Palestinians Divided

Khalil Shikaki

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2002

Summary:  Yasir Arafat has been neither an orchestrator nor a spectator of the second intifada; he has been its target. A young guard of Palestinian nationalists, angry at both Israel and the corrupt Palestinian Authority, lies behind the violence. Arafat must reform his government and secure a credible peace process -- before it's too late.

Khalil Shikaki is Associate Professor of Political Science at Bir Zeit University and Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah.

WHO LET THE DOGS OF WAR OUT?

Has Yasir Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), orchestrated and led the second Palestinian intifada in order to gain popularity and legitimacy while weakening Israel and forcing it to accept extreme Palestinian demands? Or has the uprising been a spontaneous response by an enraged but disorganized Palestinian "street" to Likud Party leader (and later Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon's September 2000 visit to the site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as al Haram al Sharif, and the failure of the Oslo peace process to produce an end to Israeli military occupation? Most Israelis take the first position, whereas most Palestinians take the second. Both are mistaken.

The truth is that the intifada that began in late September 2000 has been a response by a "young guard" in the Palestinian nationalist movement not only to Sharon's visit and the stalled peace process, but also to the failure of the "old guard" in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to deliver Palestinian independence and good governance. The young guard has turned to violence to get Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip unilaterally (as it withdrew from South Lebanon in May 2000) and simultaneously to weaken the Palestinian old guard and eventually displace it.

More than a year into the intifada, the young guard's commitment to both goals is unshakable, and with some reason. The Israelis have begun seriously to consider unilateral withdrawal, and the young guard has assumed de facto control over most PA civil institutions, penetrated PA security services, and forced Arafat to appease the newcomers for fear of losing his own legitimacy or bringing on a Palestinian civil war. In fact, at this point only the prospect of a truly viable peace process and a serious PA commitment to good governance can provide Israel and the old guard with an exit strategy for their current predicaments.

TREND SPOTTING

The intifada has crystallized two important trends within Palestinian politics and society. The first, a split between old and young within the nationalist movement, has greatly constrained the PA leadership's capacity to manage the current crisis and engage in substantive negotiations with Israel in the short term. The second, a broader decline in the power of the nationalists relative to the Islamists (such as Hamas), has created a long-term challenge to the nationalists' ability to lead the Palestinian people.

When the Oslo agreement was signed in September 1993, two-thirds of Palestinians immediately supported it.1 Their expectations were high: Oslo was supposed to usher in the end of occupation, the establishment of an open and democratic political system, and a quick improvement in economic and living conditions. But the golden era of the peace process did not last long. Palestinian popular approval of the Oslo process peaked at 80 percent in early 1996, and support for violence against Israeli targets bottomed out at 20 percent. Just before the Palestinian general elections in January of that year, support for Fatah, the mainstream nationalist movement headed by Arafat, reached the unprecedented level of 55 percent, and Arafat's own popularity leaped to 65 percent. Meanwhile, support for all opposition groups combined -- both nationalist and Islamist -- dropped to 20 percent, down from 40 percent two years earlier.

When the current Palestinian political system came into existence after those elections, it had real legitimacy. Seventy-five percent of eligible voters participated, despite the call by opposition groups for a boycott. Arafat received more than 70 percent of the vote, with about 22 percent casting blank ballots and only 8 percent voting for his rival, Samiha Khalil. Fatah won 77 percent of the seats in the new Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).

Between 1993 and 2001, with the sole exception of 1994, Palestinian support for the Oslo agreement never dropped below 60 percent. But Palestinian hopes began to fade away as a result of both Binyamin Netanyahu's election as Israel's prime minister in mid-1996 and the continued building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Palestinian expectations that the peace process would soon lead to statehood and a permanent settlement dropped from 44 percent during Shimon Peres' prime ministership in 1995-96 to 30 percent in the first year under Netanyahu. Four years later, with Ehud Barak having replaced Netanyahu and Jewish settlements continuing to expand, expectation of a permanent settlement sank to 24 percent. Once Ariel Sharon won election as Israel's head of government in early 2001, a mere 11 percent of Palestinians clung to that hope.

The loss of confidence in the ability of the peace process to deliver a permanent agreement on acceptable terms had a dramatic impact on the level of Palestinian support for violence against Israelis, including suicide bombings against civilians. In July 2000, after U.S. President Bill Clinton's failed attempt to broker a final peace settlement at Camp David but before the eruption of the second intifada, already 52 percent of Palestians approved of the use of violence; a year later, that figure reached the unprecedented level of 86 percent. Other casualties of Oslo's demise have been the popularity of Arafat and that of his Fatah organization. The Camp David summit brought Arafat's popularity, which had been dropping steadily since 1996, down to 47 percent. A year later it hit 33 percent. Support for Fatah, meanwhile, dropped to 37 percent in July 2000, and a year later fell to 29 percent.