ABBAS DISSOLVES THE HAMDALLAH GOVERNMENT SETTING BACK PROGRESS BETWEEN CAIRO AND HAMAS
Forming the New Palestinian Authority Government: Pinhas Inbari, JNS, Mar. 14, 2019 — Two developments currently taking place in the Palestinian arena deserve our attention, and both of these are interlinked: the proposed new government in Ramallah and the situation at the Al-Aqsa plaza on the Temple Mount.
Whatever Happened to Palestinian Democracy? | Opinion: Hugh Lovatt, Newsweek, Mar. 7, 2019 — Palestine is moving closer to a new government and new prime minster. But elections still seem a distant prospect.
Rightly Choosing Restraint, Netanyahu Shows Last Thing He Needs Now Is Gaza War: Avi Issacharoff, Times of Israel, Mar. 14, 2019 — Hard though it may be to believe, even the firing of two rockets at Tel Aviv from Gaza, by Hamas, has not dragged Israel and the Gaza terrorists into war or even a major escalation, at least as of this time of writing.
Hamas Is Willing to Risk War to Avoid Economic Collapse: Yaakov Lappin, BESA March 10, 2019 — Hamas’s failure to manage Gaza economically and determination to direct funds to its military wing rather than to civilian needs have raised the specter of a potential implosion in Gaza, which could mean that the Islamist regime will find itself facing an internal revolt.
ON TOPIC LINKS:
Expunging ‘Occupied’: Analyzing U.S. State Department’s Report On Israeli-‘controlled’ Territories (with AUDIO): Charles Bybelezer | The Media Line, March 14, 2019, Audio — The U.S. State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices expunged the word “occupied” in reference to the Golan Heights, West Bank and Gaza Strip, which are now labeled as being under Israeli “control.”
‘Israel Will Destroy You and We Won’t Do a Thing to Stop It’: Daniel Siryoti, Israel Hayom, Mar. 17, 2019 — Shortly after 9 p.m. on Thursday, minutes after sirens blared across central Israel and a loud boom overhead shook the area, senior Egyptian intelligence officers became outraged during a meeting with Hamas officials in Gaza.
Israeli, Palestinian Institutes Join Forces to Counter Radicalization in PA Curriculum: Algemeiner, Mar. 14, 2019 — Two Jerusalem-based institutes are joining forces in an effort to encourage the Palestinian Authority (PA) to stamp out incitement and violent themes in its school curriculum.
Former Kuwaiti Minister Kills the “Palestinian” Narrative with the Truth: Leah Rosenberg, Israel Unwired, Aug. 6, 2018, Video — Unbelievable! In this one interview, this former Kuwaiti Minister totally kills the whole “Palestine” narrative. Totally.
FORMING THE NEW PALESTINIAN
AUTHORITY GOVERNMENT
Pinhas Inbari
JNS, Mar. 14, 2019
Two developments currently taking place in the Palestinian arena deserve our attention, and both of these are interlinked: the proposed new government in Ramallah and the situation at the Al-Aqsa plaza on the Temple Mount.
In Ramallah, P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas has asked Mohammad Shtayyeh to form a new government, while on the Temple Mount, tensions continue to mount around the Golden Gate or “Gate of Mercy” (Sha’ar HaRachamim or Bab el Rahma). Until Shtayyeh forms a government, Rami Hamdallah is still the acting prime minister of the P.A. It may still take some time for him to form a new government unless Abbas is ready to make a big compromise on the nature of this new administration.
First, who is Shtayyeh, and what does he stand for? Like Hamdallah and Salam Fayyad before him, Shtayyeh comes from Nablus and is linked to the business community. Previously, he was president of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction (PECDAR), the leading economic institute in the Palestinian Authority. Unlike his predecessors, he is a senior Fatah official in the West Bank.
He is a promoter of the BDS movement, in favor of ending security coordination with the Israel Defense Forces and seeks to end the Paris Protocols that refer to a joint economy with Israel. It is interesting to watch the extent to which these popular campaigns inside Fatah may reflect real life.
The Nablus connection
Shtayyeh’s appointment indicates that the P.A. follows a tradition of nominating its prime ministers from Nablus to avoid alienating the north from its main body, which is centered in Ramallah. In this respect, Hebron in the south appears to be lost.
According to Ramallah sources, Abbas was in no hurry to implement the decisions of the Fatah Central Committee to nominate a Fatah-controlled government, and he delayed doing so even after Hamdallah submitted his resignation. The timing of the decision came, according to sources, when he heard about progress in the talks in Cairo between Egypt and Hamas. He, therefore, wanted to dissolve the government led by Hamdallah to set back any progress in Cairo.
Egypt, Hamas and Fatah
Egypt is not holding contacts with Hamas as a legitimate power, but on an ad hoc basis, and it insists to Hamas that Ramallah is the legal ruling authority. By dissolving the current and recognized Hamdallah government, any progress between Egypt and Hamas is blocked. It is important to note that Hamas is also not in a hurry to renew its own “Gaza Committee,” which was the actual government in Gaza, and they are waiting to see if a Fatah government will indeed be established in Ramallah. Why would Hamas have any doubts about this?
Firstly, Shtayyeh is not a Fatah fighter. According to Palestinian criteria, to be considered a true Fatah fighter, one must spend time in an Israeli prison. With Shtayyeh, this is not the case…. [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PALESTINIAN DEMOCRACY?
Hugh Lovatt
Newsweek, Mar. 7, 2019
Palestine is moving closer to a new government and new prime minster. But elections still seem a distant prospect. Despite a pledge made by President Mahmoud Abbas, together with a decree by the Palestinian Constitutional Court that polls would be held by May, the atmosphere in Palestine could hardly be more different to the election fever gripping next-door Israel.
No one in Palestine seems to believe that elections will actually happen. Besides a belated visit this week by the Palestinian Central Elections Committee (CEC) to Gaza, there is little else to indicate that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is actively preparing for fresh legislative elections—the first since 2006. Nor has there yet been any campaigning by Palestinian parties.
There are also still many unanswered questions. We do not know whether elections will be for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) following its dissolution by the Constitutional Court in December. This comes amidst speculation within Ramallah that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) could move to replace it with an alternative and as-of-yet-undefined body. Such a move has been described as a step in transforming the institutions of the PA into those of the State of Palestine while putting pressure on Hamas over their perceived refusal to advance intra-Palestinian talks.
There is also a question mark about which territories and which factions will be included. The 2006 legislative elections, considered the high point of Palestinian democracy, were supported by most PLO factions and Hamas. Just as crucially, they also included all Palestinian territories—the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza. In contrast, the more recent 2017 municipal elections were held amidst low turnout in only in the West Bank, without Gaza and East Jerusalem, and without the participation Hamas, the PFLP, and Fatah-aligned supporters of Mohammed Dahlan.
Perhaps this lack of action and clarity from President Abbas is not surprising given what is happening has less to do with reviving Palestinian national representation, and more to do with consolidating his hold on power, shutting out Hamas from future decision-making processes, and potentially preparing the way for a future successor. It is within this optic of intra-Palestinian competition that the dissolution of the Hamas-dominated PLC and forced resignation of the technocratic government of Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah should be interpreted. Against this backdrop, the vague prospect of future elections masks what is in essence a naked power grab by the Abbas leadership.
To be sure, the Hamdallah government has come under much criticism and is widely seen as underperforming. This was most recently highlighted by the popular backlash over its efforts to advance a new Palestinian social security system. But by moving to replace Hamdallah and jumping the gun on elections, the senior leadership based in Ramallah has created a problematic perception. Namely that they would rather pre-cook a Fatah-led government dominated by political allies, rather than await the formation of a new government based on the results of national elections – no doubt given Fatah’s low popularity and the potential for another Hamas victory.
The manner in which this new government is being created risks removing any vestiges of popular legitimacy that the PA leadership has left. Attempts to isolate and pressure Hamas — by dissolving the PLC and undoing the small step achieved in 2014 through the creation of a Palestinian government of national consensus under Hamdallah’s leadership—will also likely backfire.
The elimination of Palestine’s legislative organ and the formation of a new government through a series of back-room deals, without the participation of significant components of Palestine’s politics and territory, represents a severe blow to the prospects for democracy and national re-unification.
The sad irony is that Palestine was the earliest and most successful experiment in Arab democracy, long before the advent of the Arab Spring. But more than a decade after the last legislative and presidential elections, Palestine’s democratic fabric has withered. The now dissolved PLC had not been able to meet in a regular session since the intra-Palestinian split in 2007, with seven of its members currently in Israeli prisons. Its mandate has also long since expired, together with that of President Abbas. Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank also continue to suffer human rights abuses and attacks on freedom of expression at the hands of both Hamas and the PA… [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
RIGHTLY CHOOSING RESTRAINT, NETANYAHU
SHOWS LAST THING HE NEEDS NOW IS GAZA WAR
Avi Issacharoff
Times of Israel, Mar. 14, 2019
Hard though it may be to believe, even the firing of two rockets at Tel Aviv from Gaza, by Hamas, has not dragged Israel and the Gaza terrorists into war or even a major escalation, at least as of this time of writing. Israel’s Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who so prides himself on his “Mr. Security” credentials, has preferred to swallow the bitter pill of Thursday night’s rocket fire and preserve relative calm.
To the credit of Netanyahu and the government he heads, they proved Thursday night and Friday morning what they have often claimed: That the importance of Sderot is no different from that of Tel Aviv, and that what holds true for one of those cities holds true for the other. If somebody had said a few months ago that rocket fire at Tel Aviv would pass with only minimal Israeli military retaliation, Sderot-style, they would have been accused of being delusional.
But this is an election period. Netanyahu’s position in the polls is getting stronger. Blue and White leader Benny Gantz is making headlines for having his phone hacked by the Iranians. The last thing Netanyahu needs is war with Gaza.
One can only wonder what might have happened if one of the security networks of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had launched two missiles (by mistake) at Ben Gurion Airport or Tel Aviv. The government might well have called unanimously for a major operation in the West Bank to demolish the terrorist infrastructure. But facing off against Hamas and given the remarkable covenant that has been created between the terror group and the Netanyahu government, the prime minister (rightly) prefers restraint rather than being dragged into another conflict with unforeseeable consequences.
According to the version put out by the IDF on Friday morning, the assessment is that Hamas fired the two rockets at Tel Aviv in error. (With a previous launch at Beersheba last October, it was said to be lightning that caused erroneous fire.)
According to the Hamas version, Thursday’s rockets were launched by a field operative acting without approval from the higher-ups. Plainly, this claim of an ill-disciplined field activist should raise skepticism and many questions, but on the Israeli side there is an understanding that the Hamas leadership is not interested in an escalation right now, nor in signaling some kind of warning with rocket fire at Tel Aviv.
At the very time the missiles were being fired, Hamas leaders in Gaza were meeting with a delegation of Egyptian intelligence officials, headed by Ahmad Abdelkhaliq, who is responsible for the Palestinian file. The likelihood that Hamas leaders wanted to launch missiles at that moment, of all moments, is remote. Hamas is urgently trying to attain economic concessions from Israel, not provoke it. It was only hours earlier that the dire economic situation in Gaza was publicly underlined, when Hamas police officers violently confronted dozens of demonstrators who had gone out into the streets to protest the poverty and hardship in the Strip under Hamas rule.
According to Palestinian and Egyptian assessments, any eased economic restrictions and concessions that Israel might allow will not dramatically change the situation in Gaza. But they might help to create a slightly more positive mood for the population, and perhaps even optimism as regards to the period after Israel’s elections in April.
What the Egyptians are trying to do is find a way to bring the Palestinian Authority back into Gaza somehow, in order to expedite some kind of rehabilitation of the Strip. Ironically, as the events of the past few hours indicate, it may well be that interaction aimed at reconstruction in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, even without the PA, may not be a mission impossible.
HAMAS IS WILLING TO RISK WAR
TO AVOID ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
Yaakov Lappin
BESA March 10, 2019
Hamas’s failure to manage Gaza economically and determination to direct funds to its military wing rather than to civilian needs have raised the specter of a potential implosion in Gaza, which could mean that the Islamist regime will find itself facing an internal revolt. To avoid this fate, Hamas is doing what it has tried to do for an entire year: escalate the security situation and ratchet up pressure on Israel and other regional actors while stopping short of triggering a war.
This high-stakes brinksmanship – using violence to try and force Israel to ease security restrictions on Gaza, increase the import of goods, and get the international community to find donors who can rescue Gaza from economic doom – is a calculated approach directed by Hamas leader Yihye Sinwar. It appears as if the Qatari cash injections have not been sufficient to push Gaza away from the brink of instability. The economic chokehold the Palestinian Authority has tried to place on Gaza as part of its own internal war with Hamas has contributed to tensions over the past year as well. “A short while ago, shots were fired at an IDF position near the northern Gaza Strip security fence. No IDF injuries were reported. In response, an IDF tank targeted a Hamas military post in the northern Gaza Strip,” the IDF Spokesman’s Unit announced on Thursday, February 28.
The night before that incident, Gazan terrorists fired a rocket at the Eshkol region, triggering a siren, sending residents fleeing for cover, and causing an Iron Dome missile-defense system to fire an interceptor. Earlier that same day, Hamas-organized operatives sent balloons carrying explosives over the border into southern Israel, jeopardizing the safety of local residents.
In response, the Israeli Air Force launched strikes on several targets inside a Hamas compound in southern Gaza overnight between Wednesday and Thursday. The IDF did not specify what those targets were, but it’s safe to assume that they were high-value Hamas assets, and that the strikes were designed to tell its leadership that it only stands to lose if this situation continues. This message was reinforced by Israeli PM Netanyahu, who said Hamas “should understand now that any display of aggression will be answered with a double and quadruple decisive reply by Israel. It is best that Hamas understands this now rather than later.”
On Friday, March 1, a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel after thousands of Palestinians took part in another round of violent protests along the border. Amid the protests, two men were arrested by the IDF after crossing into Israel from the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
The IDF has been stepping up its responses to attacks from Gaza. In recent weeks, airstrikes on Hamas positions have become a new norm in retaliation against explosive devices sent over the Israeli border attached to balloons, and to the explosives that terrorist operatives set off along the border every night.
The problem is that Hamas’s leadership is prepared to risk continuing this escalation, even though it doesn’t seek a full-scale war. Hamas has assessed that any further delay in getting outside actors to step in and stabilize Gaza’s economy will threaten the future of its regime as least as much as would a war with Israel. Hence, it is signaling to Israel and to Egypt (which is playing a key role as an intermediary), as well as to the international community, that its demands must be met or the attacks will continue, come what may.
For Netanyahu, who is in the midst of a contentious election campaign, the timing of Hamas’s latest challenge is difficult. If he is seen to “give in” to its demands, it will damage his campaign, and he is already facing domestic criticism for facilitating the flow of Qatari aid money into Gaza. Hamas may have decided to try and gamble by increasing the pressure during elections, based on the assumption that Netanyahu will be reluctant to get into a major conflict in Gaza at this time. For his part, Netanyahu is seeking to convince Hamas that this assumption is a dangerous illusion.
Assuming conflict does not break out before the elections, whoever is in government in Israel post-elections will likely end up with one of two difficult choices: 1) seek a long-term truce in Gaza by stabilizing its economy, which would bring quiet but also strengthen Hamas; or 2) decimate Hamas’s military wing in a new conflict.
In the meantime, Israel’s defense establishment is keeping a cautious eye on the West Bank. It has managed to stay relatively calm so far and has not reflected Gaza’s instability, but Hamas is doing its best to change that. Gaza-based Al-Aqsa satellite TV, run by Hamas, is one of the ways Gaza has tried to export terrorism to the West Bank. Hamas even used the channel to send coded messages to terror cells in the West Bank last year, leading the IDF to bomb its studios in November. This week, Israel designated the channel a terrorist organization. Even so, that won’t stop Hamas in Gaza from systematically trying to set fire to the West Bank.
