Bombing may be the beginning of Abbas's end

[abu afak]

Bombing may be the beginning of Abbas's end, By Arieh O'Sullivan

Arieh O'Sullivan Aug. 21, 2003


About a week ago, Islamic Jihad terrorists in the Gaza Strip made a fatal mistake. They were assembling a nasty bicycle bomb, one where the explosives were hidden inside the tubing of the bike that would later be ridden by a suicide bomber.

But before they could dispatch the bomber to an Israeli target, they made the mistake of parking it near the headquarters of Palestinian Authority Minister of Security Muhammad Dahlan in Jabalya where it exploded prematurely causing little damage.

Dahlan quickly dispatched masked officers from his Preventative Security Service and they stormed the house where the Islamic Jihad men were sitting. The officers summarily drilled bullets through two of them who died on the spot. Three others were carted off to prison without trial and have remained there ever since.

This shows that when it comes to his own security, Dahlan knows how to act. It also lends credence to those in the defense establishment who believe that Dahlan can act decisively when he chooses to, but simply doesn't want to crack down on terror groups.

So the question is, does the Palestinian Authority have not only the guts, but the capability, to take the dramatic steps that the United States is pressing them to take to keep the shaky road map plan on the map?

That a strike against Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah-Tanzim renegades and the Marxist PFLP will come is certain. The question is, who will do it first? The Palestinians interested in preserving the most promising progress towards statehood in years, or a seething Israel, certain the so-called hudna vaporized in Jerusalem's deadly bombing of worshipers returning from Judaism's holiest site?

The Israeli defense establishment is split regarding the PA's capability to confront the armed groups. It is generally believed that Dahlan can act effectively in the Gaza Strip, his stronghold, despite the popularity of Hamas. Military intelligence believes that Dahlan will also be able to take decisive action in the West Bank where Hamas and Islamic Jihad is weaker.

But the Shin Bet has little faith in Dahlan's capabilities in the West Bank. This is because chaos reigns and the preventive security services are quibbling among themselves and are against letting "the Gazan" (Dahlan) "stick his nose here." Col. (res.) Shalom Harari, former adviser on Arab affairs in the Defense Ministry, believes that the PA under Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is too weak and PA Chairman Yasser Arafat is undermining the success of the road map.

"[Abbas] doesn't have the minimum tools, i.e. the consolidation of all the security forces. Arafat has been able to keep control of many of the Palestinian security forces, include Force 17, intelligence and even the Preventative Security Services in the West Bank." The coming days will tell which side is right.

Meanwhile, the Defense establishment is even being told that Dahlan and Abbas are "impotent."
Israel has always hung a Damocles sword over the Palestinian Authority with the ultimate threat of sweeping it into history's garbage can as yet another failed phenomenon to win the Palestinians statehood.

But this time around, Israel's options are limited since it wants to stick to the road map.
"We don't want to go stage an Operation Defensive Shield II," said Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim, referring to last year's offensive in the West Bank.

"It is clear we can not accept this quietly and we will act against these murderous organizations."
Boim also dismissed the US pressure on the Palestinians.

"When is there heavy American pressure? When there is a terrible attack," Boim said.
"We would expect American pressure on the Palestinian Authority from the beginning. I never saw this and it's like they suddenly remembered that the blood of our children is crying to the heavens."

The PA says it is against taking actions that could spark a civil war between it and the Islamic bloc. It has preferred instead to come to arrangements with winks and bear hugs and temporary cease-fires.

Jerusalem's suicide bombing symbolized a number of things. It marked for most Israelis the end of the hudna. If the present Palestinian leadership doesn't take the right steps to save themselves, then this moment will be remembered as the beginning of the countdown to the resignation of Abbas.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...=1061350054084

[abu afak]

Just Another Arafat?
Abbas has to choose between terror and respectability.

Thursday, August 21, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT

Tuesday night's suicide bombings in Israel powerfully demonstrated the failure of the current strategy of Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in implementing the road map. Unfortunately it had to take the death of 20 Israelis, and the injury of more than 100 others, to prove the point.

Central to the first stage of the road map is the requirement that the Palestinians dismantle their terrorist organizations. Mr. Abbas believed he could succeed in disarming them through negotiation, rather than force, and heralded a three-month cease-fire declared by the terrorists in June as a sign of his progress. Tuesday night (the second major attack in violation of the cease-fire) came ironically as Islamic Jihad leaders were meeting with Mr. Abbas to discuss their cease-fire. Islamic Jihad, along with Hamas, claimed responsibility for the killings (although Hamas incredibly denied the cease-fire was over).

But the terrorists, it is now clear, merely used the cease-fire as an opportunity to re-arm and re-train for further attacks on Israel. It was always unrealistic of Mr. Abbas to believe that he could suddenly persuade terrorists dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel to lay down their arms and accept a two-state solution. These organizations, like al Qaeda, aim to fight until the total destruction of their enemy. The only response is to destroy them first.

The White House appears to have accepted that the strategy the U.S. is using toward al Qaeda is also needed here. As Sean McCormack, the White House National Security Council spokesman, put it in the wake of the bombing, "We call upon the Palestinian Authority to act to dismantle terrorist networks."

The Palestinian Prime Minister and his security chief Mohammed Dahlan must now decide what they want--a Palestinian entity perpetually at war with Israel, or an internationally recognized state free to build its future. The silent majority of Palestinians want a normal life, but the terrorists make it impossible. Messrs. Abbas and Dahlan have shown some inclination to restrain terror, but Tuesday's bombing demonstrates they have a long way to go.

It also won't be easy: One reason for their reluctance to crack down is that they still only control a fraction of the entire Palestinian security forces. The majority are still in the hands of Yasser Arafat, who is working hard to blow up the road map. A genuine crackdown would mean some bloody scenes, and perhaps even a Palestinian civil war.

Mr. Abbas has certainly been around Arafat enough to understand his old ally's game. Mr. Abbas was with Arafat at the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords where, like the current road map, the Palestinians were given control of land and in return promised to dismantle the terrorist networks. But instead Arafat rejected Ehud Barak's generous peace offer, launching the intifada against Israel and giving financial and military support to the terrorists.


Like his long-time benefactor, Mr. Abbas speaks of "living in peace with Israel" and "dismantling terror." Arafat had a habit of then switching into Arabic and encouraging the suicide bombers in their deadly work, which was financed by Arafat's Palestinian Authority. So far Mr. Abbas has been more consistent. But he cannot straddle the worlds of jihad and international respectability.

For the first time in years, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime, the refusal to deal with Arafat and the presence of a U.S. President committed to fighting terrorism have produced a glimmer of hope that the Israeli-Palestinian question can be resolved. Mr. Abbas has a chance to turn Palestinians away from terror and lead his people to statehood in peace with Israel. To do that, however, he must forcibly disarm these terrorists. If he doesn't, Israel has a responsibility to its citizens to do it instead.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110003914

[Mediocrates]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...=1061697081919

Palestinian leaders were locked in a power struggle Sunday, officials said, triggered by Yasser Arafat's attempt to hand control over all the security forces to a loyalist in apparent hope of sidelining the US-backed Palestinian security chief.

The current security chief, Mohammed Dahlan, is supported by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, whom Arafat has repeatedly tried to undermine since appointing him in April under US pressure.

International mediators now want Arafat to relinquish control of the security forces and allow Abbas and Dahlan to clamp down on militants, in response to a Hamas bus bombing that killed 21 people in Jerusalem last week. Arafat continues to command several of the security branches, while Abbas and Dahlan supervise the rest.

Instead of giving up control over armed men, Arafat proposed Saturday to pass the supreme command to Nasser Yousef, a staunch Arafat loyalist. Such an appointment would effectively sideline Dahlan.

Palestinian militants, meanwhile, fired a new, longer-range rocket into Israel on Sunday, the army said. The rocket, which landed less than a kilometer (mile) from the Israeli city of Ashkelon, fell on a beach, just 10 meters (yards) from an unmanned lifeguard post, the army said.

The militants fired the rocket from an area of the Gaza Strip that allowed them to target Ashkelon, rather than the much smaller Israeli town of Sderot, which had previously been the target of Qassam rockets, the army said.

The rocket was fired just hours after Dahlan's forces began arresting weapons smugglers in the Gaza Strip, seizing weapons and detaining at least a dozen suspects Saturday. Dahlan's forces also sealed off two tunnels used to smuggle weapons from Egypt to the Gaza Strip.

If Yousef is appointed interior minister, Dahlan will become irrelevant, a Palestinian official said on condition of anonymity. And if Yousef takes over, Arafat will retain effective control over the security forces, the official said, something the Americans and the Israelis oppose.

The official said he doubted the initiative would be approved by the central committee of the ruling Fatah faction. A meeting of the committee scheduled for later Sunday was canceled for reasons that remained unclear.

A main Palestinian obligation, according to a US-backed peace initiative, is to dismantle militant groups.

Yousef, who is one of the oldest members of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was part of a senior guard who spent the 1980s in exile with Arafat in Tunis and Lebanon. In 1994, when the Palestinian Authority was established, Yousef was a senior police commander.

Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr denied Israeli media reports that Dahlan and Abbas are threatening to resign.

"There is a small crisis now about how we will strengthen the unity of our security forces...and how the Palestinians will enforce the willingness of the authority and the rule of law," Amr told Israel's Army Radio.

"We want to unify our security forces under one title, under one address," Amr said.

According to officials who attended Saturday's meeting, Abbas was initially vehemently opposed to Yousef's appointment but later expressed flexibility on the issue.

If approved by the Fatah central committee, the nomination would move to the Palestinian Legislative Council, which has to approve all Cabinet postings.

Israel retaliated for Tuesday's bus bombing with a helicopter missile strike that killed Ismail Abu Shanab, a Hamas leader.

After Abu Shanab's killing a cease-fire declared by militant groups on June 29 collapsed. Abbas came under even greater pressure to rein in militants, something he is reluctant to do for fear it will spark internal fighting.

Without Arafat's cooperation, a clampdown would be even more difficult, Amr said, noting that US Secretary of State Colin Powell made a similar statement after the bus bombing.

In a rare call on Arafat whom the United States has ignored for months Powell called on the Palestinian leader last week to hand over control of his security forces to Dahlan so he would be able to effectively fight terrorism.

"We will never achieve any progress, especially in organizing our security forces... to all our steps, we need Yasser Arafat, we need his cooperation," Amr said.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli forces uncovered a bomb lab, blowing up the site where they found an 80-kilogram (176 pound) bomb, fertilizers and other bomb-making materials, the army and Palestinian witnesses said.

Two rockets similar to the Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip were found in the explosives factory, the army and witnesses said. It is unusual for the army to find rockets in the West Bank, which is in much closer range to central Israeli cities than the Gaza Strip.

[britishchap]

Guysen reports that Mazen has requested a vote of confidence from the PA so we should get an answer one way or another fairly soon as to whether he will continue to play any kind of meaningful roll or whethers it's back to open Arafat control.