Palestinian Territories

This publication is now archived. What is the Palestinian Authority (PA)?The PA is an autonomous government that was established by a series of early 1990s Israeli-Palestinian peace pacts to rule over most Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and probably become the basis for a full-blown Palestinian state later in the peace process. The PA lacks many powers associated with a state—such as complete control of its territory—but is responsible for providing such varied government services as education, criminal justice, health care, and trash collection for some three million Palestinians. It rules virtually all of poverty-stricken Gaza and shares or has total control of about 40 percent of the West Bank; the rest of the West Bank, including more than one hundred Israeli settlements, is under Israeli control. In the past, the PA has been criticized by human rights groups for authoritarian practices. Is the Palestinian Authority a haven for terrorism?Yes. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the secular al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades—all formally classified as terrorist groups by the U.S. government—operate from the Palestinian-ruled territories governed by Mahmoud Abbas, who succeeded Yasir Arafat as leader of the Fatah party. The al-Aqsa Brigades are closely tied to the al-Fatah faction, but Israelis and Palestinians differ bitterly over what role Arafat and his regime played in terrorism, and many Palestinians say that violent resistance to Israeli occupation and settlement-building is legitimate. Israel says it has documents proving that Arafat—who formerly headed the PA, an autonomous government created after Israel partly pulled out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in return for Palestinian promises to renounce violence—sponsors terrorism. PA leaders insisted Arafat was doing all he could to fight terrorism, but they also say that Israel must restart political talks before a cease-fire can take hold and warn that Israeli attacks have destroyed the very forces Arafat could have used to crack down on terrorism. Since Arafat’s death in 2004, Abbas, or Abu Mazen, has made an effort to restart peace negotiations with Israel. While Palestinian infrastructure—especially the security force—remain corrupt and unable to handle terrorism in the region, Abu Mazen has expressed a desire to work with militant leaders to reach a peaceful solution. He has condemned the armed Palestinian uprisings and has even attempted to end Palestinian attacks on Israelis. Does the Bush administration back Abbas?Yes, but in a lukewarm fashion, experts say. Abbas met with President Bush at the White House in October 2005, after which Bush urged Israel to let Hamas participate in future parliamentary elections. In return, Abbas promised that disarmament would take place after elections. Abbas has been trying to establish PA control over armed militants by co-opting them into the Palestinian Security Services, which he is also trying to reform. Have Israeli reprisals targeted the PA?Yes. After suffering a devastating wave of Palestinian terrorism during the Palestinian intifada (uprising) that began in September 2000, Israel struck Arafat’s police forces, destroyed his helicopters, and crossed into PA territory. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon also pinned Arafat down in his Ramallah headquarters for about a month during a major incursion into the West Bank after a suicide bomber murdered twenty eight Israelis at a March 2002 Passover seder near Tel Aviv. Israel’s incursion severely damaged the PA’s civil and security infrastructure. Following two deadly suicide bombings in June 2002, Israel announced a new policy of seizing PA-held West Bank land in retaliation for terror attacks. Is the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) the same thing as the PA?No, although the two are interwoven. The PLO is the main umbrella organization of the Palestinian national movement and an erstwhile leading practitioner of terrorism. The PLO founded the PA under the terms of a series of 1990s peace pacts. In the 1993 Oslo accords, Israel recognized the PLO as the legitimate leadership of the Palestinians. Has the PA cracked down on terrorism?Not really, although it has had phases where it exerted real effort. Experts say that the PA worked effectively to prevent terrorism for several years in the late 1990s. After the 1998 Wye River accords, CIA monitors oversaw Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation. Arafat jailed hundreds of Hamas militants when the group challenged his authority too directly. And before the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000, PA security agents routinely patrolled with Israeli troops and worked with Israel’s army and intelligence services against Israel and Arafat’s common foes, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. How did the PA react to the September 11 attacks?Arafat condemned the atrocities and was filmed donating blood for the victims. Immediately after September 11, the PA pressured Hamas and Islamic Jihad to stay quiet, fearing more attacks might put the Palestinians on the losing side of a global U.S.-led war on terrorism. But Israel scoffed at Arafat’s denunciations, and Sharon called Arafat “our bin Laden.”

This publication is now archived. What led to the deal to reopen Gaza’s borders?U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a focused push for a deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, changing her travel plans and leading all-night talks that produced an agreement between the two sides. The negotiations over Gaza’s borders had been stalled since September 12, when Israel pulled its last soldiers out of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, ending its 38-year occupation in Gaza. The borders have been closed, for the most part, and Palestinians living in the territories have been isolated since the withdrawal, pending an agreement between the two sides. Palestinians say the free flow of goods and workers from Gaza to Egypt and Israel is necessary to jump-start their flagging economy, while Israelis fear terrorists will use the border crossings to smuggle arms or suicide bombers into Israel. Experts say the deal also has the potential to set a precedent for how future border crossings between the Palestinian Authority and Israel will work. What are the details of the agreement?The deal on Gaza’s borders includes the following provisions: Palestinians will operate the Rafah border terminal, the only crossing from Gaza directly to Egypt. The terminal will open by November 25.European Union (EU) observers will assist with security at Rafah. Cargo and other goods will be allowed to leave Gaza, a particularly urgent issue for agricultural exports during the harvest season. The Israelis committed to installing high-tech x-ray machines at the Karni border crossing to expedite the movement of trucks laden with Palestinian goods.Palestinians from Gaza will be able to travel to Israel and the West Bank in bus convoys beginning December 15.Construction on a Gaza seaport—a critical avenue for getting Palestinian goods to market—will begin. Which issues were not resolved?The down-to-the-wire negotiations were not able to address every concern. Some of the outstanding issues include: The Gaza airport. Palestinians want to reopen the damaged airport, but no deal has yet been reached. West Bank checkpoints. Palestinians want Israel to lift a series of checkpoints in the West Bank. While Israel made no commitment to do so, it agreed to work with the United States to identify the most troublesome checkpoints. Why were the borders closed?Israel sealed the Gaza borders just before the Israeli pullout. Israeli security officials feared extremists would take advantage of the pullout to smuggle arms into Gaza or launch rocket attacks on Israeli farming communities close to the border. In the days after the pullout, Palestinians mobbed Rafah, overwhelming the authorities, and thousands crossed into Egypt for the first time in decades to reunite with friends and family. Israel accused Palestinian and Egyptian authorities of being unable to control the traffic and closed the station, opening it only intermittently since. Another border crossing formerly used by Israeli settlers at Kerem Shalom—where Gaza, Egypt, and Israel meet—is being converted for use by Palestinians and is not yet open. The closing of the borders effectively trapped Gazans, leaving many of them unable to study, visit family, or earn a living. "From a very practical perspective, [opening the border] will ease the terrible pressure on the people in Gaza, who have been suffocated," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. Why is Israel wary of opening Gaza’s borders?"By relinquishing control of the external borders, you run the risk that dangerous people and dangerous capabilities will enter Gaza and militarize it," says Michael Herzog, a brigadier general in the Israel Defense Forces and a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "That means al-Qaeda members, bomb-makers, explosives, missiles. Israelis don’t feel they can rely on the Palestinians [to keep them out], based on past experience." In addition, Herzog says Israel will not have the power to deny entry to people it considers dangerous at the Rafah crossing. EU observers, Palestinians, and Israelis will monitor traffic jointly with real-time, closed-circuit cameras, but "it’s an open question what happens if Israel thinks someone should be denied entry and the Palestinians disagree," he says. But, he adds, "There’s a delicate balance between Israel’s security needs and Palestinian political, economic, and other needs -- such as helping Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas]. There was an attempt here to strike a balance, and with all the considerations involved, it’s reasonable." What impact does opening the border have on the Palestinian economy?The Palestinian economy cannot operate without opening border checkpoints, experts say. "Gaza is an area that has to import all its needs," Whitson says. "It’s a basic livelihood issue. They have to bring in things like dried milk and medicine, and send out agricultural products, which are their only export commodity." And oftentimes, Palestinian products -- including tomatoes, oranges, cucumbers, and other items -- often rot before reaching market because of Israel security measures. Long lines at checkpoints cause massive delays and intense frustration, as well as prohibitively high transport costs for goods coming out of Gaza. At the Israeli checkpoint of Karni, for example, trucks are required to unload completely on one side of the border for inspection, and then reload on the Israeli side. "The only thing that can give any opportunity to Palestinians in Gaza is the checkpoints being open," says Edward Sayre, assistant professor of economics at Agnes Scott College and an expert on the Palestinian economy. What is the current condition of the Gaza economy?Dire. Over 60 percent of the population lives in poverty and unemployment is nearly 50 percent, experts say. One of the few places Palestinians could work was an industrial park at Eres in Gaza, where Israeli manufacturers could employ Palestinians within the Palestinian Authority. But the park closed down after the pullout when security concerns prompted Israeli employers to remove all their equipment, though the infrastructure is still there. If Gazans can gain access to markets in Israel and the West Bank and attract outside investment, they could one day take over Eres and set up their own businesses there, experts say. What is the deal’s impact on the Palestinian people?"The significance is more political than actual now," says Nadia Hijab, senior fellow at the Institute for Palestinian Studies. "For the first time, the conflict’s been internationalized. Also, the United States is beginning to ratchet up the pressure on Israel to deliver." Palestinians have been trying for years to bring the EU, which is seen by many to be more favorable to the Palestinians than the pro-Israel United States, into the conflict. Hijab says Palestinians are at the mercy of Israeli decisions on issues like checkpoints and land use, and can’t fight back except with "the light of public opinion." Who currently guards the Palestinian-Egyptian border?About 750 Egyptian police and some 1,500 Palestinian security forces are currently deployed along the border, experts say.

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is a secular network of Palestinian militias aligned with Fatah that engages in sporadic violence against Israel.

This publication is now archived. What are the PFLP, the DFLP, and the PFLP-GC?Three far-left Palestinian nationalist groups that formed after the Six Day War of 1967 and pioneered terrorist strategies in the early 1970s. Once key players in Palestinian politics, these secular, Marxist fronts lost influence with the demise of their Soviet backers, their rejection of the 1990s Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and the rise of Islamist groups—especially Hamas—that supplanted them as the main Palestinian opposition to former Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. The groups remained sidelined in the mid-1990s as Arafat established the Palestinian Authority, an autonomous government that ruled much of the West Bank and most of the Gaza Strip. Since the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) began in September 2000, however, these groups have tried to reassert themselves by perpetrating terrorist attacks against Israel—most dramatically, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s (PFLP) October 2001 assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rechavam Ze’evi. The State Department classifies the PFLP and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) as foreign terrorist organizations. Do these groups receive foreign support?Yes. Syria has provided financial support, training, and safe haven to all three groups. The PFLP-GC maintains headquarters in Damascus and also receives support from Iran. Libya has also helped the PFLP. What role do these left-wing groups play in the current crisis?All three groups have made their presence felt since the outbreak of the second intifada, but none of them rival either Hamas or the remnants of Arafat’s al-Fatah faction, experts say. In May 2001, Israeli forces intercepted a shipment of Katyusha rockets and anti-aircraft missiles being sent by the PFLP-GC to the Gaza Strip; PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril called it one of many such shipments. The PFLP assassination of Ze’evi helped escalate Israeli-Palestinian violence. The roundup of PFLP and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) members by Palestinian security officials led to anti-Arafat protests in February 2002. But after a major Israeli incursion into Ramallah and other West Bank towns in spring 2002, the PFLP and the DFLP urged Palestinian factions to work together. The DFLP’s leader, Nayef Hawatmeh, also spoke out against suicide bombings inside Israel. What is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine?The PFLP, which pioneered such terror tactics as airline hijackings, formed in December 1967, after the Arab states’ overwhelming defeat in the Six Day War. In 1968, the PFLP joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the main umbrella organization of the Palestinian national movement, which was then committed to a strategy of “armed struggle.” The PFLP became the second-largest PLO faction, after Arafat’s own al-Fatah. The PFLP sought to topple conservative Arab states, destroy Israel, and apply Marxist doctrine to the Palestinian struggle, which it saw as part of a broader proletarian revolution. The group received support from the Soviet Union and China. What terrorist activities has the PFLP undertaken?In its early years, the PFLP conducted hundreds of terrorist attacks. It is best known for pioneering the technique of international airplane hijackings in the late 1960s and 1970s—with consequences that rattled the Middle East. On July 22, 1968, the PFLP hijacked its first plane, an El Al flight from Rome to Tel Aviv. In September 1970, the PFLP hijacked three passenger planes and took them to airfields in Jordan, where the PLO was then based; after the planes were emptied, the hijackers blew them up. In response, King Hussein of Jordan decided that Palestinian radicals had gone too far and drove the PLO out of his kingdom. In 1972, PFLP and Japanese Red Army gunmen murdered two dozen passengers at Israel’s international airport in Lod. In 1976, breaking a PLO agreement to end terrorism outside Israeli-held territory, PFLP members joined with West German radical leftists from the Baader-Meinhof Gang to hijack an Air France flight bound for Tel Aviv and landed the plane in Entebbe, Uganda. In a now-famous raid, Israeli commandos stormed the plane on the Entebbe tarmac and freed the hostages. During the latestintifada, PFLP gunmen shot dead Ze’evi, Israel’s rightist tourism minister, in a Jerusalem hotel—the first assassination of an Israeli minister. The group has also claimed responsibility for several recent car bombings and shootings in Israel and the West Bank. In April 2002, Israeli officials foiled a PFLP attempt to blow up a Tel Aviv skyscraper with a car bomb—which could have caused massive casualties and would have marked a dramatic escalation in Palestinian terrorism. The group was responsible for a suicide bombing Christmas Day 2003, in which four people were killed and more than twenty were wounded. The PFLP and its current leader, Ahmed Jibril, were mentioned in the 2005 United Nations report into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, for allegedly assisting senior Lebanese security officials who were implicated in the 2004 car bombing that killed Hariri. Who is the leader of the PFLP?The PFLP is currently headed by the founder and former leader of the PFLP-GC, Ahmed Jibril. Former PFLP leaders include George Habash, a Palestinian doctor from an Orthodox Christian family; Abu Ali Mustafa, who was killed in August 2001 when an Israeli helicopter fired rockets at his office in the West Bank town of Ramallah; and Ahmed Sadat, who was also based on the West Bank. In January 2002, under pressure from Israel, the Palestinian Authority arrested Sadat in connection with the Ze’evi assassination, which the PFLP said it had carried out in reprisal for the killing of Abu Ali Mustafa.

Khalil Shikaki, director of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, says there has been a profound shift in the attitudes of Palestinians since the Israeli unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in August. Shikaki, whose organization is the leading public opinion group in the Palestinian Authority, says that prior to the Gaza withdrawal, Palestinians overwhelmingly gave the “end to the occupation” as their top priority. Now, he says, the priority is for an improvement in the economic life in the Palestinian areas, with an end to political corruption, and an end to the occupation falling far behind. “For the first time, after the Gaza disengagement, we have economics coming on top…And the second one is in fact a virtual tie between fighting corruption and fighting occupation. The gap between the first, which is improving economic conditions and the second which is corruption and ending occupation is wide. It’s 15 percent.” Ironically, he says, the Palestinians now are strongly in support of a permanent ceasefire, even though most of them believe the Gaza pullout was due to the Palestinian use of force.Shikaki urges the Israeli authorities to recognize this and not punish the Palestinian population for the limited recent acts of violence, because this will only turn the population again in favor of the use of force. He was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on October 19, 2005.Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, is meeting with President Bush and other officials in Washington this week and there is considerable interest about the whole Israeli-Palestinian relationship in the aftermath of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in August. What do you see as the major issue right now?The most important thing for the Palestinians at this moment is to ensure that the post-disengagement environment is quiet, that Gaza is not isolated from the rest of the world, and in particular that it’s not isolated from the West Bank. Another point is that negotiations, or some form of negotiations is resumed and that these negotiations ensure that the separation barrier being built in the West Bank is not done in such a way that would seriously harm the chances for a negotiated solution in the future. At the moment, these are the most important things that the Palestinians look for. In the meeting with the president, I think these are the issues that the Palestinian leadership will be raising. This is so that when people look at the talks, they will feel that the future will be better than the past or the present. The urgency comes from the fact that we have [legislative] elections in January. These elections are the most critical part of the peace process because they come after years of intifada in which the Islamists have gained tremendous public support, in which nationalists have lost a lot of public support. The fear is, therefore, that [the Muslim fundamentalist group] Hamas will present the Gaza disengagement as a victory for itself—something that we already see signs of in terms of public reception. If this is reflected in the elections, Hamas will win a significant number of seats.Right now, then, you’re saying that your latest polling shows that the Palestinian people still think the Israelis’ pulled out of Gaza because they were defeated?The results are fascinating. On the one hand, the polling very, very clearly indicates that the overwhelming majority of the Palestinians, 84 percent, believe that disengagement was the result of the victory of our resistance to occupation. The largest percentage of the Palestinians gives credit to Hamas for this achievement. But, if you try to go beyond this point and look how people will then translate these two realities, you’ll find major contradictions. For example, instead of leading to further increases in the level of support for violence against Israelis, the perception that violence pays or that violence paid in the Israeli disengagement decision has in fact led to a reduction in the level of support for violence, rather than an increase in the level of support for violence. So in other words, you’re saying that your latest polling shows continuing lack of support for violence. We see a continued decline in the level of support for violence contrary to the expectation that we would see more support in light of the fact that most people believed the disengagement was a victory for violence. Moreover, we see people saying, with regard to Gaza—two-thirds are telling us—there should be absolutely no more violence in Gaza altogether. Even more important than this, for the first time we have a majority among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza that favors collection of arms from militias and the armed groups in Gaza—not in the West Bank, but in Gaza. And very significantly, we have more than three-fourths, 77 percent of the public, telling us that it supports the continuation of the ceasefire. So, in terms of the issues related to violence, it is very clear that we made significant progress in the people’s willingness to move away from violence even as they believed that violence was responsible for the achievement of the disengagement. And to add to all of this, the most important finding is that [Abbas’ political party] Fatah, not Hamas, has gained more public support. Compared to our survey four months ago in June, our survey in September shows the widening of the gap between Fatah and Hamas by another six percentage points. So what is the difference now?Let me give you the survey in June first and then I’ll give you the survey in September. In June, it was 44 percent for Fatah and 33 [percent] for Hamas. In September, it is 47 percent for Fatah and 30 percent for Hamas. So the gap has widened by another six percentage points. It is a significant development. On the one hand, it contradicts the finding that says that disengagement has been victory for violence and for Hamas. But it is in line with the finding that shows much less support for violence. I will tell you what I think the reason is for this. We’ve been asking this over the last decade or so: What are the top priorities?  Normally, the top priority is ending the Israeli occupation. This has always been No.1. This has usually been followed by improving economic conditions and at the end of the priorities would come things like fighting corruption or improving government, things like that. But after the passing of [former Palestinian Authority President] Yasir Arafat late last year, we began to see a narrowing in the order of priorities. The gap between improving economic conditions and ending occupation narrowed considerably after the passing of Arafat. Now, for the first time, after the Gaza disengagement, we have economics coming on top. For the first time, improving economic conditions is priority No. 1. And the second one is in fact a virtual tie between fighting corruption and fighting occupation The gap between the first, which is improving economic conditions and the second which is corruption and ending occupation is wide; it’s 15 percent.That’s quite a change.Yes. That’s a transformation, I would say. This is a dynamic that has been triggered by disengagement. In my view, this is the most important development that we have seen here in the last sixth months and this is entirely due to the disengagement. And it reflects, I believe, a real opening for Palestinians and Israelis because these are major changes. The level of optimism is back very high, as high as it has ever been before the start of the intifada [in 2000]. So, we are looking at a level of public perception that is not only supportive of compromises but, at the moment, is willing to act on this in terms of voting in the elections in terms of support for discontinuation of violence.What about the violence? That’s become an issue which has given the Israelis reason to keep cutting off communications between Gaza and the West Bank. You’re indicating that there really isn’t popular support for this continued violence?I think the Israelis are looking at the Palestinian situation and they can only see the trees and they are unable to see the forest. The forest is what I’ve just described. This is really what is going on. This is the reality that the Israelis, instead of looking at this larger picture, are instead looking at this event, or that event, in which groups are sensing the transformation in the society and the demand for Abu Mazen to begin to crack down and collect arms and stop the violence. These groups that are sensing all of these things I believe are responsible for the violence. Hamas, in particular, post-disengagement, wanted to remind everybody that disengagement was its own victory and its own challenge to the Palestinian Authority was motivated by that. Seeing how the public was moving, Hamas was worried and it tried to undercut that policy and it failed. The latest incident which took place three days ago, I believe, was a message to Abu Mazen who was at that moment on his way to Washington. The message was, “Be careful to what you commit yourself to in Washington because we’re here. We’re the boss and we will be able to dictate to you and to the Americans and to the Israelis your agenda in Washington.”  This is a tree, however. This is where the Israelis, because of their own domestic constraints and weaknesses in the post-disengagement environment, are unable to understand that they need to look at the big picture and understand that these small incidents are desperate attempts by groups that feel the heat and are trying desperately to prevent the continuation of the peaceful transformation. The Israeli reaction, however, could have very serious negative consequences. The Israelis in the past tried to very quickly impose collective punishment. The collective punishment the Israeli army is imposing at the moment, is sending a negative message to those people who told us yesterday that they oppose violence, they want to collect arms, they will vote for Fatah. The Israeli government makes no difference between you and those who make violence. And you will all be dealt the kind of punishment the Israeli government is inflicting at the moment. This affects the civilian population, the motorists who cannot use the roads anymore to travel, people who are unable to reach their own businesses, their factories, their shops—they’re destroying the economy. I think it’s a big mistake by the Israelis to try in their response to the violence to crack down on the population rather than on those who commit the violence.Let’s talk about the election in January. From what you’ve said, the polling has shown greater support for Fatah over Hamas. But, on individual candidates, you’ve said in the past, Hamas’ candidates often win because they’re perceived as uncorrupt. Is that going to happen again? Does Hamas, despite the polling, have a better chance of winning a majority?Yes, it will happen again in the parliamentary elections. But these elections are going to be mixed elections. Half of the seats will be contested in proportion or representation where people will be voting for factions rather than for individuals. So, half of the seats will be elected based on the results that we have gathered from the streets. The other half will be district based in which a majority system will be used and in which people will actually have the right to select certain individuals and vote for them as they wish to.So that means Fatah has a better chance?In this case, Fatah is going to have difficulty. Hamas will be in a much better position because Hamas’s reputation of incorruptibility. The Hamas candidates in general have done very well when they ran head to head against Fatah candidates. The results of the surveys clearly indicate that voters will be looking at the question of corruption and this issue will be a major dynamic in terms of consideration of the voters. So, there is going to be that difficulty. Fatah has tried to put its house in order through a system of primers. And it looks so far that they are serious about it although there is still a long way to go. But if Fatah is successful in organizing the primaries, it will win half of the battle over corruption.How popular is Abu Mazen in your survey?Abu Mazen’s popularity is relatively high compared to where he was before he became president. In our June survey, 60 percent were satisfied with his performance although most of the people of that time didn’t feel that he made much difference. Most people felt that he was weak. 60 percent are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt at this point. Another 63 percent voted for him. So, I think that what people are telling us is that it is too early to give up on him. That was in June. You didn’t take that question in September?No, we did not ask that question in September.

This publication is now archived. What does the murder of Moussa Arafat say about the status of Palestinian security service reform?The predawn September 7 attack that killed the 66-year-old former head of the Palestinian security services in Gaza and cousin of the late Palestinian Authority (PA) President Yasir Arafat highlights the challenges facing current PA President Mahmoud Abbas as he tries to reform the Palestinian security services. Abbas is attempting to deliver what his predecessor would not: a consolidation of the disparate Palestinian security groups into a force strong enough to maintain order in Palestinian territories and stop Hamas and other extremist groups from undermining the PA or attacking Israeli civilians. The brazen militant attack exposed the weakness of the security forces and their tenuous control over the Gaza Strip. These weaknesses were catalogued in a comprehensive July 26 report for the Palestinian Authority leadership by the U.S.-based conflict-resolution group Strategic Assessments Initiative, which called the Palestinian security forces weak, corrupt, under-resourced, and riven by clan and family affiliations. The latest violence comes less than a week before Israeli soldiers are due to evacuate the Gaza Strip, leaving it under Palestinian control. How was Moussa Arafat killed?Dozens of gunmen stormed Moussa Arafat’s Gaza City home and battled his bodyguards for more than half an hour before dragging Arafat into the street and shooting him. Arafat’s son Manhal was kidnapped by the gunmen and is being interrogated, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committee (PRC) said. The PRC, an armed militant group made up of members of Fatah—the PA ruling party—and the more militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying Moussa Arafat’s murder was punishment for his corrupt leadership. How did Abbas react to the murder?Abbas—who had demoted Moussa Arafat several months ago as part of ongoing efforts to reform the security services—condemned the killing and vowed to bring renegade fighters under PA control within three weeks. Experts say that is unlikely in the increasingly lawless Gaza Strip, where armed gangs roam the streets and the forthcoming Israeli withdrawal has led many to worry that civil war could break out between PA security forces and militant groups. PA officials called Arafat’s murder an attack on the government and put the security forces on high alert.

CFR.org profiles the most prominent Palestinian leaders.

This publication is now archived. What is the status of Palestinian security service reform?The top priority for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is consolidating the Palestinian Security Services, and bringing their many and disparate elements under his control. He has struggled to accomplish this, fighting entrenched resistance on his own side and facing Israeli accusations that he is not doing enough. Abbas has taken several steps—including firing top security chiefs, imposing an age limit on service, forcing some 1,000 ineffective members of the security forces to retire, sealing some tunnels used to smuggle arms from Egypt, and shutting down Palestinian facilities that manufactured mortars—but critics say the steps are too few and ineffective. In April, Abbas and his then-interior minister, Nasser Yusuf, demanded detailed lists of all security force members, both active and inactive, and streamlined communications and the chain of command. How are the Palestinian security forces organized?Poorly, if at all. Before Abbas’ recent reforms, the Palestinian security forces consisted of twelve divisions employing some 40,000 people. Abbas’ April order consolidated these into three general branches: National Security, Interior, and Intelligence. Each branch includes several of the former divisions. Because the reorganization is ongoing, experts say it is difficult to determine precisely which of the previously existing divisions fall into each of the new branches. A rough breakdown follows: National Security: National Security Forces. This is the closest thing the PA has to an army. Its duties include patrolling the borders of areas under Palestinian control, guarding checkpoints, and providing manpower for joint patrols with Israel. Experts say the NSF is effectively a heavily armed police force that deals with both crime and national security. It is made up of a mix of leftover forces from the Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA) and local recruits from the Palestinian territories. It has about 15,000 members. Coast Guard. Based in Gaza , the PA’s only seacoast, the Coast Guard has about 1,000 officers and is intended to prevent arms and drug smuggling from Egypt . Its entire fleet consists of five motorboats equipped with machine guns. Most of the Coast Guard officers are members of Fatah and trained with its overseas naval unit in Yemen, experts say. They have also received special commando training. Air Guard or Aerial Police. A small group that operates the PA’s five helicopters, which transport dignitaries between Gaza and the West Bank. It grew out of Force 14, the aerial unit of Fatah. Interior: Civil Police. Also called the Blue Police (the color of its uniforms), this lightly armed force of about 10,000 officers conducts day-to-day policing: arresting criminals, controlling traffic, and keeping order. It includes a special 700-man rapid deployment unit trained to deal with complex situations like riots or counterterrorism operations. Civil Defense. This group includes emergency rescue and fire department services. In times of calm, it teaches first aid and rescue training to civilians. County Guard or Governorate Security. A small force that provides security for county governors and their offices and helps resolve local disputes. Preventive Security Force (PSF). The PA’s largest intelligence service, it has 5,000 plainclothes members in separate units in the West Bank and Gaza . The PSF is responsible for counterterrorism, monitoring opposition groups, and conducting reconnaissance and intelligence operations in Israel . Both branches of the PSF have been accused of human-rights violations for abducting and torturing suspects. The PSF and its sister agency, the Mukhabarat, alternately compete and work together on intelligence cases. The PSF was formerly commanded by Jibreel Rajoub in the West Bank and Mohammed Dahlan in Gaza . Both men are well-known leaders of the first intifada, which began in 1987. Rajoub is now national security adviser to the PA, and Dahlan is the civil-affairs minister in Abbas’ government. Presidential Security. Arafat’s former personal-security force, a highly trained group of some 3,000 officers, now guards Abbas. Most of these men were members of Force 17, an armed unit whose duties included guarding VIPs and securing important locations. It has two divisions: an intelligence unit that gathers information about domestic opposition and threats, and the Presidential Guard, which had been Arafat’s most trusted inner circle.  Intelligence:General Intelligence. Also known as the Mukhabarat, this is the official PA intelligence agency. Its 3,000 officers gather intelligence both inside and outside the territories. It also performs counterespionage and is the Palestinian liaison with other countries’ spy agencies. Many Mukhabarat agents work in plainclothes; experts say this allowed Yasir Arafat to hide the true number of security personnel in the PA without openly violating quotas set by international accords. Military Intelligence. A smaller intelligence agency known as the Istikhbarat, this group deals mostly with the arrest and interrogation of opposition activists considered a threat to the PA regime. The PA under Arafat, experts say, constantly monitored groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad in an attempt to control their popularity and diminish the political threat they posed to Fatah. The Istikhbarat also investigates illegal actions by other PA intelligence and security agencies. Military Police. A division of Military Intelligence, this body specializes in riot control, arrests, guarding VIPs, prison maintenance, and keeping order among the security bodies. Experts say it’s not entirely clear whether this division will ultimately be considered an interior ministry or intelligence force. What is the history of the security services?The forces, including intelligence units, grew out of the military wing of the PLO and militias that served as Arafat’s bodyguards during the decades he was in exile. The PLO was founded in 1964, and the PLA was established a year later. PLA forces, including a small air force and navy, trained with sympathetic Arab militaries. The 1993 Israeli-Palestinian peace deal known as the Oslo Accords and subsequent pacts, including the 1994 Gaza-Jericho Agreement, known as the Cairo agreement, officially established the General Security Services (GSS), the umbrella organization for the various units. Why were there so many branches?They were a legacy of Arafat. The late PA president deliberately set up a labyrinthine system to pit the security units against each other, ensure the military would never grow strong enough to depose him, and make himself the sole official in control of the various forces. The Palestinian security forces continue to be a haphazard collection of units with varying levels of armament, says Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for Analysis of Global Security, a Washington-based nonprofit organization focusing on energy security, and author of Palestinian Security Forces: Between Police and Army. Who was in charge of the many branches?Most were headed by Arafat’s former loyalists, many of whom ran their branches as personal fiefs during Arafat’s 1994-2004 presidency. The forces were often used to facilitate criminal enterprises such as levying illegal fees for border crossings, taking a cut of cross-border trade, and collecting taxes for their personal use, according to a January 2005 paper, Evaluating Palestinian Reform, by Nathan Brown, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. What is the counterterrorism record of the Palestinian security forces?Generally very poor, most experts agree. The security forces have been unable or unwilling to prevent terror attacks against Israel , despite many promises from Palestinian leaders that the violence would stop. Israeli security officials have a low opinion of the Palestinian forces, with whom they work on joint patrols and security issues. Some of the Palestinian commanders are so incompetent they “can’t move a soldier from here to there,” says Michael Herzog, a brigadier general in the Israeli Defense Forces and visiting military fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Will Abbas be able to successfully reorganize the security forces?It’s a difficult job, but and experts say Abbas have struggled. “[Reform] is a test of Abbas’ leadership,” Luft says. Abbas has introduced bank deposits of police salaries; Arafat paid his officers in cash and used money to win loyalty and stoke rivalries. But critical shortages of arms and equipment have sapped police morale; angry officers stormed Gaza’s parliament October 3 to protest the killing of a police chief by Hamas, and demand more ammunition and weapons with which to fight militants. World leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, U.S.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, have repeatedly pledged their support for Abbas’ reforms. What is their anti-crime record?Also poor, experts say. While Israeli and American leaders focus on the ability of the Palestinian security forces to prevent attacks on Israel , Brown says that for most Palestinians, the priorities of security-service reform should be ensuring law and order and fighting corruption in local government. Both these goals are difficult to achieve because most members of the security forces are poorly trained and got their positions due to political connections. Corruption and crime among the forces are also key problems. Many Palestinians worry that their security services are “a series of competing protection rackets,” Brown wrote in his report. What level of training have the Palestinian security forces had?It varies widely. Former members of the PLA have military training; other members have police training; others’ experience is limited to their participation in the two intifadas protesting Israeli control over the Gaza and the West Bank. (The first intifada lasted from 1987-93; the second began in 2000.) There is no centralized training program for the security forces; each branch recruits and trains its own members. Can members of various militias join the security services?Yes. In April, Abbas stated that he intends to bring members of armed militias—including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and Hezbollah—into the security forces, pay them salaries, and ensure their livelihood provided they forswear terrorism. Many of these young fighters, experts say, feel ignored and unrewarded for their suffering during the two intifadas. Abbas hopes that giving them steady paychecks will deter them from further attacks against Israel. Is there public support for anti-corruption measures?Experts say yes. “In the past, the forces were so corrupt and intimidating that the public wants to see them go,” Luft says. Many experts, including Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki, say Palestinians are tired of the intifada, see few gains from the four years of violence, and are willing to try something new. “There are very high public expectations on Abbas” to tackle corruption and effectively reform the security services, Herzog says. “But Abbas has been in office for eight months, and he’s done very little. The pace of reform is very, very slow.”

This publication is now archived. What progress has been made on reconstruction in the Gaza Strip?Plans for reconstruction took a back seat as violence flared again between Palestinian militants and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). After homemade rockets exploded during a September 23 Hamas rally, killing twenty-one people, Palestinian militants blamed Israel and fired dozens of rockets at it. The IDF immediately responded with heavy air strikes and the arrests of several hundred people. The strikes forced Hamas to unilaterally declare a halt to rocket attacks from Gaza on September 26; Israel continues to attack targets within Gaza. Experts say the renewed fighting shows the difficulties facing efforts to rebuild the damaged region. “There’s a will in the international community, the United States, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to promote reconstruction in Gaza,” says Philip Wilcox, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace and a former U.S. diplomat to the Middle East. “But it won’t happen unless there’s a level of security that can enable reconstruction to take place.” What security concerns are there now that the Israelis have left?Gaza has been flooded with militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who claim their armed resistance drove out the Israelis. Officials fear the militants will use Gaza as a base to stockpile weapons and fighters and launch attacks against Israel. To counteract this, Israel has placed strict controls on border crossings between Gaza and Israel and tightened customs regulations on goods traveling between Gaza, Egypt, and Israel. It also closed an Israeli customs terminal at Rafah on the Gaza-Egypt border, forcing goods to travel through the Kerem Shalom border point within Israel. Experts say the worries are justified because Gaza is awash in weapons. PA officials say militant groups have twice as many guns as the PA security forces. Militants roam the streets, and armed gangs routinely carry out kidnappings and assassinations, including the brazen September 7 murder of Moussa Arafat, a former Gaza security chief and cousin of late PA President Yasir Arafat. Palestinian police chief Ala Husni said September 29 that public displays of weaponry would be banned in Gaza. Since the Israelis had left, he said, there was no more need for citizens to openly bear arms. “Any weapon now in the street is a criminal weapon,” he said. Husni said Hamas and other factions accepted the ban. What are the economic conditions for Palestinians living in Gaza?The Palestinian economy is in bad shape, wracked by corruption, violence, and security restrictions. Per capita income in the Gaza Strip is about $700 per year, compared with Israeli per capita income of $16,000 per year, according to the Palestinian Economic Council for Reconstruction and Development. Former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, the envoy to the disengagement process from the Quartet–the United Nations, United States, European Union (EU), and Russia—has worked with PA leaders to develop new social safety-net programs, job-creation initiatives, and a three-year plan to improve the Palestinian economy. Does Gaza have any industry?Not much, experts say. It is a small, crowded, resource-poor area, whose 1.3 million residents live on a piece of land six miles wide by twenty-six miles long—one of the highest population densities in the world. It has a highly educated population, but also strict limits on their movement and little access to markets in Egypt and Israel. The unemployment rate in Gaza and the West Bank is over 25 percent, and some 62 percent of families in the Palestinian territories live below the poverty line. More than 3,000 Gaza greenhouses were purchased from Jewish settlers with $14 million in private donations—including $500,000 from Wolfensohn himself— so they could help boost Palestinian-run agriculture. Some 4,000 Palestinians work in the greenhouses, tending the herbs, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and flowers that Israeli settlers grew for the lucrative export market. But a frenzy of looting after Israeli troops pulled out left about 30 percent of the greenhouses damaged, PA officials said. What kind of housing will be needed?High-rises that can accommodate Palestinians’ large families, officials say. Gaza’s population is expected to double by 2020. PA officials said in August the Netzarim settlement south of Gaza will be used to build a port, offering Palestinians much-needed access to the sea. Some 3,000 residential units will be built on land nearby. PA officials have presented plans for over forty reconstruction projects to Wolfensohn, including roads, schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure. The construction is estimated to cost several hundred million dollars in international donor fund. Funds are available, experts say, but international donors are waiting for PA reforms to ensure the funds are not stolen or misappropriated, as donor funds have been in the past. Which international donors have offered money to the PA?The EU, France, Germany, Japan, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), among others, are participating in the rebuilding of Gaza. In early July, the leaders of the world’s richest countries pledged $3 billion for Palestinian development at the Group of Eight summit in Scotland. British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown will visit the Middle East in October to highlight Palestinian redevelopment efforts. Who is in charge of the process on each side?For the Israelis, Shimon Peres, the dovish Labor Party leader and deputy prime minister in Sharon’s current coalition government. For the Palestinians, Mohammed Dahlan, a former security chief and current civil affairs minister in the Abbas government. Both men work closely with Wolfensohn, as well as Lieutenant General William Ward, the U.S. security envoy to the Middle East. What is the status of Fatah?Fatah, the PA ruling party long led by Yasir Arafat, has been plagued with infighting between Arafat’s old guard and a younger group of leaders who want reforms to happen more quickly. Fatah has also been hurt by allegations of serious crime and corruption among its members, although experts say Abbas is taking steps to address this charge. “The popular perception of corruption in Fatah was correct in the past, but they’ve made a lot of progress in the last two years,” Wilcox says. Experts say Fatah will mount a strong campaign in the next months to convince voters it is the best party to lead the PA, in the face of strong competition from Hamas. How strong is Hamas?Since the second intifada began in 2000, Hamas has steadily gained support among Palestinians for its suicide attacks against Israel (which many Palestinians credit with driving IDF troops out of Gaza), its network of social services—including hospitals and schools—and its reputation for honesty. Fatah leaders saw Hamas as a strong enough threat to postpone local elections in Gaza; some 150,000 West Bank voters went to the polls September 29 in what was seen as a test of each party’s strength before PA parliamentary elections scheduled for January 25, 2006. Hamas, which opinion polls say has the support of about 30 percent of Palestinians, was very popular coming out of the disengagement, but it lost some credibility after the rocket incident, with many Palestinians blaming Hamas for provoking renewed attacks from the IDF. What is the next step?Abbas will meet U.S. President George Bush October 20 to discuss plans for developing the PA now that Israeli soldiers and settlers have left. Experts say Abbas and his party are under pressure to show Palestinians they can bring concrete improvements to the PA ahead of the parliamentary elections.

Henry Siegman, the Council’s top expert on Israeli and Palestinian issues, says that in the aftermath of the successful withdrawal of Israelis from Gaza, it is imperative for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to offer President Mahmoud Abbas a return to full negotiations on all aspects of the so-called “road map” to peace if the Palestinian leader can put an end to violence against Israel.“If Sharon will take the position that Israel will not move on the road map until all violence comes to an end, without adding that if the Palestinians succeed in ending the violence, then Israel is prepared to negotiate all the issues included in the road map— the pre-1967 border, the capital of a Palestinian state in Jerusalem, trading territories in order to accommodate the major Israeli settlement blocks in the West Bank, etc.—then it will be clear he  is using the security issue to prevent a peace process, and the Gaza withdrawal was nothing more than a ploy to gain time for the deepening of Jewish settlements in the West Bank,” says Siegman, senior fellow and director of the U.S./Middle East Project at the Council on Foreign Relations. “If he makes it clear that Palestinian success in dealing with terror will create a genuine Palestinian state, then we’re on the way back to the road map.”Siegman was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on August 22, 2005.With the Israelis now having concluded the withdrawal of settlers from the Gaza strip, what’s your impression of the way the operation was handled?I think it went far better than anyone could have anticipated. There were instances where the Israeli military seemed to be more tolerant than circumstances required. Some people may ask: If the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) can show this kind of forbearance toward Israeli settlers even when they break the law—some of them in very outrageous ways—how can they justify their behavior in dealing with demonstrations by Arabs who are Israeli citizens, and also Palestinians on the other side of the border, who hold non-violent demonstrations to protest Israeli government’s policies? As we know, in previous instances where Israeli Arabs were involved, several were killed by the Israeli police. That’s not to take away any credit from the way [the IDF] handled the settlers, but it does raise some serious questions [about] whether it is necessary for them to be as brutal as they often are in dealing with Israeli Arabs or Palestinians.How did you think the Palestinians acted during this withdrawal period?They showed the kind of restraint responsible people hoped they would by not engaging in activities that would have made it impossible for [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon to continue the withdrawal, or to provide fodder for criticism by Sharon’s opponents. So on balance, the Palestinians, particularly President Mahmoud Abbas, behaved very well. I also have to say Hamas, who most people believed would act irresponsibly and attack the Israelis, also behaved well. I think the reason they didn’t [attack] is not necessarily out of compassion for the settlers or consideration for Sharon, but because they understood the Palestinian public would have been very angry with them—and they would have lost a great deal of political support—had they attacked the IDF or the settlers during the withdrawal. What are the next political steps for both the Israeli and Palestinian sides in coming weeks and months?Sharonhas a number of issues he has to deal with, all of them complex, and they fall under two major headings. The first one is Gaza itself. If Sharon wants this withdrawal to be a bridge towards the resumption of the peace process—and to make sure Gaza is not turned into a hotbed of renewed terrorism—then he must do certain things that would enable Palestinians in Gaza to revive their economy, to create a political horizon for a return to the peace process, and more specifically, [to help them achieve] a Palestinian state, so they do not come to the conclusion that this was indeed what Sharon intended—Gaza first and Gaza last—as some critics were saying all along. What are these things that Sharon has to do?He has to open the borders and place them under international supervision. [This will] enable the Gazans to conduct trade and have free movement of people and goods, subject to international controls at the crossing points, both to the West Bank itself—so there is secure access for Gazans to the West Bank—and also to Egypt, Jordan and the rest of the world. There will not be any investment in Gaza if Gaza doesn’t have the opportunity to trade with the rest of the world and export its agricultural and manufactured goods. That’s absolutely key.This also requires that the airport be reopened. Palestinians also need a seaport, but that’s for the future. It will take them at least three years to build a seaport, which only emphasizes the importance of opening these other points of entry and exit into Gaza. If that does not happen, Gaza will be turned into a large prison.Has Israel at this point agreed to any of these issues?There’s no final agreement on any of them. Sharon has said Israel is looking at these matters, but so far [he] has made no definitive commitments.Is there a timetable for Israel on this? It’s going to be a while before Palestinians move into this area, right?The need to open up Gaza to outside investment, to manufacturing, to a revived agriculture, all of that is immediate, and is not dependant on moving [Palestinians] into the area where settlements existed.Is [former president of the World Bank] James Wolfensohn, a special U.S. envoy on economic questions, working on this problem too?He is. He has an incredibly difficult job and is doing it as well as anyone can. What he’s doing there, from my point of view, is truly amazing.What is he doing?He has defined the issues and [determined] what Gaza needs to succeed. He has personally helped raise public money from governments and public institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Union, and has [also] raised money from the private sector. For example, he put together $14 million dollars toward a much larger sum of money, most of which is public money, for the purchase of the greenhouses——the greenhouses and the dairy.Right. They were bought from the settlers so they could be left in place and used by the Gaza Palestinians. And he personally contributed half a million dollars toward the purchase of those greenhouses. So he’s doing an outstanding job. But in the end, it is the government of Israel that has to agree to these arrangements.And the second set of issues for Sharon?They deal with the political process, particularly returning to the road map and the peace process. And that means, at the very least, he must finally put an end to the expansion of settlements; he must finally keep his word about dismantling the illegal outposts; and he must also halt plans for construction in East Jerusalem, whose express purpose is to prevent the establishment of a capital in any part of East Jerusalem for a future Palestinian state. These are the things he must do now. They’re all demanded and required by the road map. These are things he must do if Palestinians are not to conclude that withdrawal from Gaza was not intended to renew the peace process, but rather to deepen Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. And if they do come to that conclusion, then we can say goodbye to Abu Mazen [Mohammed Abbas’ nom de guerre], to the peace process, and to the possibility of Gaza itself succeeding in terms of its economy and governance.The Palestinians have scheduled their parliamentary elections for the end of January. Will there likely be an Israeli election in the same time period?There’s likely to be one. We don’t know that yet.Is Sharon’s popularity now high or low?His popularity remains higher than that of any other politician in Israel, despite the unhappiness of the extreme right wing and the settlers. However, his popularity among members of the Likud party is not high. There’s a great deal of disenchantment and even anger with him, and former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is now seeking to take advantage of that anger to run against him and to replace him as the Likud candidate for prime minister in the next election.The polls have shown Netanyahu enjoys greater support than Sharon within the Likud. Those same polls have also shown that if Sharon were to decide to leave the Likud—if he were to come to the conclusion that he cannot defeat Netanyahu, and instead establish a new centrist party drawing on some of the more moderate members of the Likud and more importantly, moderate Israelis generally, and get Shimon Peres and his Labor Party and the Shinui [a secular Israeli party] to join with him—such a party would emerge in the next election as dominant and would form the next government.And this centrist party, I assume, would be more willing to go to road map negotiations?Yes, exactly. And what also would make it possible for such a centrist party to do that—to return to the road map, which means doing some difficult things—is the fact that as a consequence of the experiences Israelis have had this past week, there is a fairly widespread disenchantment with the settlers. Israelis no longer see them as the best and the brightest but as a danger to the country and its democracy. Israelis may now feel more confident about taking the risk of doing some difficult things required by the road map that they would not have considered doing before, when they feared the power and influence of the settlers. The settlers emerge from this confrontation considerably weakened, a shadow of what they were before.That’s interesting because in the United States, so much TV footage has been of the settlers, showing them in a very sympathetic light. But the same TV images in Israel did not win them much support?No, it did not. I think the Israelis generally empathized with their anguish, but there’s been a demystification of the settlers. And I think this will have serious political consequences. I think from the point of view of the peace process, that is one of the most positive outcomes of this encounter between the largely secular and centrist Jewish public in Israel and the settlers.What about the Palestinians? What do they have to do?What Palestinians need to do most importantly is to clean up their own government. Their government under the leadership of Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei is comprised of many people who are held in contempt by the Palestinian public. They are seen as self-dealing, as corrupt, and as simply politically inept. For a long time now, the Palestinian public has been furious that they have been allowed to stay in office.Abu Mazen’s greatest challenge is to replace these people and to open up the Fatah component of the Palestinian Authority—which is by far its most important political component—to new elections, which have been resisted by the old guard. He must allow new young people, referred to as the young guard, to run for office and to replace these people. That’s one of the most important things he has to do. Equally important, he has to take some tough measures on the security front. He must finally create a security system that is in fact under the control of the central government. So far, he has not done so.Is that because he’s not able to?He is far too weak. He has two problems: first, he is too weak politically. If he were to try to take on Hamas, he would trigger a Palestinian civil war that the Palestinian public would not support. He must first show that his opposition to violence and terror produces tangible benefits for the Palestinian population, which the intifada and those advocating violence could not produce. And [second] he must also show that [his way] produces a credible political path to Palestinian statehood. There is an interdependence here between what he is able to do and what Sharon is willing to do. And Sharon has to allow the strengthening of the Palestinian security forces that were destroyed during the intifada by the IDF. So Israel has to permit Abu Mazen to rebuild that security structure. So far, Israel has opposed even allowing the Palestinian Authority’s security forces to obtain the new vehicles and arms they need to confront Hamas. Sharon cannot say to Abu Mazen, “You may not have the arms and you may not have the necessary equipment to confront the terrorists, but you must dismantle them.”So there is a very real interdependence between the two. Neither Abbas nor Sharon can succeed without each of them doing what the other needs to succeed.Should the United States get more involved than it is now?The United States has become more involved than it had been in the past, but so far mostly on the rhetorical level. [Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice has taken a more personal role and State Department officials have been there as well, on a fairly regular basis. But the question of whether the Bush administration is prepared to put some real political muscle behind the rhetoric remains unanswered. And the pressure must begin with Sharon, because Sharon still insists he is nowhere near returning to the road map.What is the single most important thing in getting the parties back to the peace process?There are, of course, many factors that are important if the Gaza withdrawal is to lead to a sustainable peace process. But if I have to identify the most important one, I would say it is how Prime Minister Sharon will deal with the security issue. If Sharon will take the position that Israel will not move on the road map until all violence comes to an end, without adding that if the Palestinians succeed in ending the violence, then Israel is prepared to negotiate all the issues included in the road map— the pre-1967 border, the capital of a Palestinian state in Jerusalem, trading territories in order to accommodate the major Israeli settlement blocks in the West Bank, etc.—then it will be clear he  is using the security issue to prevent a peace process, and the Gaza withdrawal was nothing more than a ploy to gain time for the deepening of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. If he makes it clear that Palestinian success in dealing with terror will create a genuine Palestinian state, then we’re on the way back to the road map. If all he says is, “First I want an end to terror and then we’ll see,” then a return to violence is inevitable.

This publication is now archived. Is Israel’s withdrawal of settlers complete?Nearly. Israeli soldiers removed the last Jewish settlers and protesters from the Gaza Strip August 22 and have moved on to the final stages of the withdrawal: clearing out four small settlements in the West Bank. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Likud Party-led government proceeded with the unilateral withdrawal throughout a week of emotional protests and mostly nonviolent confrontations between settlers and soldiers. Israel has controlled the Gaza Strip and the West Bank since it won the territory during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, also known as the Six-Day War. Some parts of Gaza and the West Bank were under Palestinian control before the withdrawal; after the Israelis leave, the area formerly occupied by the settlements will fall under Palestinian control. About 1.3 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip. Which settlements are being evacuated?In all, about 9,000 settlers have been moved, says Geoffrey Aronson, director of research and publications and an expert on Israeli settlements at the Foundation for Middle East Peace inWashington. The 500 or so residents of the last Gaza settlement to be evacuated, Netzarim, left their homes August 22. What kind of force was needed to carry out the withdrawal?About 50,000 soldiers from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are being deployed to enforce the withdrawal, the Israeli army’s largest-ever non-combat military operation. The IDF allotted four soldiers to carry each person and seventeen soldiers to clear each house, says Michael Herzog, currently a brigadier general in the Israeli army and a visiting military fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. In addition, over 7,000 policemen were deployed to deal with protesters trying to interfere with the withdrawal. Another 5,000 were sent to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, whose Islamic holy sites were threatened by Jewish extremists attempting to disrupt the disengagement process. The Israeli police force has a total of some 20,000 police officers. Have there been protests against the withdrawal?Yes. Thousands of Israeli protesters amassed near the Gaza settlements to show solidarity with the settlers. Many of them, wearing orange--the color adopted to show opposition to the withdrawal--snuck into settlements after being urged by settler rabbis to complicate the withdrawal; they were removed along with the settlers by IDF forces. "The entire Gaza area is now a closed military zone," says Martin Indyk, director of the Saban Center for Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution and a former U.S. ambassador to Israel. Were the protests violent?Overall, the removals were contentious and difficult, but not violent. Protesters inGazathrew eggs, bottles, and paint at policemen and soldiers--about a dozen of whom were hurt--but there were no reports of serious injuries. Angry settlers and supporters in two Gaza settlements--Neve Dekalim and Kfar Darom--barricaded themselves into synagogues and town meeting halls and had to be dragged out one by one. A West Bank settler set herself on fire to protest the removals, and another settler in theWest Bankshot and killed four Palestinian workers there. But most of the settlers renounced violence. Officials said the roughly 5,000 nonresidents who illicitly entered Gaza in the last few weeks--many of them young people brought up in religious settlements in the West Bank-- were the least compromising and most willing to use violence. These protesters say God gave the land of Israel to the Jews and consider it against divine will to leave any piece of it to the Palestinians. IDF forces, who were unarmed as they approached settlers’ houses and made every effort not to use violence while removing people, were able to deal capably with the resistance while completing the withdrawal sooner than expected. Does the Israeli public support the demonstrators or the government?Sixty-five percent to 70 percent of the Israeli public has consistently supported the disengagement policy in polls, Herzog says. Lately, that figure has dropped to around 50 percent, he says. Experts say many Israelis, while sympathetic to settlers forced from their homes, are losing patience with the more extreme methods some of the settlers and their supporters are using, including blocking roads, disrupting traffic, threatening to assassinate politicians, and attacking soldiers. "The tactics they’ve chosen are polarizing," Aronson says. But Herzog says, for the settlers, this is a life-or-death fight. "They are trying to prevent [Gazadisengagement], but if they fail, they want to make it so traumatic that any future government will think twice about removing more settlements," Herzog says. "They’re fighting the next war." Is there a risk of violence from Palestinian militants?Yes, experts say, although Israeli and Palestinian security forces have successfully prevented any militant attacks thus far. The IDF prepared for potential terror attacks on the masses of settlers, soldiers, and protesters gathered in southern Israelfor the withdrawal, but so far none have occurred. Sharon said in a televised statement August 15 the IDF will retaliate with force if its soldiers or the settlers are attacked by Palestinian militants. How much will the withdrawal cost?An estimated $2 billion. Each of the families being moved from Gaza were eligible for average compensation of between $200,000 to $300,000, Herzog says--if they left before the deadline. Families that chose to defy government eviction orders and stay after August 17 forfeited up to a third of the compensation money. In addition, the IDF will remove military bases and equipment from Gaza that were used to protect settlers there over the last several decades. However, "the cost [of withdrawal] has to be weighed against the cost of staying there," Indyk says. Israel had maintained a full division of soldiers in Gaza to protect the settlers there from near-constant attack. Who will pay for it?Israel, with U.S. assistance. Israel recently asked theUnited Statesfor $2 billion to help cover the cost of new developments for settlers and others in the northern region of Galilee and the Negev, in the south. Some experts say helping to fund these developments, which are not on disputed territory, is in the U.S. interest because it will further peace in the Middle East. Others say the request, which would be in addition to the $3 billion in foreign aid per year Israel already receives from theUnited States, is inappropriately large. Washington sent some $250 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority last year, and has pledged $350 million for next year. Who’s involved in managing the process?Sharon made the decision to disengage unilaterally, but after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was elected in January, replacing the late Yasir Arafat,Israel began consulting with the Palestinians on its plan. Leaders from both sides, including Palestinian Interior Minister Nasser Yusuf and Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, have met since June to coordinate the withdrawal, focusing particularly on security arrangements. The two sides also have strong support from international observers. James Wolfensohn, the former World Bank president, is serving as the "disengagement envoy" for the Quartet, a group--Russia, the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States--backing the road map plan for Middle East peace. What will happen to the physical infrastructure built by Israelis after they leave?The houses built by and for the Gazasettlers are being destroyed, both so settlers cannot return and so Palestinians cannot use them. Herzog says Palestinians prefer different housing anyway: not the villas favored by Israelis, but high-rises with room for their large, extended families. One proposal put forward by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is for Israel to demolish the structures and then pay Palestinian contractors to cart away the rubble. Other reports say deals have been made to preserve the greenhouses where settlers grew food; they have been bought with international funds and will be given to the Palestinians to use. What economic challenges will the Palestinians face in Gaza after the withdrawal?The Palestinian economy is in bad shape, wracked by corruption, violence, and security restrictions. Per capita income in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was $1,800 annually in 2000; it has since fallen to $1,000, wrote Dennis Ross, Middle East envoy under presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, in a Washington Post op-ed May 25. Wolfensohn is working with the Palestinians to develop a new social safety-net program, job-creation initiatives, and a three-year plan to improve the Palestinian economy. In early July, the leaders of the world’s richest countries pledged $3 billion for Palestinian development at the Group of Eight summit inScotland. What security concerns will there be after the Israelis leave?Some experts fear the area will be overrun with Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, who could use it as a base to amass weapons and fighters. Disarming the militants was one of the Palestinians’ main obligations under the road map; Abbas has made some progress on this--and is trying to co-opt militants by bringing them into the Palestinian Authority security forces--but Israeli officials say more needs to be done. U.S. Middle East special envoy Lieutenant General William Ward is working with the Palestinians to help reform their security forces and gain control over the militias. Will the Gaza withdrawal help restart the peace process?Rice has expressed hope that it will. "We really want the Gaza withdrawal to be a beginning for the process of coming to a final conclusion of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians," she said in a June 19 interview on Jordanian television. If the withdrawal is successful, Rice said, "it does lead one to believe…the road map, which is the most reliable guide to a two-state solution, could be reengaged…with vigor." Sharon’s government, however, has downplayed any link between the Gaza withdrawal and the terms of the road map, or withdrawal from any other settlements. "It’s too early to tell whether this will be a precursor [to further settlement withdrawal] or the exception that proves the rule that settlements will be abandoned," Aronson says.

David Makovsky, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says that, with the scheduled withdrawal of Israeli settlers from Gaza, there is a “sense of a looming showdown” between the Israeli government and its opponents.

Henry Siegman, director of the Council’s U.S./Middle East Project, says Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, is coming to Washington badly in need of a political boost from President Bush to balance the strong support Bush has given Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.“I think the most important thing that President Bush can do is to act far more forcefully than he has in the past in preventing Israeli actions that undermine Abu Mazen,” Siegman says. “Secondly, he has to reconfirm American insistence that Israel’s continued expansion of settlements and creation of new facts on the ground are egregious violations of Israel’s obligations under the road map [peace framework], for which it will be held accountable by the United States.”Siegman was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on May 23, 2005.Abu Mazen, president of the Palestinian Authority [PA], is due in Washington this week to meet with President Bush. Could you to discuss the internal political problems he faces back home?This meeting in Washington is very important to Abu Mazen for several reasons, not the least of which are the difficulties he’s having within the Palestinian Authority. The biggest problem he has is the challenge he faces in the coming elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council [PLC]. That challenge is from Hamas. Hamas has made an historic decision to enter the Palestinian political process as a normal political party, and it enjoys significant popular support among major segments of the Palestinian public. It is seen, on the one hand, as a group that has fought for liberation from Israeli occupation, and on the other hand, as providing important social, educational, and economic services to the public the PA itself has not been able to fully provide, and as doing so without internal corruption. It is seen as honest, as opposed to the PA, and more specifically, as opposed to the most important political party within the PA, Fatah, which is seen as corrupt. There is now great concern that Hamas may emerge as the major opposition party to Fatah in the Palestinian legislature, as a consequence of the [parliamentary] elections scheduled for July.If Hamas became a leading player in parliament, would that spell doom for peace efforts?First, as well as they are likely to do, there is no chance, in my estimation, that they will become the majority party because there is a limit to the level of support they can receive in such an election. They did very well in recent local elections. But even there, the level of support was more or less around 30 [percent] to 35 percent, and Fatah remained the dominant political force. There are some highly exaggerated fears about how well Hamas will do, but they are not realistic. Hamas will not become the majority party; they will not run the government. And equally important, they really don’t want to run the government. They don’t want the responsibility of having to run a government, much less the responsibility of having to negotiate with Israel.Having said that, there is no question that Hamas’ participation in the PLC and in the PA will narrow Abu Mazen’s maneuverability in the peace process. However, it will not prevent his participation in peace negotiations, for this is Abu Mazen’s condition for Hamas’ joining in the government. Nor will it fundamentally change the terms Abu Mazen has insisted on for such negotiations, namely that they begin with the pre-1967 lines and must include Jerusalem. These are not Hamas conditions, but PA conditions. Hamas has said they will allow the PA to engage Israel in peace negotiations that will create a Palestinian state east of the ’67 lines, namely in the West Bank and Gaza.The legislative elections are due in July. I gather there is some movement to postpone them for two months?There are very strong voices within Fatah urging Abu Mazen to postpone the elections because of fears of how well Hamas will do. However, Abu Mazen has said, in very categorical language, that he will not do this. He will hold the elections as scheduled because of his concern that such a delay would only be fodder for Hamas’ accusations that, for all its talk about democracy and reform, Fatah is a corrupt organization that manipulates elections to its benefit.When we last talked in March, you were concerned that Israel’s plans to widen its settlements, particularly in the area around Jerusalem, would cause the eventual unhinging of Abu Mazen’s leadership. Do you still hold this view?Absolutely. Abu Mazen faces a number of challenges today. One of them is the challenge from Hamas. The other challenge he faces is within his own house, as it were, and that is to clean up the PA, and more specifically the Fatah party he now heads. Fatah is not just one of several parties within the PA. Historically, Fatah has provided the center of political gravity for the Palestinian political community. If Fatah falls apart or is greatly weakened, then the entire Palestinian political system becomes undone.Then, Abu Mazen has the problem of needing help from Israel and the United States to achieve credibility for his platform, namely, his insistence that Palestinians can make progress towards statehood only if they end the violence, if they do not resort to terrorism, and rely instead on political and diplomatic efforts. That proposition is being challenged by Hamas and other factions, but so far, it has produced no results for the Palestinians.The Israeli government is continuing with the building of settlements, which means they are constantly shrinking the territorial basis of a new Palestinian state. Beyond that, [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon has not implemented most of the promises that he made in Sharm El-Sheik when he met in February with Abu Mazen. Most of the checkpoints and roadblocks are still in place. The economy has not improved. People and goods still cannot move across roadblocks. The promise of the release of 1,000 prisoners has not been implemented, and so on. All of this undermines the position of Abu Mazen, and he’s coming here to see the president in a kind of desperate plea to President Bush personally to use his influence to change the situation.Prime Minister Sharon is in New York right now, and he spoke last night to a group of Jewish-American leaders. Opponents of the withdrawal from Gaza heckled him, and in his speech, he again said he would never negotiate on Jerusalem. The political pressure on Sharon does not bode well for a conciliatory attitude from him right now, does it?It absolutely does not. The statement at [Baruch] College, the one you just referred to- that under no circumstances will he even negotiate on the subject of Jerusalem, much less agree to any role for a Palestinian state in any part of East Jerusalem- for all practical purposes forecloses the possibility of restarting the peace process. Abu Mazen cannot agree to attend a political negotiation where he is told up front that Jerusalem is off the table.Abu Mazen’s office said that there was a meeting scheduled between him and Sharon on June 7. Do you know anything about this?This question of when and whether there will be a meeting between Sharon and Abu Mazen has been fodder for political game-playing on both sides. What I mean by that is that there’s great pressure on Sharon to meet with Abu Mazen- he has not met with him personally since Abu Mazen was elected as head of the PA. Sharon was concerned, however, that the absence of such a meeting would be used- as it most certainly would be- by Abu Mazen, when he meets with President Bush, as exhibit A for his case that the Israelis are not helping him.As Abu Mazen’s visit to Washington approaches, the Israelis woke up to the problem and realized they better have a meeting between Sharon and Abu Mazen before he meets with the president. However, Abu Mazen went on an extended trip overseas, according to some, in order to avoid a meeting with Sharon before he arrives in Washington. Sharon announced that he would meet with Abu Mazen shortly afterwards. In any event, all of this indicates how negative the atmospherics are at this time.If the Israelis can pull off the Gaza withdrawal without a disaster, will the atmosphere change much in August?I believe the Israelis can control the settlers. I think I told you the last time we spoke that this notion of a Jewish civil war is just deliberate hysteria. There is no possibility of a civil war within Israel. There is no part of the army that is going to defect, which it would have to do to qualify as a civil war, and fight the established military. That is just a hyperbole. No such thing will happen. But it can be more emotional and more traumatic than it needs to be, or should be, in a democratic country whose overwhelming majority favors the disengagement.But if there is no violence on the Palestinian side, if Hamas will not make the disastrous mistake of arranging for Israelis to pull out under fire, and it is a relatively controlled situation on the Israeli side, then the Gaza pullout can serve to reassure both Israelis and Palestinians that there is a basis for further withdrawals.The only problem is that Sharon has said on many occasions, and has said so again now during his visit to the United States as well, that he does not intend to follow up on Gaza for the time being. Even if the Gaza withdrawal goes well, he still expects Palestinians to meet certain tests- to dismantle the “terrorist infrastructure,” to implement reforms, to democratize Palestinian governance, and so on. And these tests will have to pass Israeli inspection. He says it will be quite a while before he’s even prepared to return to the road map, much less be willing to resume peace negotiations.What should President Bush do at this time?I think the most important thing President Bush can do is to act far more forcefully than he has in the past in preventing Israeli actions that undermine Abu Mazen. When Sharon came to the United States to meet with Bush at his Texas ranch last month, he announced ahead of time that the major message he intended to bring to the President in Texas was that Abu Mazen is a failure and that he cannot deal with him because he is not delivering. The president’s men warned Sharon not to do so, and Bush confirmed that he continues to see Abu Mazen as a credible partner for peace.The most important thing the president can do now is to reconfirm that message. Secondly, he has to reconfirm American insistence that Israel’s continued expansion of settlements and its creation of new facts on the ground are egregious violations of Israel’s obligations under the road map [peace framework], for which it will be held accountable by the United States.A final point: Sharon has told Israelis that the letter he received from President Bush in his meeting last year on April 14 constituted U.S. sanction for unilateral Israeli measures that preempt the permanent-status negotiations. It is a claim that greatly undermines Abu Mazen’s credibility. At this coming meeting, Bush needs to reaffirm that whatever compromises need to be made once a negotiation begins, none of these changes, whether on the issues of refugees or borders, can be done unilaterally. It all must be done by mutual agreement as part of a negotiating process. Both sides must make compromises. That is probably the single most important point Bush needs to make in his meeting with Abu Mazen if the Palestinian leader is to return from Washington with strengthened credibility.Do you have any indication that he might do that?There are serious discussions going on within the administration on this subject. There are some people, particularly at the State Department, who have been pushing for the president to give a letter to Abu Mazen, parallel to the one he gave Sharon, in which these points are made. But there is great resistance on the part of others within the administration to such a letter, who say it would weaken Sharon’s position before the Gaza withdrawal. So the likelihood is that there will not be a letter, but that the president will say something along these lines in his press conference.

This publication is now archived. Who are the key Israeli and Palestinian political leaders?As plans move forward for Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, hopes for peace in the Middle East are higher than they have been in many years. These prominent Israeli and Palestinian leaders will play influential roles in the events to come. Some are familiar, while others--including many members of the newly named Palestinian cabinet--are relative unknowns.Israelis:Ariel Sharon, 77. Israel’s prime minister has long been considered a tough-minded leader whose top priority is ensuring Israel’s survival. The head of the conservative Likud Party, he leads a coalition government and has been the driving force behind two controversial projects: Israel’s unilateral withdrawal of settlements from Gaza and its construction of a security fence between Israeli and Palestinian areas.Sharon’s background is largely military. He fought in all of Israel’s major wars: the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that followed the creation of the Jewish state; the 1967 Six-Day War; and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. First elected to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, in 1973, Sharon served as security adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1975-77), and as agriculture minister (1977-81) and defense minister (1981-83) under Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Sharon led the army’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to uproot the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from its base in Beirut. During the invasion, hundreds of Palestinians were massacred by Lebanese Christian militiamen in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. An Israeli tribunal found Sharon indirectly responsible for the deaths in 1983, and he was forced to resign. He returned to government in the 1990s as housing minister, a post he used to accelerate the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, overseeing the largest growth in the construction of settlements since Israel occupied those areas in the 1967 war. Sharon became leader of the Likud Party in 1999. His fall 2000 visit to the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem was one of the triggers of the second intifada, the Palestinian uprising that lasted more than four years. Sharon was elected prime minister in 2001, defeating Ehud Barak in a landslide. Sharon accused Barak of making too many concessions to the Palestinians in negotiations and promised Israelis protection from Palestinian extremists. His first term as prime minister, when he governed in a coalition with the Labor Party, faltered in 2002 after Labor withdrew over budget disputes. Sharon called early elections and was re-elected in January 2003. In late 2004, after losing support from far right-wing parties opposed to his Gaza withdrawal plan, Sharon invited the left-leaning Labor Party back into a coalition.Binyamin Netanyahu, 56. Like Sharon, Netanyahu is a leading figure in Likud; the two men are longtime political rivals. Currently serving as finance minister, Netanyahu opposes Sharon’s Gaza withdrawal plan and has called for a national referendum on the issue. Netanyahu was Israel’s youngest prime minister when he took office in 1996 at age 47. Fluent in English, Netanyahu earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, worked as deputy chief of mission in the Israeli embassy in Washington from 1982-84, and was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations from 1984-88. He lost the prime ministership to Ehud Barak in 1999. Since then, Netanyahu has served under Sharon despite their differences. He was foreign minister from 2002-03, and has been finance minister since 2003. Ambitious and media-savvy, Netanyahu is seen as a potential future candidate for prime minister.Silvan Shalom, 66. Israel’s foreign minister is seen as a Sharon loyalist and is popular with the Likud Party faithful. He was appointed foreign minister in 2003 after serving as finance minister from 2001-03 during the worst economic slump in Israel’s history. Some observers say Sharon appointed Shalom in 2003 in order to sideline Netanyahu and ensure reliable support from the foreign ministry. Born in Tunisia, Shalom grew up in Israel and studied accounting and economics at Ben Gurion University and law at Tel Aviv University before entering politics. He was elected to the Knesset in 1992, and served as deputy minister of defense from 1997-98 and minister of science from 1998-99.Shaul Mofaz, 57. Mofaz, Israel’s defense minister, was appointed by Sharon in late 2002 after the collapse of the Likud-Labor coalition government. From 1998-2002, Mofaz served as the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) chief of staff and oversaw Israel’s withdrawal in 2000 from Lebanon. In response to the second intifada, forces under his command blockaded Palestinian homes and villages, targeted Palestinian militants for assassination, and demolished the homes of suicide bombers. Mofaz was born in Iran and immigrated to Israel with his family when he was nine. He joined the IDF in 1966. In the Six-Day War, he fought in an elite paratrooper unit in the Sinai, and later commanded a paratrooper unit in the Yom Kippur War. He also took part in the 1976 rescue of 105 Jewish hostages from Entebbe, Uganda, whose plane had been hijacked by terrorists demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners. He commanded an infantry unit during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and held increasingly senior positions in the military until joining the IDF General Staff in 1996.Ehud Olmert, 60. Olmert, vice prime minister and minister of trade, industry, and labor, is seen as a moderate member of Likud who is close to Sharon. Olmert favors separation from the Palestinians and withdrawal from the Gaza settlements. A two-term mayor of Jerusalem (1993-2003), Olmert was previously a combat-infantry officer and a journalist in the IDF. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology, philosophy, and law from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, worked as a lawyer, and was elected to the Knesset in 1973 at age 28. He stayed in the Knesset until 1998 and served as minister of minorities (1988-90) and minister of health (1990-92).Shimon Peres, 82. Vice prime minister as of January 2005, Peres is a veteran Labor Party leader who has filled a variety of high-ranking posts in many Israeli governments. Peres played a central role in the Oslo peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in the early 1990s and, in 1994, shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and Israel’s then-prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin.Peres immigrated to Israel with his family from Poland. In Israel’s 1948 war of independence, he was in charge of arms purchasing and recruitment. Peres spent much of the 1950s in the ministry of defense and was first elected to the Knesset in 1959. He was deputy minister of defense from 1959-65, twice minister of defense (from 1974-77 and 1995-96), and twice minister of foreign affairs (from 1992-95 and 2001-02) in both Labor and coalition governments. He has also served as minister of immigration, minister of transportation, and minister of information. In 1977, he was elected chairman of the Labor Party. He was prime minister from 1984-86 and again in 1995-96, after Rabin’s 1995 assassination.Ehud Barak, 63. The most decorated soldier in Israel’s history, Barak is a former prime minister reportedly putting together another bid for the post. Experts say Barak plans to run for prime minister again, and will seek to become head of the Labor Party in July party elections. Born on a kibbutz, Barak joined the IDF in 1959. He led a reconnaissance group in the Six-Day War and commanded a tank battalion in the Sinai in the Yom Kippur War. He was deputy commander of the Israeli force during its invasion of Lebanon in 1982. In 1991, he became the youngest IDF chief of staff in Israeli history and is credited with modernizing the Israeli army. He retired from the military in 1994 and entered politics the next year as interior minister under Yitzhak Rabin. He was foreign minister from 1995-96 under Shimon Peres, became head of the Labor Party in 1997, and was elected prime minister in 1999, defeating Netanyahu. While in office, he pushed peace talks, offering terms--his critics called them excessive concessions--unprecedented in the long history of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. But the negotiations broke down in 2000 and Barak’s governing coalition failed. He was defeated by Sharon in elections in February 2001.Haim Ramon, 55. An up-and-coming member of the Labor Party, Ramon is minister without portfolio in the new government. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was part of a group of dovish young Labor members led by Yossi Beilin, one of the main negotiators of the Oslo peace plan. There is speculation Ramon may make a bid for a top post in the Labor elections. A former captain in the Air Force, Ramon has a bachelor’s degree in law from Tel Aviv University. He was elected to the Knesset in 1983 and later served as health minister and minister of internal affairs. He was chairman of the Labor Party in the Knesset from 1988-92.Ophir Pines-Paz, 44. Also considered a Labor up-and-comer who might figure in Labor’s July elections, Pines-Paz is currently minister of internal affairs. Elected to the Knesset in 1996, he was secretary general of the Labor Party and worked to rehabilitate prisoners and assimilate Jewish immigrants. As a young man, he was an IDF staff sergeant and earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a master’s degree in public policy from Tel Aviv University.Palestinians:Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), 69. Yasir Arafat’s successor as president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Abbas is currently the most influential Palestinian political figure. Elected PA president in January 2005, Abbas is considered more moderate than Arafat. Since assuming the PA presidency, he has appeared willing to insist on an end to Palestinian attacks on Israelis and consolidate the PA’s complex array of security forces --steps Arafat shunned. Bush administration officials welcomed Abbas’ election. They had refused to deal with Arafat, citing his links to terrorism.Born in 1935 in Safed, Galilee, in what was then-British Mandate Palestine, Abbas was raised in Syria, where his family fled in 1948. He studied law in Egypt and received a doctorate in history from Oriental College in Moscow. Abbas, a close associate of Arafat, helped the former leader found Fatah, the political wing of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO); Arafat headed both organizations until his death in November 2004. In the 1970s, he established contacts with left-leaning Israelis, and in the 1980s, he spoke out against Arafat’s support of then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Abbas became head of the PLO’s international relations office in 1980. A key participant in the Oslo peace process, he conducted negotiations with the Israelis and accompanied Arafat to the White House in 1993 to sign the Oslo Accords. In the summer of 2002, President Bush and representatives from the United Nations, Russia, and the European Union unveiled the so-called road map peace plan, which required Arafat to lay the foundations of a viable Palestinian government. Under pressure from those groups, Arafat named Abbas prime minister in March 2003. Abbas resigned after four months of power struggles with Arafat.Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala), 68. Qurei, the current PA prime minister, is an Arafat loyalist and a member of the Fatah old guard. Like Abbas, he is thought to be a more moderate and pragmatic leader than Arafat was. Qurei trained as a banker and succeeded Abbas as PA prime minister in 2003. Born in Jerusalem, Qurei joined Fatah in the 1960s and came to prominence in the mid 1970s, when he headed the group’s economic wing in Lebanon. He designed a key Palestinian development plan, which was presented to a World Bank aid conference in 1993 and became the cornerstone of the Palestinian development strategy. Qurei also headed the Palestinian Legislative Council, was instrumental in the Oslo negotiation process, and helped design the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction.Mohammad Dahlan, 44. A former head of the Palestinian Security Forces (PSF) in Gaza, Dahlan is minister of civil affairs in the new Palestinian cabinet. Dahlan is seen as a member of Fatah’s younger "new guard," but some critics say he and his peers lack the national stature and credibility to negotiate with the Israelis. Born in a Gaza refugee camp, Dahlan was a founder of the Fatah Youth Association in 1981. Arrested 11 times by Israel, he was deported in 1987 and made his way to PLO headquarters in Tunis; from there, he continued to orchestrate street protests in the West Bank and Gaza, earning Arafat’s trust. When Arafat and his fellow Fatah partisans returned to Palestinian territories under the terms of the Oslo Accords in 1994, Dahlan was made Gaza’s security chief. Civil-rights advocates criticized his tactics as head of the Gaza security forces, accusing him of using the PSF to harass and intimidate Arafat’s political enemies. While he is generally popular with younger members of Fatah, his periodic arrests of Palestinian militants--demanded by Israel and the United States--have been deeply unpopular on the Palestinian street. A critic of Arafat who both participated in and suffered from PA infighting, Dahlan resigned as security chief in June 2002, but returned to serve as interior minister in Abbas’ short-lived 2003 cabinet.Jibril Rajoub, 51. Rajoub is the PA’s national security adviser and a longtime rival of Dahlan’s for control over the PA security forces. Experts say Rajoub will likely be appointed the next Palestinian security chief in charge of the Palestinian armed forces and police in the West Bank. A former national security adviser to Arafat, Rajoub also headed the PSF in the West Bank. He is seen as a pragmatist and moderate who used his forces to clamp down on Hamas and Islamic Jihadmilitants in 1996 and 1997. He has said militants who target Israeli civilians undermine the Palestinian cause, but has also argued that bringing Hamas and other extremist groups into the political process is the only way to move the peace process forward. Born near Hebron, Rajoub was arrested at 15 for throwing a grenade at an Israeli convoy and spent 17 years in an Israeli prison, where he learned English and Hebrew. He was released in a prisoner swap in 1985 and expelled to Lebanon in 1988 during the first intifada. He moved to Tunis and eventually became a close associate of Arafat. He survived an Israeli rocket attack on his home in May 2001. In July 2002, Arafat, resisting U.S. pressure to consolidate PA security forces into a single agency under Rajoub’s leadership, fired Rajoub.Nasser Yusuf, 72. The interior minister and head of national security in the current Abbas government, Yusuf has been Gaza police chief, and in the 1990s, oversaw national security in Gaza and the West Bank. In his new position, Yusuf is tasked with bringing the many branches of the Palestinian security forces under his control. Yusuf was a Fatah commander in Jordan in the late 1960s, a brigade commander in Lebanon, and a general in the Palestinian National Liberation Army. He received a master’s degree in Islamic history from the University of Lebanon, studied military strategy in the Soviet Union, and attended Fatah leadership training in China. He has been a member of the Fatah Central Committee since 1989. He was once considered close to Arafat, but they fell out over Arafat’s refusal to consolidate the PA security forces as required in the road map peace plan. During Qurei’s term as prime minister, Yusuf briefly held the job of interior minister, but Arafat stymied his efforts at security-force reform.Nabeel Shaath, 68. A longtime politician and negotiator, Shaath is deputy prime minister and minister of information in the Abbas government. He formerly served as minister of planning and international cooperation, as well as foreign minister under Qurei. A member of Fatah’s central committee since 1971, Shaath worked with the organization in Beirut. In 1974, he headed the first PLO delegation to the United Nations. He was involved in the Oslo negotiations with Israel and headed the Palestinian negotiating team from 1993-95. He also took part in subsequent peace negotiations, including those at Camp David in 2000 and Taba in 2001.Marwan Barghouti, 46. One of the most popular Palestinian leaders, Barghouti is currently serving multiple life terms in an Israeli prison. He briefly challenged Abbas for the PA presidency, which caused alarm among some Israeli and U.S. officials: Barghouti eventually withdrew from the race and supported Abbas. Born in Ramallah, he became active in the Fatah movement at age 15. He was arrested and sent to Israeli prison, where he learned Hebrew. After his release, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank. One of the leaders of the first intifada against Israel in 1987, he was arrested and deported to Jordan, where he lived for seven years. He was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 1996 and earned the respect of the Palestinian street by criticizing corruption among PA officials and human-rights abuses by the Palestinian security services. During the secondintifada, Barghouti worked with the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a division of the Tanzim militia associated with Fatah that conducts violent attacks against Israeli civilians. Israeli soldiers arrested Barghouti in 2002; he was convicted of four counts of murder in an Israeli court and sentenced to five life terms in prison.--by Esther Pan, staff writer, cfr.org

This publication is now archived. Following are brief descriptions of some recent Mideast peace proposals: 1993 Oslo AccordsThe most difficult issues, including the right of return and settlements, were deliberately excluded from the Oslo Accords and left to be addressed in so-called permanent status talks. Still, the accords made several breakthroughs. Then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat, the head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), agreed to the creation of the Palestinian Authority as an interim self-government in the Gaza Strip and portions of the West Bank. Israel recognized the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist, renounced its goal of the destruction of the state of Israel, and foreswore armed attacks. July 2000 Camp David SummitPresident Bill Clinton called a summit at Camp David in July 2000 to jump-start negotiations between Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The Palestinian side insisted on the principle of the right of return for all Palestinian refugees; details of their return would be negotiated. Israel refused. Barak offered the Palestinians 92 percent of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip, and a land swap in exchange for Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The Palestinians refused, claiming Israel wanted to swap unusable areas in the Negev Desert for the West Bank’s most fertile land, and pushed instead for a one-for-one swap to get up to 100 percent of West Bank territory. Israel offered to concede three of the four quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem. The Palestinians demanded full sovereignty over the Temple Mount, which for Jews would have meant risking access to some of their holiest sites. Israel refused. (The Temple Mount, or Al Haram al-Sharif, is sacred to both Judaism and Islam. The compound’s summit includes the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine, and the Al Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s most revered houses of worship. The site is also the historical location of the Temple of Solomon, and part of its outer wall—known as the Western Wall or Wailing Wall—remains. Access to the Temple Mount has always been a contentious point in negotiations between Israel and Palestine.) The Camp David meeting concluded without agreement, but both sides agreed to continue the negotiating process. However, in September 2000 the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, began, derailing the talks. December 2000 Clinton ParametersIn late December 2000, Clinton mounted a last-ditch effort to make peace before he left office. Known as the Clinton Parameters, the plan offered proposals for dealing with the most protracted problems: settlements, Jerusalem, and refugees. The plan offered the Palestinians:Control over a sovereign, contiguous, viable state recognized by the international community.Sovereignty over Al Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem. Control over the Arab sections of Jerusalem, which would serve as the capital of a Palestinian state.A comprehensive settlement plan for refugees that offered them several options: return to the new state of Palestine; return to the state of Israel (with restrictions); resettlement in a third country; and/or compensation.The plan offered Israelis: The right for 80 percent of the West Bank settlers, most of whom live near the 1967 borders, to stay put. Security guarantees.Control over the Jewish sections of Jerusalem, which would be internationally recognized as the capital of Israel.Control over and access to Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem, including sections of the Temple Mount. Both sides tentatively accepted the deal with reservations; some experts say Arafat later added so many conditions that the agreement fell apart. Clinton left office, and talks continued in January at an Egyptian resort. January 2001 Taba TalksAt the Egyptian resort of Taba in early 2001, Israel proposed keeping 6 percent of West Bank land; the Palestinians offered 3.1 percent. Disputes at the Taba talks continued over refugees, land swaps, and sovereignty over the Temple Mount. The two sides were unable to reach agreement. March 2002 Saudi Peace InitiativeCrown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia proposed a Saudi peace initiative in March 2002 that formally changed the Arab world’s position on Israel. The proposal, endorsed by the Arab League, asked Israel to withdraw to the 1949 borders and establish an independent and sovereign state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital. It stipulated that displaced refugees should either be allowed to return to their homes or be compensated for their loss of property. In return, the Arab states would consider the Arab-Israeli conflict over, sign comprehensive peace treaties with Israel, and normalize relations. The proposal was received with skepticism by Israel and had little practical effect. Road mapIn June 2002, Bush became the first U.S. president to call explicitly for an independent Palestinian state existing in peace next to an Israeli state. In April 2003, the Bush administration publicly committed itself to the road map, calling it “a framework for progress towards lasting peace and security in the Middle East.” The road map, as developed by the quartet, proposed three phases to a final settlement: Phase I: Palestinians would halt violence, stop funding terrorist groups, begin political reforms (including drafting a constitution), and hold elections. Israel would freeze settlement activity and begin to withdraw from occupied territories as terrorism receded.Phase II: An independent Palestinian state with provisional boundaries would be created. International observers would monitor compliance with the road map and convene an international conference to aid Palestinian economic recovery and revive multilateral talk on water rights, refugees, arms control, and other issues.Phase III: A second international conference would provide a permanent status agreement dealing with final borders, the status of Jerusalem, refugees, and settlements. Arab states would make peace deals with Israel, and the conflict would be considered ended. In addition to official plans proposed by governments, there have been recent non-governmental initiatives proposed by private parties. The two that have received the most public attention: The 2002 Nusseibeh-Ayalon PrinciplesNegotiated by Ami Ayalon, former director of Israel’s security services, and Sari Nusseibeh, the Palestinian president of Al Quds University, the Nusseibeh-Ayalon Principleshas attracted 100,000 Israeli and 70,000 Palestinian signatures in support of its ideas, according to its advocates. The proposal:recognized the right of Israel and Palestine to exist as two sovereign states;established permanent borders based on pre-1967 war lines, the relevant U.N. resolutions, and the Saudi initiative;set up a one-to-one land swap between the two states to facilitate border modifications;resolved that no Israeli settlers would remain in the Palestinian state after the establishment of agreed-upon borders; established Jerusalem as an open city and capital of two states, with freedom of religion and full access to holy sites for all; urged the creation of an international fund to compensate Palestinian refugees;said Palestinians would return only to the state of Palestine, while Jews would return only to the state of Israel;stated that the Palestinian state would be demilitarized and its security guaranteed by the international community. 2003 Geneva AccordThe Geneva Accord built on the Nusseibeh-Ayalon Principles and was developed by former Israeli and Palestinian diplomats, officials, and security experts who had participated in past official negotiations. The accord was an attempt to gain public support and thereby pressure political leaders to seek a negotiated peace. Some observers consider the document significant because it offers detailed ways—agreed to by both sides, albeit unofficially—to resolve the most contentious issues.Some of its points:Israel and Palestine would each recognize the other as the homeland of their respective peoples.Palestinians would give up the right of return and settle in Palestine or their present host countries—primarily Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Some, with Israel’s permission, would be allowed to return to Israel. Others would be compensated.Palestine would get 98.5 percent of the occupied territories.Most of the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza would be dismantled, requiring Israel to move 110,000 West Bank settlers, nearly half the total settler population. Israel would annex Ma’ale Adumim and Givat Ze’ev, two large settlements near Jerusalem, in addition to territory in East Jerusalem. Jerusalem would be the capital of the two states, with the Haram al-Sharif under Palestinian control (with access guaranteed by an international force) and the Western Wall and the old Jewish quarter under Israeli control.