Gaza slides closer to chaos | Economist.com

Gaza slides closer to chaos Economist.com

Dec 30th 2005 From The Economist Global AgendaIn the latest sign that the Palestinian government is failing to assert its authority over the Gaza Strip after Israel’s withdrawal, dozens of policemen stormed the Rafah border crossing on Friday, causing it to be closed for several hours. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, will have to show a lot more political cunning if he is to stop the rot
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Ructions at Rafah
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IS THE Gaza Strip sliding into anarchy? When Israeli settlers and troops were pulled out in September, optimistic observers hoped the Palestinian Authority (PA) would quickly assert control over the coastal sliver of land, in what would be an important step towards the creation of a Palestinian state encompassing both the strip and the West Bank. But events in recent weeks have proved the pessimists right, for now. In the latest of a series of worrying incidents, on the morning of Friday December 30th, around 100 Palestinian policemen, angry at the growing lawlessness in Gaza, stormed the Rafah crossing between the strip and Egypt.
Backed by gunmen linked to the ruling Fatah party, the policemen forced monitors from the European Union (EU) to withdraw to an Israeli-controlled border crossing at Kerem Shalom. The Rafah crossing was immediately sealed off and would-be travellers turned back. By mid-afternoon, Palestinian officials were able to announce the reopening of the crossing, though the situation there remained tense.
The closure of Rafah, albeit for only a few hours, is a setback for Palestinian efforts to show that order can be restored, and to the peace process more broadly. The PA took control of the crossing only last month, under a deal brokered by America’s secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. At the time, it was hailed as a move that would make Gaza a testing-ground for Palestinian statehood. It was also seen as a crucial step in reviving the strip’s sickly economy. Under the terms of the deal, EU monitors must be present for the crossing to operate.
The storming of Rafah is the latest in a series of violent incidents in Gaza since the Israeli “disengagement” three months ago, following almost four decades of occupation. The incident that appears to have triggered the police assault on the crossing was the death of an officer, and another man, in a feud among one of Gaza’s clans on Thursday, which had begun when a man was arrested. These killings in turn set off gun battles across Gaza City, including one outside the home of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), though the Palestinian president was in Jordan at the time.
In recent weeks, gunmen have stormed government buildings several times. The military wings of political factions, as well as the police and criminal gangs, have engaged in shoot-outs in the streets of Gaza City and other built-up areas, underscoring Mr Abbas’s inability to establish order and create a stable political scene. Armed kidnappings are also on the rise: a British human-rights activist and her parents were abducted near Rafah on Wednesday. The same day, Israel imposed a no-go area in northern Gaza, in an attempt, it said, to stop Palestinian militants launching rocket attacks into Israel. Soon after the buffer zone was declared, Israeli forces shelled parts of the area, which contains no Palestinian villages but was home to several Jewish settlements until the pull-out.
The situation has been made even more tense by parliamentary elections that are due to be held on January 25th. Much of the unrest is the result of muscle-flexing in the run-up to the poll. Within Fatah itself, there has been lengthy feuding over which candidates the party will field. On one side is the old guard, including Mr Abbas, which is seen by many Palestinians as tainted by the crony-ridden legacy of Yasser Arafat, who died a year ago; on the other side is a group of younger politicians, who want Fatah to put up vote-winners rather than old-timers. On December 14th, the “young guard” announced a breakaway party list, calling it Al-Mustaqbal: “the Future”. A few days later they agreed to return to the fold and field a unified list, but only after extracting a number of concessions from the president.
Palestinian voters blame the corruption and ineptitude rampant in Fatah and the PA mostly on a small group of Arafat loyalists. Yet though Mr Abbas has sacked some of the group, such as Arafat's cousin Musa Arafat (who was later murdered), he has been reluctant to move against other hangers-on, to the bafflement even of some of his close advisers. Instead, the young guard has done it for him, making him look indecisive and foolish.
It is still not clear whether the elections’ outcome will help or hinder Mr Abbas. The main opposition party, the Islamists of Hamas, took control of three key cities in local elections earlier this month, including a landslide in Fatah’s former stronghold, Nablus in the West Bank. And Hamas has been cleverer about allocating its parliamentary candidates in a complex new system whereby each voter chooses both a national list and a local representative. How much of the parliament Hamas will take—some say as little as a fifth, others as much as a half—is a guess. The result will dictate the extent to which the group may be prepared to subject both its politics and its militant wing to the PA’s authority, something Israel sees as a precondition for any peace talks.
Palestinians accuse Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon, of stoking unrest by expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Mr Sharon recently split from his Likud party to form a new political grouping, Kadima (“Forward”), and, despite suffering a minor stroke two weeks ago, is favourite to win the general election due to be held in Israel on March 28th. He has vowed to keep the big settlements in the West Bank but has also said, to the anger of right-wingers, that some isolated communities may be removed under the internationally backed “road map” peace plan. The Israeli military said on Friday that it had dismantled three stone-and-wood structures used by West Bank settlers. Jewish nationalists stake a biblical claim to land Israel seized in the 1967 war with its Arab neighbours. Palestinians want Gaza and all of the West Bank for their own state, and East Jerusalem for their capital.
Life for Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank could get even worse in the coming days. In an attack on Thursday, claimed by Islamic Jihad, a suicide-bomber killed an Israeli soldier and two Palestinian bystanders close to the West Bank city of Tulkarm, prompting Israel to promise a new military crackdown. And on Sunday, a “period of calm” declared by Palestinian militants at the urging of Mr Abbas is set to expire. If the Palestinian president is to stop the situation descending into total chaos, he will have to show a lot more political guile than he has hitherto displayed.