinist bureaucracys unprincipled manoeuvres with the
imperialist powers and its own efforts to prevent social revolution
at all costs. In the end it was the collapse of the Soviet Union due
to Stalinisms efforts to restore capitalism under Gorbachev and
Yeltsin that finally forced Arafat to seek a deal with US imperialism.
And it was Abbas who was at his side during those crucial negotiations.
Who is Mahmoud Abbas?
Abbass rise
to power is due to the fact that he most consistently expresses the
interests of the Palestinian bourgeoisie. He was born in 1935 in Safed,
now in northern Israel, to a very prosperous merchant family. When the
1948 Arab-Israeli war broke out after the United Nations voted to establish
a Zionist state on part of Palestine, then ruled under a UN Mandate
by Britain, his family was one of the 750,000 who fled or were driven
out of Palestine. His privileged social position enabled him to study
law at Damascus University and then obtain a permit to work in the Qatar
civil service before setting up his own business that was to make his
fortune.
There were at the
time thousands of Palestinian professionals working in the Gulf and
he soon came into contact with Arafats Palestine National Liberation
Movement or Al Fatah, which was to become the core of the PLO. Al Fatah
represented the most radical wing of the Palestinian bourgeois national
movement. Its professed aim, the reclamation of the land seized by Israel
and the creation of a democratic and secular Palestine, was to be achieved
by armed struggle and attracted a popular base among the working class
and the peasantry. But it always opposed a socialist perspective in
favour of a capitalist Palestinian state. It was this class orientation
that enabled Fatah to draw in the support of the more privileged layers,
such as Abbas.
Abbas became an
important fundraiser for Fatah and was responsible for establishing
relations with the Arab regimes. He built up a network of powerful contacts
that included Arab leaders and heads of intelligence services. He was
able to do this because the PLO accepted the legitimacy of the Arab
regimes and agreed to separate the Palestinian cause from the struggle
of the Arab masses against the dictatorships and the semi-feudal dynasties
that ruled over them.
Although Abbas went
on to manage the PLOs finances, he was on the right wing of Fatah
and was not a member of the PLOs inner circle, then led by Arafat,
Abu Iyad and Abu Jihad. He had a stormy relationship with Arafat and
there were long periods when the two men refused to speak to each other.
He distanced himself from the PLOs terrorist activities and remained
in Syria after Jordans King Hussein savagely suppressed the Palestinians
in what is known as Black September, 1970, expelled the PLO from Jordan
and forced them into the Lebanon.
Abbas was one of
the first PLO officials to recognise Israel and support the establishment
of a mini-Palestinian state alongside Israelthe so-called two-state
solution. In the late 1970s, he was instrumental in forging links between
the Palestinians and the Israeli peace groups. From 1980, he headed
the PLOs department for national and international relations.
He and Ahmed Qurei,
the Palestinian Prime Minister, only became close to Arafat in 1988.
That year Abbas was elected to the PLO executive. His rise to prominence
was in part facilitated by Israel, which had a policy of targeting the
PLOs radical leaders. Israeli security forces assassinated both
Abu Iyad and Abu Jihad in 1988, thus setting the stage for the transfer
of power to Fatahs right wing represented by Abbas and Qurei.
More fundamentally,
Abbas was the beneficiary of two major political shifts that were to
drive the PLO into the arms of Washington.
Firstly, the turn
by the Stalinist bureaucracy to dismantle the Soviet Union and align
its foreign policy with the US meant that the PLO lost what little room
for manoeuvre between the imperialist powers it once had. The collapse
of the USSR left the US with an unprecedented opportunity to establish
its global hegemony. In the context of the Middle East, this enabled
George Bush senior to launch the Gulf war against Iraq in 1991. The
PLO, having supported Saddam Hussein in a final attempt to secure a
base from which to oppose both Israel and the US, was left completely
isolated.
Secondly, the intifada,
a spontaneous uprising of Palestinian workers and youth against Israeli
occupation, broke out in December 1987 and was to last for the next
four years. It not only shook the Israeli state and Washington, but
also the Palestinian bourgeoisiewhich feared that the revolutionary
movement of the masses would escalate out of control in Palestine and
elsewhere in the oil rich Middle East. The Palestinian capitalists in
exile, whose interests Abbas reflected, saw this as a major threat to
their own economic and social aspirations.
Confronted with
militant youth and workers at home, the Palestinian bourgeoisie concluded
that it needed the backing of US imperialism if it was ever to establish
its own rule. It was these factors that led the newly reconstituted
PLO leadership to renounce its armed struggle on the White House lawn.
It marked the end of the PLOs grand illusion that it could resolve
the Palestinian question without a settlement of the fundamental class
questions in the Middle East.
These developments
enabled the US to dictate the terms of the PLOs capitulation to
Israel and the future form of any Palestinian state. It was Abbas who,
after playing a key role in both the 1991 Madrid conference and the
secret talks in Oslo, went on to sign the ill-fated 1993 Oslo Accords
with Israel on behalf of the PLO, as the first stage towards an independent
Palestinian state.
Abbas, along with
other wealthy Palestinian businessmen, returned to the Palestinian territories
after Oslo. In 1995, he moved to Gaza and Ramallah and became secretary
general of the PLOs executive committee in 1996. He played an
important role in all the negotiations with Israel.
Oslo entailed the
rejection of all forms of resistance to Israel, including the intifada,
recognition of the state of Israel, renunciation of the PLOs claim
to all but 22 percent of Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza), the establishment
of a PLO-led interim Palestinian Authority (PA) that would take over
most of the functions of the Israeli military authority, including police
powers and internal security, while leaving Israel in charge of foreign
policy, defence, the protection of Israeli settlements, and control
of borders and crossings into Israel. The final borders, the status
of East Jerusalem, control of water resources and the right of return
for Palestinian refugees were left open for negotiation.
From the perspective
of US imperialism and the Zionist state, the Palestinian bourgeoisie,
as represented by the PLO, would be tasked with policing the Palestinian
working class and ensuring Israels security. From the perspective
of the Palestinian bourgeoisie, who had amassed considerable assets
in exile, even such a non-contiguous and essentially unviable state
would enable them to expand their wealth through the exploitation of
their own working class, guaranteed by their own repressive state apparatus.
It was this deal
and the prospect of a state economically dependent upon and politically
subordinate to Israel that made Gaza a stronghold of the Islamic fundamentalists.
The fledgling state was characterised by cronyism and mismanagement,
and the PLO became involved in acts of repression to secure the privileges
of a thin bourgeois layer.
For the last decade,
political and social relations in the Occupied Territories have been
characterised by the attempts of the Palestinian Authority to reconcile
an increasingly impoverished and embittered population with the terms
of the Oslo Accords. Such a situation was rendered all the more difficult
by the refusal of successive Israeli governments to honour a single
element of the agreement. The number of settlements and settlers in
the West Bank and East Jerusalem more than doubled in the aftermath
of Oslo.
Economic conditions
also deteriorated. The military incursions, roadblocks, curfews, house
demolitions, and detentions without trial continued. Israels political
agenda was increasingly driven by an ultranationalist right-wing group
of religious and settler parties opposed to any concessions to the Palestinians.
Despite all this,
the PA continued to try to reach a deal with Israel, until the Camp
David talks of July 2000, when the Israeli Labour government of Ehud
Barak made demands that Arafat could not accept: the loss of all of
East Jerusalem and severe limitations of the right of return for Palestinian
refugees.
An eruption of popular
anger followed Sharons provocative armed visit to the Temple Mount
in September 2000. Abbas once again came forward as the most determined
opponent of mass resistance to Israel, calling for an end to the second
intifada. This convinced Washington and Tel Aviv to back him for the
position of prime minister in 2003, as a counterweight to Arafat. His
task was to end the intifada in return for a promise of some kind of
Palestinian self-government in Gaza and the West Bank by 2005.
Abbas was forced
to resign a few months later after losing an internal power-struggle
with Arafat. It was Arafats death in November 2004 that enabled
Abbas to move with the utmost determination to meet the White Houses
expectations of him.
A comprador regime
Abbas heads a Palestinian
Authority that functions as an instrument to suppress the Palestinian
masses on behalf of the US, Israel and the Palestinian bourgeoisie itself.
The Oslo Accords set out to create institutions that were not answerable
to the wishes of the popular massesstipulating a presidential
regime backed by a council of elected deputies, as opposed to one based
upon an elected parliament. The Accords brought loans and aid from international
financial institutions to the nascent Palestinian Authority that facilitated
the consolidation of a bourgeois ruling clique of an essentially comprador
characterone that functions as the local representative of the
financial and commercial powers, corporations and banks that dominate
the global economy, and that owes its continued existence to the patronage
of Washington, in particular.
The PA established
itself as the political representative of the expatriate Palestinian
bourgeoisie, many of whom belonged to pre-1948 patrician families and
had used their time in exile to enrich themselves in the US, Europe
and the Gulf. The PA, on their return, allowed them to set up monopolies
controlling all the major commodities and services, and they went on
to amass further fortunes.
Munib Masri and
his family exemplify this social layer. The Texas-educated billionaire
from Nablus returned to the West Bank from London at Arafats invitation,
joining his first cabinet and helping to set up and run the Palestinian
Development and Investment Company (PADICO).
His brief was to
create investment opportunities for expatriates in the fledgling
economy. To this end, he courted Palestinian investors around the world
and raised more than $1 billion.
Granted monopolies
by the PA, PADICO controls the PAs biggest manufacturing venture,
a Gaza industrial park with its own Israeli customs post. It also dominates
the Palestinian stock exchange and has large holdings in power generation,
luxury hotels and real estate. It has significant stakes in other state-licensed
monopolies such as telecommunications and electricity. Maher Masri is
the PAs trade and industry minister.
Prime Minister Ahmed
Qurei is himself a major shareholder in companies that have monopolies
in cigarettes, conserves, dairy and other basic products. He has been
accused of profiteering by selling cement to Israel to build its security
wall.
Some years ago,
the personal wealth of the PADICO board was estimated at about $20 billion.
To put this in context, the entire gross domestic product of the Occupied
Territories is about $3 billion.
The cost of profiteering
and monopoly pricing has been borne by the Palestinian people. The PA
has the largest number of police per capita in the world. One third
of the PAs budget is spent on security, not to resist Israel,
but primarily to protect the thin Palestinian social layer at the top
that has prospered since 1993.
It is no accident
that the central theme of Abbass acceptance speech was the need
to curb the violence of armed groups and establish a monopoly of armed
power by the Palestinian police force. This serves not only Israels
interests, but also those of Palestinian bourgeoisie.
The degeneration
of the PLO demonstrates that there is no national road to the liberation
of oppressed peoples. It is not possible to oppose either the Palestinian
bourgeois elite or Israel on the basis of a continuation of the limited
acts of resistance to Israeli security forces associated with the intifada,
least of all by the suicide bombings advocated by the Islamist groups.
These actions succeed only in deepening the divisions between Palestinian
and Israeli workers, alienating other working people internationally
and providing a pretext for further acts of Israeli repression. The
Islamist groups themselves articulate only the interests of different
sections of the Arab bourgeoisie that favour the creation of a religious
rather than a secular bourgeois state.
A new political
road is required that entails the construction of a socialist party
of the working class. Under conditions of a globally integrated capitalist
economy, only the perspective of socialist internationalism can provide
a way forward. What is needed is a determined struggle to unite Palestinian
workers with their class brothers in Israel, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon,
Jordan and the entire Middle East based upon a common struggle against
capitalist exploitation and imperialist oppression.