The Electronic Intifada

Opinion/ Editorial
The men who are selling Palestine
Ali Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada
23 April 2003
David Hirst, the veteran correspondent for The Guardian, reported in 1996 on fears in Yasser Arafats entourage that the Israelis would turn the Palestinian security forces against
the Palestinian leader. According to Hirst, a Palestinian oficial said that the Israelis had so penetrated the security forces that some of its leaders now depend on them at least as
much as they do on Arafat. The time is coming when the Israelis decide that Arafat - who argues too much - has served his purpose. The oficial told Hirst that, the Israelis are
grooming Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas], one of the secret negotiators of the Oslo accord, to take Mr. Arafats place, and that they will count on Muhammad Dahlan, head of
Preventative Security in Gaza, to lead the putsch.
Seven years ago such fears and inighting could be dismissed as so much paranoia. And yet, as I write this, Arafat clings desperately to the rubble of his bombed-out headquarters, the
Israelis having declared him irrelevant, while the US- and Israeli-chosen Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas is locked in a dispute with Arafat over the formation of a
cabinet. The key sticking point is Abbas insistence that Dahlan be placed in charge of security. Arafats paranoia appears in this case to have been justiied. Even the most level-
headed observer is tempted to see in this a conspiracy.
Abbas and Dahlan have been enjoying a positive press in the United States recently. The Los Angeles Times noted that Abbas supporters hope he will help Arafats Fatah party break
loose from a corruption-plagued past. As for Dahlan, a New York Times editorial called him the tough Gazan, who has pressed Mr. Arafat to crack down on Hamas and other
militant groups, and noted that he has often dealt with Israeli and American oficials, who hold him in high respect.
This gentle treatment coincides with the fact that chief among the supporters are Tony Blair, and George W. Bush, who declared himself pleased at Abbas appointment. It is
impossible to ind any mention of the fact that Abbas and Dahlan are steeped in the corruption that plagued the Palestinian Authority from its inception. In an earlier column, I
recalled Abbas $1.5 million villa built amidst the squalor of Gaza. Dahlan too, built himself a villa, one so lavish that it began to sink into Gazas sandy soil, and had to be propped up
with special supports.
A 1997 investigative report by Haaretz journalists Ronen Bergman and David Ratner (The Man who swallowed Gaza, April 4, 1997), detailed the sources of some this wealth.
Dahlan, according to this report and numerous others, proited from a monopoly on the import of gasoline into Gaza. Palestinian gas station owners were forced to buy product at
inlated prices and Dahlans Preventive Security Service spent much of its time protecting Israeli tankers.
More serious perhaps and equally forgotten is that Dahlans security services were the target of numerous allegations from Palestinian and international human rights
organizations of serious abuses including torture.
The extent of Palestinian Authority corruption, in which Abbas and Dahlan are marinated, was known from the irst days. However, in the good old days of Rabin, Peres, Clinton and
Special Middle East Coordinator Dennis Ross, the only people who spoke about it vociferously and consistently were Palestinians themselves, and, ironically right-wing Israeli
opponents of the Oslo accords who seized on any information to discredit their enemies. Ross, when asked last year by the Jerusalem Posts Caroline Glick why the Clinton
administration never showed much concern about this corruption, responded, Well, it wasnt as if the Israelis were particularly concerned about the problem. Ross was of course
concerned only with Israels priorities, and those were summed up by Rabins hope that Arafat would ight terrorism without interference from Israels Supreme Court and the
human rights group BTselem. The fact that Palestinian legislators and activists were going to jail or worse merely for speaking of the corruption never spurred the United States
to act.
The tolerance of corruption extended also to the role of Israelis. Last year, Israels Maariv newspaper sparked a furor when it revealed the extent of the business and inancial
relationship between Arafat and his cronies, and Yossi Ginossar, the former head of interrogations for Israels Shin Bet. Ginossar is accused among other things, of managing secret
Swiss bank accounts for Arafat. Israels attorney general has launched a full-scale criminal investigation into what many Israelis view as treason. Yet the 1997 Haaretz report alleged
that Ginossar was already acting as a personal go-between for Arafats closest associates in corrupt deals, and taking ive percent from each side. What took the Israelis so long to ind
their outrage?
Under the guise of reforming the Palestinian Authority for the sake of peace, we are witnessing Rabins formula being resurrected with only the names changed. The vague
promises of the Oslo accords have been replaced with the vague promises of the Road Map. Abbas is being promoted not because he represents the future for the Palestinians, but
precisely because he represents a past in which private proit and privilege were secretly traded for fundamental rights and interests of the Palestinian people.
This article irst appeared in The Daily Star on 23 April 2003.
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