After UAE deal, Palestinian Authority prepares for battle within, without

PALESTINIAN AFFAIRS: The UAE-Israel deal and the specter of Mohammad Dahlan’s return find the Palestinians and Mahmoud Abbas divided about what to do next

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
PALESTINIANS HOLD a picture depicting Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan wearing a Jewish star during a protest against the UAE normalizing relations with Israel, in Turmus Aiya near Ramallah, on Wednesday. (photo credit: MOHAMAD TOROKMAN/REUTERS)
PALESTINIANS HOLD a picture depicting Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan wearing a Jewish star during a protest against the UAE normalizing relations with Israel, in Turmus Aiya near Ramallah, on Wednesday.
(photo credit: MOHAMAD TOROKMAN/REUTERS)
For several years now, reports in the Arab media have suggested that some Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, have devised a “secret” plan to replace Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas with Mohammad Dahlan, one of the most controversial Palestinian figures, who was expelled from the ruling Fatah faction in 2011.
Dahlan, 58, has since been residing in Abu Dhabi, where he reportedly serves as a special adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
A former commander of the PA Preventive Security Service, Dahlan first fell from grace in 2007, when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip, dealing a humiliating blow to Abbas and the PA.
After moving from the Gaza Strip to Ramallah, Dahlan tried to establish a power base in the West Bank by rallying many Fatah activists behind him. Fearing that Dahlan was seeking to stage a coup against him, Abbas decided to move quickly to foil the alleged “conspiracy.” On orders from Abbas, PA security officers raided Dahlan’s home in Ramallah, confiscated documents and computers and arrested some of his aides.
Aware of his new status as persona non grata in the West Bank, Dahlan hurriedly packed his bags and fled to the UAE.
On instructions from the PA president, Dahlan was later expelled from Fatah, whose leaders accused him of corruption and complicity in the “poisoning” of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004.
Today, Abbas undoubtedly regrets his decision to allow Dahlan to leave the West Bank. Abbas did not expect some Arab countries, particularly the UAE and Egypt, to embrace his archrival and assist him in his campaign to discredit the PA leadership.
Abbas, who in November will celebrate his 85th birthday, is convinced that Abu Dhabi and Cairo are working in collusion with the US and Israel to install Dahlan as president of the PA.
This belief was enhanced in May and June, when the PA leadership refused to accept medical aid from the UAE because it was delivered through Israel. After Etihad Airways cargo planes carrying aid from the UAE to help the Palestinians combat the coronavirus landed in Ben-Gurion Airport, the Palestinians said that the UAE did not coordinate with them the delivery of the shipments.
PA officials accused the UAE of seeking to normalize ties with Israel “at the expense of the Palestinians.” Some officials claimed that the incident surrounding the medical aid was actually a setup by the UAE and Dahlan to embarrass Abbas and make him appear as if he was rejecting medical aid for his people simply because it was being delivered through Israel.

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Against this backdrop, it’s easy to understand why Abbas was furious when he first heard of last week’s agreement between Israel and the UAE to normalize their relations. Palestinian officials in Ramallah are convinced that Dahlan played a major role in brokering the Israel-UAE deal in order to boost his chances of returning to the Palestinian political stage, a move that would facilitate his alleged ambition to replace Abbas.
“When President Abbas says that the deal between the United Arab Emirates and Israel is a stab in the back of the Palestinians, he actually means that it’s a stab in his own back,” explained a veteran member of the PLO Executive Committee. “I believe that Abbas is more worried about Dahlan’s intentions and ambitions than normalization between an Arab country and Israel. The president believes that the United Arab Emirates is working with Israel and the US administration to remove him from power.”
Another PLO official, who attended an emergency meeting with Abbas shortly after the Israel-UAE deal was announced, claimed that the PA president was “seething with anger” as his advisers read out to him the text of the agreement. “The president said he has no doubt that Mohammad Dahlan cooked up the whole thing,” the official said.
ACCORDING TO the official, it’s “inaccurate” to assume that Abbas’s fear of Dahlan is the only reason behind his vexation at the Israel-UAE accord. Abbas, he said, is angry because he sees the agreement as further proof of how the Palestinians have been jilted by their Arab brothers.
“The deal is a real catastrophe for the Palestinians,” said Palestinian political analyst Mohammed Sadeq to The Jerusalem Post. “It shows that some Arab countries no longer care about the Palestinian issue and are determined to put their interests above the interests of the Palestinians. The Palestinians’ biggest fear now is that the apathy on the Arab street toward the Israeli-Emirati deal would encourage other Arab countries to establish ties with Israel. The Arab states are telling the Palestinias that the Palestinian issue is no longer the central issue of all Arabs.”
Abbas, according to one of his aides, was also incensed by the fact that the UAE, in the context of the deal with Israel, took credit for the suspension of Israel’s plan to apply its sovereignty to portions of the West Bank. The UAE statement came as Palestinian officials were boasting that their diplomatic efforts in the past few months have forced Israel to call off its plan.
“The annexation plan was suspended because of international pressure on Israel, and not because of the United Arab Emirates,” said Akram Abdel Majid, another political analyst. “The Emiratis are trying to take credit for something they didn’t do. They are using the annexation issue to justify their deal with Israel. That explains why President Abbas and other Palestinian officials are very angry.”
Since the beginning of the year, the Palestinian leadership has devoted most of its efforts to thwarting US President Donald Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” vision for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Netanyahu’s intention to apply sovereignty to parts of the West Bank. In that regard, the Palestinians feel that their efforts have been successful, mainly because they succeeded in gaining the support of many in the international community for their rejection of US and Israeli “conspiracies.”
The Israel-UAE deal came just as things seemed to be moving in the right direction for Abbas and the PA leadership. The plan to extend sovereignty to parts of the West Bank did not materialize, and the Trump peace vision, also known as the “Deal of the Century,” seemed to have met the fate of scores of previous proposals to end the conflict.
Now, the PA leadership is preparing for another diplomatic battle – one that is directed toward the Arab countries to stop them from following suit with the UAE. At this stage, it’s not clear whether the Arab countries would heed the PA’s call for holding an urgent meeting of Arab foreign ministers to discuss the Israel-UAE deal.
The Palestinians’ main argument is that the deal contradicts the terms of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which envisages a normalization of relations with Israel only after a full withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.
“What the United Arab Emirates did is a blatant violation of the Arab consensus,” argued senior Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmed. “We want to hear what the rest of the Arab world thinks about this violation. That’s why we called for convening an urgent meeting of the Arab League. We are particularly worried about the support that some Arab states have voiced toward the deal with Israel. Their stance weakens the Palestinian position.”
What is really bothering some Palestinian officials in Ramallah is the feeling that a large number of countries around the world, specifically the European Union, continue to take a tougher stance toward Israel and the Trump administration than several Arab countries.
Palestinian diplomacy may have been successful in persuading Germany, France, Britain and China to support Ramallah’s position toward the Trump peace plan and Netanyahu’s annexation scheme, but when it comes to the Arab world, the Palestinians are admitting that their efforts have been less successful.
Dominated by representatives of the “old guard,” the Palestinian leadership continues to act with the same mentality that existed in the Arab world in the ’60s and ’70s, when anything coming from the
West, especially the US, was considered a “conspiracy.”
It is the same mentality that also accuses anyone who collaborates with Western powers as a “traitor.” That explains why Palestinians have been burning pictures of the UAE crown prince with the term “traitor.” As Abbas said in a statement he released shortly after the deal was announced by the White House, the UAE deal was a “betrayal of Jerusalem, al-Aqsa Mosque and the Palestinian cause.”
SOME PALESTINIANS, nonetheless, do not seem to be happy with the way Abbas has been handling the issue of the Israel-UAE deal. They believe that Abbas’s “overreaction” will prove harmful to the interests of the Palestinians and widen the gap between them and the Arab countries. In addition, they fear that scenes of Palestinians burning and trampling UAE flags and pictures of its crown prince could backfire and drive more Arab states into the open arms of Israel and the Trump administration.
“We don’t want to turn the Arabs into an enemy,” remarked Nabil al-Masri, a businessman from Nablus. “We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past, when the PLO supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. The Palestinians then paid a heavy price because tens of thousands were expelled from the Gulf states after the liberation of Kuwait. I’m afraid that we will see a reaction from some Gulf states to the Palestinians’ strong condemnations and accusations. It’s sad to see Israelis hanging the flags of the UAE in some of their cities, while Palestinians are burning the flags and throwing shoes at the photos of an Arab head of state.”
Sufian Abu Zaida, a former member of Fatah from the Gaza Strip who is closely associated with Dahlan, is one of the few Palestinians who believe that the time has come for the Palestinian leadership to embark on a soul-searching process in order to learn from its mistakes.
“The time has come for us, as Palestinians, to realize that times are changing and are no longer working according to the Palestinian timing,” Abu Zaida said. “We need to realize that [Arab] states are looking [out] for their own interests before taking into consideration the interests of others. The time has come for us to realize, as Palestinians, that we are no longer the center of the universe, and that the Palestinian issue, despite its importance and sanctity, is no longer the central issue of Arab and foreign countries, and that there are conflicts and disasters in this world that are seen as more important than the Palestinian issue.”
Referring to the PA leadership’s incitement against the UAE, Abu Zaida added: “We must look at ourselves in the mirror and see our reality as it is, and not as each one of us wants to see it. The culture of insulting, trampling and burning pictures and country flags is not a policy. Nor does it help us solve our problem. We need to reconsider all that we have done in recent decades. Where did we go wrong? Is there anyone who disagrees that the Palestinian issue has lost much of its sanctity and prestige in the eyes of peoples and countries, especially the Arabs?”