The Politics of the Palestinian Authority from Oslo to al-Aqsa by
Nigel Craig Parsons. New York and London: Routledge, 2005. 464 pp.
including maps, appendixes, notes and index. Hardcover, $125.
Menachem Klein
Prof. Menachem Klein is senior lecturer in the Political Science
Department at Bar-Ilan University. His book A Possible Peace
Between Israel and Palestine - An Insider's Account of the Geneva
Initiative was recently published by Columbia University
Press.
Between 1993 and 2004 Nigel Parsons spent his time in the occupied
Palestinian territories and in Cairo collecting highly valuable
material on the political development of the Palestinian Authority
(PA) for his doctoral dissertation at the University of Manchester.
Parsons deals with Fateh's taking over of the PA and its failure to
promote the Palestinian national project through the Oslo
Accords.
Fateh succeeded in counting among its supporters a wide variety of
groups and individuals, from businessmen to people in refugee camps
and a wide array of middle-class professionals and blue-collar
workers in-between. All of them preferred Fateh's social
conservatism to the radical left-wing organizations. Fateh's
widespread support allowed it to achieve hegemony within the PLO
and create a bureaucratic elite, military command and an
authoritarian and paternal leadership. The Fateh leadership's
decision to base its legitimacy on armed struggle strengthened a
tendency towards populism and authoritarian leadership, which did
not help promote democratic patterns for Fateh and did not
correspond with its self-projected image.
After the 1967 war the old aristocracy and bourgeoisie in the
occupied territories lost their role as intermediaries between the
Palestinian population and the Jordanian and Egyptian authorities,
while Israel established a form of colonial rule. While the
settlement project resulted in loss of land for the old aristocracy
and intensified the weight of occupation, the opening up of
Israel's job market created a new bourgeoisie. As universities were
established beginning in the second half of the 1970s, education
gave the new generation an opportunity to form national unity and
to find expression for its national frustration through involvement
in the PLO. The time spent in Israeli jails also created social and
national unity within the younger generation and contributed to the
creation of the Tanzim1. Fateh activists from different regions got
to know each other in prison or in the universities - often in
both. During this same period, the Palestinian elite decided to
take the political path to achieving its goal of nationhood. The
return to the West Bank and Gaza in 1994 closed the circle in a way
for the Fateh leadership, which put an end to the strategic debate
over the role of the armed struggle.
Parsons ignores the failure of the revolt within Fateh in 1983 and
its role in strengthening Yasser Arafat. He believes that Fateh and
Arafat were politically and financially weakened by their support
for Saddam Hussein and his occupation of Kuwait in 1990. In his
opinion, this was the reason for their decision to take part in the
1991 Madrid Conference, despite its limitations, and for their
agreement to some of the terms which were dictated in the 1993 Oslo
Accords. The Oslo agreements enabled the authoritative leadership
in Tunis to assume responsibility for the national project, to gain
international recognition, huge funds and institutional power. In
this way the national project was subsumed by the leading elite's
own political needs.
The added value of this book lies in two chapters that meticulously
describe Fateh's structure and its control of the PA. In these
pages Parsons provides us with an X-ray photograph of the movement,
showing how Fateh imported its structure and operating principles
from Tunis into the PA. Fateh built a state-like institution based
upon a pact between the bureaucracy led by the authoritarian Arafat
and the local elites. These elites enjoyed what they did not
receive from Israel - a share of governmental rewards and political
patronage in return for their support of the administration.
Parsons identifies those who were left on the margins of the
political system who demanded radical reforms within Fateh as the
"Young Turks"- Fateh members who carried the first intifada on
their shoulders. To his view, the struggle between this younger
generation and the Tunis elders is a struggle mostly between locals
and newcomers, recently arrived from Tunis. One could say, however,
that it is more a struggle within the elite between those who hold
power and those who wish to hold it.
Fearing competition, the Fateh leadership in Tunis had not enabled
the growth of national leadership and institutions. It was its
"entry" into the arena via the Oslo agreements and the legitimacy
won in the 1996 elections that produced an internal opposition
initially from first intifada activists who were not integrated
into Fateh's hierarchy in accordance with their public standing.
Most of the key functions in the PA - including the security
apparatuses - were held by senior "Tunisians," members of the two
highest Fateh institutions - the Central Committee and the
Revolutionary Council, while the first intifada activist hit the
glass ceiling at secretary or the undersecretary level. The
district governments were out of their reach. Arafat hired district
governors and mayors among the aristocracies and the old elite, who
were bitter rivals of the first intifada activists. The governor
was the president's personal representative in the district and
reported to him personally. Each governor had his own police force
and ran his business separately from the Interior Ministry. He
would also have a legal department that preferred to end rivalries
outside of the courts through compromise and his own
mediation.
Fateh's hierarchy and power structure were duplicated in the PA's
institutions, against which the younger activists protested.
Parsons describes the procedures of Fateh's internal elections
between 1997 and 2000, from which the new party apparatus, the
Tanzim, headed by Marwan Barghouthi, was formed. The elections were
organized by the leaders of the first intifada in order to
reinvigorate the leadership, educate the activists and help Fateh
move from being an underground movement to a party. The Old Guard,
headed by Arafat, interfered in the election process and tried to
influence its results. It appointed supervising committees to
confirm the new regional leadership. The Old Guard also tried to
block Barghouthi by co-opting some of his Tanzim colleagues. These
actions reinforced criticism from the opposition to Fateh and
eroded the positions of Arafat and other senior Fateh officials.
Indeed, in the governments formed after 2003, there was a larger
number of opposition members, but they remained in inferior
positions. Their support for the Oslo process was tied to the
commitment made by the upper echelons to opening the ranks. The
disappointment resulting from this hope not being fulfilled
coincided with the disappointment in Israel's policies, especially
the expansion of the settlements. During the Oslo years, social and
political stability was undermined. The state-building process
progressed, but the structure was based on very shaky
foundations.
The intifada of 2000 found the security apparatus command confused
and paralyzed. The apparatus dissolved into Tanzim militias lacking
a central command, coordination or efficiency. The aggressive
Israeli reaction did not help the command to regain control;
rather, it brought its lower strata, and later some of the senior
officials, into the bloodletting. In response, Israel destroyed the
PA's apparatuses and did not allow the central government to
operate. The faltering institutions, which were hard to control for
they were dependent on Arafat's patronage, on the one hand, but
decentralized on the other, were dismembered by Israel into small
units. Thus Israel contributed to the chaos created by Fateh. The
election of Hamas in 2006 was the Palestinian people's response to
Fateh's failings and Israeli actions.
