Abu Mazen tries to regain the initiative

 The political toll of his disastrous decision on the Goldstone report has led Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to roll the dice on an audacious bid to regain the political initiative.  First he decided to sign the long-blocked Egyptian-brokered Palestinian reconciliation document and dare Hamas to do the same.  Then he suggested that he would go ahead and call Palestinian elections for January 24, whether or not Hamas agreed.  The moves have been backed by a blitz in the anti-Hamas Arab media attempting to blame Hamas for rejecting reconciliation and running away from elections.  Will this help Abu Mazen and Fatah regain the initiative? To what end?  At what cost?

 Abu Mazen’s decision to sign the Egyptian draft was fairly transparently done in order to put the onus on Hamas to say no.  For months and months, the two sides have been playing a game of avoiding a deal while pinning the blame on the other.   Both Hamas and Fatah have been reluctant to do the Egyptian deal, since both see potentially existential threats and few clear immediate benefits, but the Palestinian and Arab publics strongly favor some kind of reconciliation.  The winning move has for a long time been to be able to blame the other side for the failure.   Abu Mazen’s decision to finally sign the dotted line now reflected his political weakness, and his confidence that a politically strengthened Hamas would not now sign on to a draft which most analysts think favors Fatah and the PA’s interests.  From this position of weakness, he’s going for broke and trying to force several key issues. 

 Will this, along with the belated UN discussion of the Goldstone report, help Abu Mazen and the PA to regain the ground lost over the last weeks?  Perhaps, but only to a limited degree.  Hamas has been backed temporarily into a tactical corner, and appears to be scrambling to find a way out.   But the jockeying has been going on for so long that few in the relevant Arab and Palestinian publics will be convinced by the attempt to blame Hamas for the reconciliation’s failure.   The current stories in the Arab media claiming that the U.S. forced Egypt to change the draft while Hamas was considering it are already muddying Fatah’s preferred narrative.   On its own, the story will likely have only limited effect on political perceptions.  

 It could have a seriously negative effect if it puts an end to serious efforts to broker a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah — or a positive one if it brings the long-festering issues to a head and actually mobilizes momentum towards a deal.  For all the intense ill-will and mistrust between the two sides, most Palestinians want to see the political reunification of the West Bank and Gaza.  Most want to see an end to the blockade of Gaza.   Most want to see a single, functioning Palestinian government.  And most understand that only a unity government of some kind would be able to negotiate any binding, end of conflict agreement with Israel.   If this is the endgame — giving up on reaching a deal in order to pin blame on Hamas — then all those hopes recede.

 What about Abu Mazen’s call for elections? Very, very few Palestinians with whom I’ve spoken, or who write in the Palestinian and Arab media, believe that elections absent a prior political agremeent on the ground rules will solve anything.  I’ve advocated for holding Palestinian elections in the past, but on the premise that they would follow rather than precede a political agreement.  Those Palestinian analysts who I’ve seen supporting the call for elections generally premise that support on their hopes that it will generate political consensus first. 

 With such a political agreement, then elections could provide a route towards creating a legitimate and effective government capable of both peace negotiations and institutional development.  Without a political agreement, elections will either be a sham or will badly inflame intra-Palestinian conflict.  The lessons of this year’s Iranian, Afghan, and Lebanese elections should be taken very seriously by those  weighing the merits of Abu Mazen’s call for early elections without a prior political consensus. 

 Abbas is trying to regain some political initiative after his recent setbacks, which include not only the Goldstone fiasco but also the impact of Netanyahu’s refusal of a settlement freeze on Palestinian views of a prospective peace.  Palestinian views of peace talks are souring quickly, just as they are in Jordan. (The other day, the commander of the U.S.-trained Palestinian security forces dismissed Netanyahu’s "economic peace" ideas as "childish talk, not befitting of adults").  There’s no quick fix for this for Abbas, and hopefully the bid for a momentary tactical political advantage won’t lock him — and everyone else — into a dangerous series of commitments.  The key here is to try to turn these moves into progress instead of into a dead end.