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Ehud Ya'ari: Riding Low
Ehud Ya'ari

On home turf, Abu Mazen found himself beaten and bruised, stuttering and biting his tongue

THE SPOKESPEOPLE OF KING ABDULLAH OF JORDAN are trying to etch the Aqaba summit into the political memory of the Middle East as a kind of historic landmark for the foundation of the Palestinian state. If, as Theodor Herzl would have it, the Jewish state was established at Basel, then, for the Jordanians� part, their future Palestinian neighbor was born in Aqaba, in accordance with President Bush�s vision of the "division of the Holy Land."

Except that days later, despite all the declarations, Aqaba had not actually produced a thing -- not even the modest news of a cease-fire in the Palestinian terror war against Israel. It was hard to identify even the beginning of a trend toward a halt in the violence.

In the immediate aftermath of the ceremony that was supposed to serve as a stately requiem to the armed intifada, it appeared that the great white hope of the Palestinian Authority, Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen), was having great difficulty in fulfilling the series of obligations he so publicly took upon himself.

If anything, he emerged from the Aqaba event even weaker than he came in. Hamas and the other Palestinian terror organizations have been heaping curses on his pronouncements about the end of the armed resistance and withdrew in early June from a planned final round of talks with the PA on the conditions for a cease-fire. Yasser Arafat, in typically obtuse manner, idly belittled Prime Minister Sharon for expressing readiness to recognize a Palestinian state, saying "there was nothing new" there.

Abu Mazen was forced to start clarifying his positions, and only got himself into more of a mess. And when he finally got around to appointing a commander for the West Bank Preventive Security apparatus, in an attempt to appease his rivals, and chief among them Arafat, he gave this key post to an officer who is unknown even to the local representatives of the CIA. Col. Ziad Hab al-Reih is hardly the kind of figure who can assert authority over the unruly cells of the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Brigades -- let alone Hamas or Jihad.

Especially significant is the sudden rise of firm resistance to Abu Mazen from within his own, and Arafat�s, Fatah movement, to the point of activists refusing to meet with him: Coordination meetings he had arranged with the heads of the Fatah grass-roots Tanzim militia in both Gaza and Ramallah were canceled. Instead of steps aimed at laying the ground for a cease-fire came a barrage of declarations from a series of senior local Fatah leaders warning against any moves that could lead to confrontation with Hamas.

Abu Mazen left Aqaba crowned in international glory as the partner who would replace Arafat at the vanguard of negotiations. On home turf, though, the prime minister found himself beaten and bruised, stuttering and biting his tongue. The moment he gave his word that he would not attempt to harm Hamas, even if they continue with their terror attacks, Abu Mazen lost one of his main instruments of leverage over the organization and was left as nothing more than a lobbyist for ending the spiral of violence.

So is the program for the pacification of the territories already dying before our eyes, despite the boost it got in Aqaba? Not necessarily. There is still a decent prospect for success here.

Hamas still has good reason to go for a cease-fire, as planned, except now it feels no need to hurry and the conditions will only toughen. Hamas now wants to guarantee a place for itself as a covert partner to the U.S.-sponsored peace plan known as the road map, even while publicly rejecting it out of hand. That is, in return for stopping the terror attacks Hamas wants iron-clad guarantees that it will not be hurt by either the Israeli Army or the PA. It is demanding a part in the decision-making, which Abu Mazen will eventually have to accept, as well as budgets, camouflaged in whatever way, for its own charities and education system. It is also demanding the reopening of its newspapers and the release of at least some of its leaders who are in the Shin Bet�s hands.

In other words, Abu Mazen is in a bad way. Arafat and his loyalists are closing in on him from every side, ever constraining his freedom of action. The Fatah Tanzim, who supported his appointment as prime minister, have quickly become disappointed with his direction, depriving him of a most important power base. And Hamas and its ilk lost no time in pouncing on his weakness, widening the gap between his intentions and his actual deeds.

The danger is that without a real turning point in the coming weeks, the reform government of Abu Mazen will become just another piece of the complicated political mosaic in the Palestinian arena, rather than becoming, as had been hoped, the main source of authority with the actual means to impose discipline in the territories. Then, instead of creating cohesion and putting some order into the chaotic situation reigning there, the process of fragmentation will only grow.

Not too long from now, the die will be cast: If Abu Mazen�s government isn�t prepared to take on the fight and confront Hamas, it will go down in history as nothing more than a sad intermezzo.