Can Israel and the Palestinian Authority Continue to Cooperate?

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is 87 years old. When he leaves the political scene, will Israel be able to continue supporting the Palestinian Authority (PA) and even influence who stands at its head? Speaking in a closed session of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in Israel’s Knesset, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to answer the question affirmatively, saying, “We are preparing for the day after Abu Mazen. We need the Palestinian Authority. We can’t let it collapse. We don’t want it to collapse, either. We are ready to help it financially. We have an interest in the PA continuing to work. Where it manages to operate, it does the work for us, and we have no interest in it falling.”¹

The ability to maintain the PA depends significantly on the identity of Abbas’ successor and Israel’s ability to influence who the next Palestinian leader will be.

To assess Israel’s ability to influence the next head of the PA, it is necessary to provide critical background information.

Absence of PA Democracy

Created pursuant to the Oslo Accords – a generic name given to a series of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1993 through 1995 – the PA was meant to be the political vehicle for the realization of democratic, autonomous Palestinian rule. In reality, the PA was rarely genuinely democratic.

The Oslo Accords, and thereafter Palestinian law, prescribed that general elections for the two central positions – the PA Chairman and the PA Legislative Council (the PA parliament) – would be held regularly. In practice, however, elections for each of these positions have only been held twice in 30 years. The first elections for Chairman and Parliament were held simultaneously in 1996 as part of the inaugural process of the PA. The second elections for the position of PA Chairman were held in 2005, following the death of Yasser Arafat. The second elections for the PA parliament were held in January 2006. Since then, no elections have been held.

In late 2020, when the United States and the EU finally recognized the lack of Palestinian democracy and demanded that the Palestinian leadership “renew its legitimacy,” Abbas temporarily acquiesced. Following the international community’s call, Abbas set elections² for the PA parliament in May 2021, which were meant to be followed by elections for PA Chairman in July 2021. However, when Abbas realized that his Fatah party had, in fact, splintered into several different branches – each claiming to be the authentic Fatah party – and that the elections would result in a landslide victory for Hamas, he decided to postpone the elections indefinitely.³

While Abbas’ decision flouted the desire of the international community and the Palestinian people, since then, neither the United States nor the EU have taken any actual steps to ensure the renewal of the democratic process.

Throughout his reign as PA Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas steered the Fatah-controlled PA, enjoying the benefits of having once won an election, on the one hand, and the willful blindness of the rest of the world, including the United States, the EU, and Israel, that he had turned the PA into a totalitarian regime, on the other. He also enjoyed the international prestige of being considered the sole, or at least foremost, Palestinian representative.

While the absence of Palestinian democracy is not ideal for the Palestinians, it would undoubtedly give Israel more flexibility and potential influence on the next PA leader. However, the absence of any democratic process is just one piece of the puzzle.

The Chasm between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in Judea and Samaria

Despite being geographically separated, the Oslo Accords invented the fiction that the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria are “one territorial unit”⁴ meant to be governed by one unified Palestinian Authority.

Initially, the PA did function as one unit that simultaneously governed the areas transferred to it both in the Gaza Strip and in Judea and Samaria. However, this has not been the case for almost 17 years, since 2007 – i.e., most of the time the PA has existed.

As noted above, in 2006, the PA held general elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), which is the PA parliament for all intents and purposes. In anticipation of the elections, Abbas, who had replaced Yasir Arafat as PA Chairman, did all he could to stack the cards in his favor. He changed the voting system and enlarged the PLC from 88 to 132 members in breach of the Oslo Accords. He also managed to secure a $50 million donation from the United States to the PA and an additional $2.3 million in support for the elections, which many observers allege⁵ was designed to bolster the image of Abbas and his Fatah party. Going into the elections, favorable polls also bolstered Fatah,⁶ which predicted a secure Fatah majority.

Alongside the preparations for the PA elections, in the summer of 2005, just months prior to the elections, Israel had fully implemented its “Disengagement Plan” from the Gaza Strip, pulling out all its troops and forcibly expelling the Israeli civilians who had lived there since the 1970s. To Abbas’ dismay, Israel’s disengagement and the scenes of destruction of what used to be Israeli communities were quickly claimed as a success for Hamas.

In an act of regrettable folly, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon bowed to Palestinian and international pressure and allowed Hamas, an internationally-designated terror organization, to participate in the elections. The result for the PA, Abbas, and his Fatah party was catastrophic.

Running under the “Change and Reform” banner, Hamas broke the decade-long Fatah hegemony. After beating Fatah in almost every electoral district,⁷ at the end of the day, Hamas won the elections by a landslide, winning 74 of the 132 PLC seats.⁸

The Hamas win caused Abbas a huge dilemma. On the one hand, the Palestinian people had spoken and chosen their democratically-elected leaders. Conversely, the chosen leaders were members of an internationally-designated terror organization. Israel, the United States, the European Union, and others refused to cooperate with, and more importantly, refused to continue funding, the elected PA government.⁹

Despite initially tolerating the Hamas-formed government, in early 2007, following a succession of events, Abbas deposed the government and replaced it with a non-affiliated, so-called technocrat government.

Rejecting Abbas’ illegal coup, Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007. While senior, privileged Fatah representatives, such as Mohammad Dahlan, managed to save themselves, other less fortunate Fatah representatives in Gaza were killed by Hamas, some being thrown from the top of buildings.¹⁰

Following the Hamas takeover, the technocrat government established by Abbas in Ramallah was quickly replaced with a government filled with Abbas’ Fatah party members. This situation has continued to this day.

Effectively, since 2007, the PA, at least as envisaged by the Oslo Accords, has ceased to exist, replaced with a despotic Hamastan in the Gaza Strip and a despotic Fatahland¹¹ in the areas of Judea and Samaria transferred to the control of the PA in 1994-1997.

In Fatahland, Abbas has controlled all the executive and legislative functions of what all the different actors continued to erroneously call “the Palestinian Authority.” Abbas craftily used the U.S.-supported PA security coordination with Israel to fortify his rule to ensure that Hamas never gained a stronghold. When he feared the existing PA courts would not do his bidding, he simply created new ones.

In Hamastan, Hamas holds similar powers, passing “legislation” and performing all the governance functions, including controlling the border crossings and collecting taxes.

Abbas’ Multiple Hats

In parallel to his position as Chairman of the PA and head of Fatah, Abbas is also head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) – Israel’s co-signatory on the Oslo Accords. While the PLO is theoretically an umbrella organization for many different Palestinian factions, including internationally designated terror organizations such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in practice, it is dominated by Fatah.

After the creation of the PA, for many observers, the continued role of the PLO was unclear. For Arafat and Abbas, however, the PLO remained the sole source of Palestinian leadership, while the PA was merely a form of internal governance.

Over the last few years, this reality has become even more pronounced. Since mid-2018, notwithstanding the intentionally deceitful move of calling and then indefinitely postponing the 2021 elections, Abbas has adopted a series of decisions¹² to ensure that Fatah hegemony over the PA continues even after his death. These decisions included, inter alia, dissolving the PA parliament¹³ and merging the PA governmental institutions with those of the PLO.¹⁴

Which Palestinian Leaders See Themselves as Successors to Abbas?

Abbas’ party, Fatah, has dominated the PA since it was created. While this reality was initially a function of elections, as noted above, for more than a decade, Fatah has despotically ruled the PA. Accordingly, the senior leaders of Fatah all see themselves as the potential successors of Abbas at the head of Fatah and, consequently, at the head of the PA.

In the last internal elections held by Fatah in 2016, the pecking order set Marwan Barghouti in first place, followed by 2) Jibril Rajoub, 3) Muhammad Shtayyeh, 4) Hussein Al-Sheikh, 5) Mahmoud Al-Aloul, and 6) Tawfiq Tirawi.

Having come in second and hoping that Israel will not be willing to grant a special presidential pardon to terrorist murderer Barghouti, Jibril Rajoub (70) sees himself as Abbas’ natural successor.

Despite only coming in third, Mohammad Shtayyeh (65) would most likely want to capitalize on the fact that he has now filled the position of PA prime minister for over four years and would undoubtedly see himself as a potential replacement for Abbas.

While he placed only 5th in the internal elections, Mahmoud Al-Aloul (73) would point to the fact that in early 2017, Abbas appointed him as the deputy chairman of Fatah, a position he has filled since then.

Hussein Al-Sheikh (63) would stake his claim to succeed Abbas based on the fact that in May 2022, Abbas appointed him to be the Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the PLO, in addition to his ministerial position as the head of PA Civil Affairs. Moreover, as Jerusalem Center Middle East specialist Yoni Ben Menachem recently noted,¹⁵ the Fatah movement’s Revolutionary Council has set December 17, 2023, as the date for the movement’s 8th conference in Ramallah. In that conference, Al-Sheikh, backed by the powerful head of Palestinian Intelligence, Majed Faraj, intends to pave his way to Fatah’s leadership, removing some of his rivals from leadership positions within the movement.

Mohammed Dahlan (61) also sees himself as a potential successor for Abbas. Dahlan, who once headed the Preventive Security Forces in Gaza and served as the PA National Security Advisor, fled the PA after a conflict with Abbas. Dahlan was later indicted, convicted, and sentenced¹⁶ to three years in prison and a $16 million fine, all in absentia. Since fleeing, Dahlan has resided in the United Arab Emirates. For his candidacy to be successful, it would require the interim PA leadership, one of his direct rivals, to grant him clemency.

Who Would Palestinians Like to See Replace Abbas?

If the Palestinian people are asked who they want to succeed Abbas, the answer is clear. According to a survey¹⁷ conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR):

• If Palestinians were asked to choose between Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas or Marwan Barghouti from Fatah, a convicted murderer who is currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison, Barghouti would win 60% of the votes, and Haniyeh would win 37%.
• If the race were between Ismail Haniyeh and current PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, Haniyeh would receive 62% while Shtayyeh would receive only 33%.
• When given a list of candidates to choose from, 34% expressed support for Marwan Barghouti, 17% support Ismail Haniyeh, 6% support Mohammed Dahlan, 5% support Khaled Mashaal, 3% support Yahya al-Sinwar, 3% support Mohammad Shtayyeh, and 3% support Hussein Al-Sheikh.

Who Would the Palestinians Elect to the PA Parliament?

If elections for the PA parliament were held today, according to the PCPSR survey,¹⁸ Hamas would repeat its 2006 electoral victory. While Fatah would have a slight majority of the votes (36%) compared to Hamas (34%), the result assumes that only one united Fatah list would run. Since, as seen in 2021, this is not necessarily the case, Hamas would most likely receive the most significant number of seats, while Fatah’s share would be divided between the different groups claiming to be the “original Fatah.”

Why Is Prime Minister Netanyahu Confident He Can Influence the Palestinians’ Choice?

Given the absence of any Palestinian democratic process, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu apparently believes he can influence the choice of the next PA leader for several reasons.

The central reasoning behind any of the following moves would be that the Oslo Accords, from which the PA and its leader draw their basic legitimacy, prescribed clear guidance as to the manner in which the PA Chairman is elected. For the last decade, Israel has ignored the absence of Palestinian democracy and the breach of the Accords, but it need not continue on that path of folly.¹⁹

To influence the identity of the next PA leader, Israel could declare that it expects strict adherence to the provisions of the Accords. Several measures could support this demand.

Israel Holds the Financial Future of the PA in Its Hands

As part of the Oslo Accords, Israel agreed to waive billions of shekels of tax income in favor of the PA. As part of the agreement, Israel collects four main categories of taxes and transfers them to the PA. Palestinians pay two of the taxes – import taxes and excise duties – for goods and fuel imported from abroad. The two other taxes – VAT and income tax – are paid by Palestinians for goods and services purchased from Israel or for working in Israel or in Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

Over the years, the tax income has grown substantially. According to budget performance reports published by the PA, for 2017 through 2022, the taxes accounted for between 65.9% and 68.8% of all PA revenues.

	Total net PA revenue	PA Income from Israeli-collected taxes	Percentage of total revenue
2017	NIS 12,880,200,000	8,722,200,000	67.7%
2018	12,256,200,000	8,050,400,000	65.9%
2019	11,555,100,000	7,949,100,000	68.8%
2020	11,832,300,000	8,090,800,000	68.4%
2021	13,714,300,000	9,328,800,000	68%
2022	16,216,600,000	11,156,100,000	68.8%

In 2022, according to budget performance reports released by the PA, the taxes collected by Israel and transferred to the PA accounted for 68% of the total expenditure by PA institutions.

In other words, Israel’s government holds the financial future of the PA in its hands. If the Israeli government does not recognize the leader who claims to stand at the head of the PA, it could simply refuse to transfer the tax income, and the PA would not be able to survive.

Netanyahu is well aware of the power he holds over the PA. Even though he knows that the money Israel transfers is used by the PA to incite terror and the murder of Jews, to fund the PLO/PA’s terror-rewarding “Pay-for-Slay” policy, to fund the PA’s international lawfare against Israel in the UN, the International Criminal Court, and in the International Court of Justice, and a host of other PA malfeasances, he has consistently balked at implementing decisions, policies, and legislation that might potentially negatively affect the PA.

While considering Israel’s reluctance to use its financial leverage, any potential candidate to replace Abbas, who is not chosen in the manner prescribed by the Oslo Accords, would need to gain Israel’s consent to continue receiving the critical tax income.

It should be noted that the collection by Israel and transfer of taxes to the PA is not done in a vacuum. Instead, it is governed by Israeli law that periodically implemented the Oslo Accords. The term “Palestinian Authority” has a specified meaning in those laws. If it were found that the established body no longer exists, Israel would have to change its laws to cater to the new reality and continue transferring the tax income.

The Mobility and Privileges Granted to the PA Chairman

Alongside the financial considerations, Israel and the potential replacement for Abbas would also have to weigh mobility factors.

A person who claims to head the PA is naturally required to travel between the different parts of Fatahland²⁰ and certainly internationally outside of Judea and Samaria.

While the PA is relatively autonomous, the Palestinian leader needs Israel’s cooperation to travel around.

Within Judea and Samaria, travel between the areas that the PA theoretically governs requires passage through Area C, which, according to the Oslo Accords, is under the sole jurisdiction of Israel. While Palestinians can enter and travel around this area in regular circumstances without any obstacles, the PA leader must be accompanied by armed guards.

Similarly, since Israel controls the external borders and the airspace of Judea and Samaria, for the PA leader to travel abroad and maintain the façade and privileges of being the PA leader, Israel would have to recognize that person’s legitimacy.

The unique travel privileges granted to the Chairman, his family, and his bodyguards are stipulated in Annex I²¹ of the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which is the most dominant of the Oslo Accords.

If the person claiming to head the PA does not receive Israel’s recognition, Israel could prevent that person from enjoying the privilege the Oslo Accords granted to the PA Chairman.

While there are certainly other considerations, without money and without the status and privileges Israel grants to the PA leader, Abbas’ potential replacement would find it impossible, in the long term, to function on both an institutional and personal level.

Can Israel Successfully Maintain the Palestinian Authority?

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has stated that Israel is preparing for the “day after Abu Mazen” and that Israel aims to maintain the PA.

Since it is evident to any objective observer that no single, unified Palestinian Authority, as envisaged by the Oslo Accords, actually exists today, after Abbas leaves the political scene, Israel, according to the Prime Minister, will strive to maintain the pretense of the existence of that body. It is unclear, however, whether Israel will strive to preserve the despotic rule of Fatah over Fatahland while simultaneously maintaining the internal Palestinian rift with Hamastan.

The advantage of maintaining the pretense is that, irrespective of the identity of the despotic leader chosen, the Fatahland leadership will continue to govern and provide for the needs of the Palestinian population, however poorly, thereby relieving Israel of that burden.

While the task of the new Fatahland leader would not be simple, it comes with a potentially multi-billion-dollar dowry, the perks of traveling the globe as a national leader, and the ability to enrich those close to him.

The disadvantage of maintaining the pretense is that to survive internally, the new Fatahland leader must prove his fighting credentials and that he is not just another Israeli stooge. Will that mean the new leadership of Fatahland will continue the pugnacious practices and policies of Abbas, incite terror and the murder of Jews, squander billions to reward terrorists, attack Israel in international forums, and continue undermining Israel’s legitimacy?

When 87-year-old Mahmoud Abbas leaves the political scene, the “Palestinian Authority” will enter a new phase. Abbas’ legacy to the Palestinians is the destruction of the PA as one unified entity. Instead of fighting terror, Abbas embraced the internationally-designated terror organization Hamas and insisted that the terrorists be allowed to participate in the PA elections. Abbas similarly squandered billions of shekels/dollars inciting terror and murder and incentivizing and rewarding terror and terrorists. Abbas also spearheaded the use of lawfare to attack and delegitimize Israel. The PA under Abbas was little more than a glorified terror organization.

Nonetheless, the Israeli security establishment, which has sunk deep into the Oslo paradigm, has managed to convince Israel’s government that maintaining the semblance and pretense of the existence of the “Palestinian Authority” – i.e., the presence of Fatahland – is in Israel’s best strategic interest.

Will Israel’s government continue its willful blindness to the wrongdoings of the Palestinians to maintain this pretense? Will Israel continue funding all the disastrous policies of the Fatahland leader and grant him all the privileges and perks of being the Palestinian leader, even if the Palestinians had no say in his selection?

* * *

Notes

 

{Reposted from JCPA}