Abbas’ meeting with Trump proves the PA is strong - even when it’s weak - Palestinians - Haaretz
The Palestinian leadership knows Trump won’t reach a peace agreement, but it allows itself to hope he will end the economic despair
Amira Hass May 05, 2017
read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-1.787477
The most important thing about U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is the meeting itself. It shows that Trump’s White House considers the Palestinian Authority as an important international factor and a stabilizing regional element. That justifies the smiles on the faces of the Palestinian entourage at the luncheon with the two leaders. As Nasser Laham, editor-in-chief of the news website Ma’an, wrote, criticizing the PA leader’s opponents: “Mahmoud Abbas is among the first 10 leaders received at the White House (since Trump took office) – and this is after he restored ties with Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and might be on the way to restoring ties with the Gulf states.”
Officially, the Palestinian Authority is perceived as an essential corridor to the establishment of the Palestinian state. In fact, it is a project that the world supports for the sake of regional stability. And “stability” has become a synonym for the continuation of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank without any serious diplomatic or military implications for Israel, and without major shocks to the positions of Western countries. This is the source of the PA’s strength, even if it is very weak, and Trump apparently understands this.
Trump found it proper to devote many words to the PA security apparatus and security coordination with Israel. At Wednesday’s press conference, Trump said:
We must continue to build our partnership with the Palestinian security forces to counter and defeat terrorism. I also applaud the Palestinian Authority’s continued security coordination with Israel. They get along unbelievably well. I had meetings, and at these meetings I was actually very impressed and somewhat surprised at how well they get along. They work together beautifully.
The pro-Israel lobby repeatedly urged Trump to talk about payments to Palestinian prisoners and incitement, which he did, according to the White House spokesman. But the lobby forgot to tell him that public praise for security coordination spoils things for Abbas and embarrasses his associates in Fatah. The security coordination – or as some call it, the security services that the PA provides to Israel – is something that is done, not talked about. And indeed, a Hamas leader, Sami Abu Zuhri, already tweeted that such talk proves that the PA is getting economic aid in exchange for fighting the Palestinian opposition.
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The new Palestinian ambassador in Washington, Husam Zomlat, a brilliant and well-spoken man who was recently chosen as a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, will have to add one more task to his heavy list – to explain to the White House that security cooperation is part of a package deal full of internal contradictions. The PLO Central Committee decided two years ago to cancel security cooperation with Israel, and if the decision has not been implemented it is because the real decider is man who pays the salaries and is responsible for funding – Abbas. There is a price to pay for the widely unpopular security cooperation. That price is to not stretch things too much with the Fatah rank-and-file, in prison and out, and perhaps Trump’s people have already been told this. Palestinian intelligence chief Majid Faraj, who accompanied Abbas’ entourage, is also a former prisoner, like many of the heads of the Palestinian security forces and district governors who are loyal to Abbas. It will be very hard for them to explain shirking responsibility for the comrades and their families. For the sake of the PA’s stability they can’t allow themselves to cross the line in terms of image that separates “cooperation” from treason.
While Trump and Abbas were meeting, a large rally was taking place for the hunger-striking prisoners in Ramallah’s Nelson Mandela Square. The yellow Fatah flag was prominent, and Fadwa Barghouti read out a letter from her husband, Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian leader and a prisoner serving five life sentences in Israel. “The Palestinian prisoners have faith that their people will not let them down and will meet loyalty with loyalty and will support the prisoners and their families who have endured sacrifice and hardship and suffering,” the letter read.
Even if at the beginning there were some who interpreted the hunger strike as solely a Fatah enterprise or as a tool of Barghouti against Abbas, and even if the Israel Prison Service tries to downplay its importance in reports in the Israeli media, on its 18th day, the strike continues to rule headlines. It spurs young Palestinian men to clash with the Israeli army and enables pro-Palestinian activists abroad to hold activities in its support. On Thursday, it was reported that 50 leaders of various Palestinian factions joined the strike. They did not do so before for their own reasons and now they can no longer stand idly by.
In Gaza, Fatah activists sought to link support for the prisoners to support for Abbas on the day of the latter’s meeting with Trump, and as a counterweight to the Hamas-run campaign, “Abbas doesn’t support me.” One day after the publication of a document of principles in which Hamas commits itself to democracy and pluralism, its internal security apparatus quickly arrested the Fatah activists and held up a bus that was taking people to the demonstration. From prison, Barghouti was indeed able to make it clear that Fatah is relevant and even led activists from Gaza, who was usually paralyzed by fear, to dare to act – even for Abbas.
In the end, Fatah is the backbone of the PA. Abbas maneuvers it well, but is also dependent on it. Zomlat will have that too in Washington, if Israel’s repetitive claims with regard to money to prisoners moves ahead to the stage of demanding the blocking of these payments.