Middle East analysts - whether they get paid for their trouble or not - occupy different levels of cynicism in their outlook. Most naive are European and Norwegian journalists, who believe that Israel controls the situation and can end the conflict. Most cynical are the people closest to the action: Palestinians and Israelis who have a sense of the personalities and have long determined that everything happens for a reason.
This week's events in the overpopulated yet fragmented Gaza strip - that combination of poorly built houses and semi-permanent refugee shelters that occupies superb beach front property - are far more serious than the non-Israeli free press realizes and far more complicated for them to understand.
To Debka, it's all orchestrated by Arafat, in an attempt to prevent an Israeli disengagement with Egyptians and Brits filling in the vacuum. The British press views this as a leadership crisis for Arafat, who is "losing" (or possibly "losing") his prime minister and must finally concede to the long-standing demand of consolidating security forces.
What are we to think?
Well, there are a few facts to consider:
First, the demand placed on Arafat to "streamline" security forces wasn't exactly that. The demand was to establish a government with checks and balances: independent legislative, judicial, and executive bodies. This meant, among other things, that there would be one security force (read: army) under a unified, accountable command. Arafat controls everything right now, and it's pretty clear that this "streamlining" is all an effort to put things back under his command, at least in Gaza.
Second, it appears that the kidnappings were nothing more than a demonstration of Fatah's reach and capabilities in Gaza. These were not terrorist attacks - all the victims were released after a few hours. And if Arafat was behind the kidnappings, he had his reasons. Creating the pretext for reasserting control is a reasonable hypothesis, imho.
Third is the point that Arafat would rather have Israel as an "occupying power" than Egypt and the UK as "interim security presence" (somebody please tell me the difference). After all, Arafat can attack Israeli forces almost with impunity - going after Egyptian forces will result in severe retaliation, and hurting British forces will damage his standing in Europe. As long as Sharon insists - in words and actions - that his disengagement plan is about leaving the Palestinians to stew in their own mess and not a capitulation to terrorism - Arafat has little to gain by Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Without question, the people who tell the European editors what to write about the Arab-Israeli conflict are working feverishly to come up with a model that blames Israel. Unless this whole thing blows over in the next day or two, you'll see something in the papers by Wednesday.
Of course, Arafat is taking a risk. "Thousands" of demonstrators are expressing their anger at the continuity of corruption in Gaza, and there is the looming threat of civil war among Fatah, Hamas, PIJ, and numerous other smaller organizations. And you have to think that an increasing number of Palestinians are starting to wonder: "what the fuck?"
Comments