US president George W. Bush and Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon met in Washington soon after the successful American-led invasion and victory over Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. It was there that Sharon revealed his plan to initiate a “process of gradual disengagement” from the Gaza Strip and areas in the West Bank.
Sharon had weighed the costs and consequences of continued military conflict with the Palestinians following five years of the Second Intifada. Included was his own effort to crush the terrorist infrastructure. Sharon launched Operation Defensive Shield in March of 2002. Approximately 20,000 Israeli troops participated in a massive invasion of the West Bank. The infrastructure of the militant groups, as well as of the Palestinian Authority, in all the major Palestinian cities and their surrounding towns, villages, and refugee camps were targeted and destroyed.
As regards the future, Sharon considered issues then, much like those that weigh heavily on Israel and the US today. In assessing the objectives of Israel’s invasion of Gaza and the anticipated defeat and destruction of the Hamas infrastructure and lethal power, the question remains whether a “strategic resolution of the conflict” will be achieved. That is, will the substantive issues at the heart of the conflict, issues which inflame terrorism and motivate extremism, be resolved solely by acts of force or by balancing the use of force with political and diplomatic objectives?
The vision of peace in Gaza and where it led
In 2005, Sharon and Bush shared a vision of conflict resolution and peace. Sharon was supportive of Bush’s Road Map to Peace; and Bush approved of Sharon’s Disengagement Plan and support for “the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.”
Both Bush and Sharon concurred that in addition to a cessation of terrorism and military violence, the Palestinian Authority (PA) must undertake a series of organizational reforms. However, it wasn’t until Yasser Arafat died in November of 2004 that a process of change in Palestinian policy and governance was possible. As an initial step, in January of 2005 the PA conducted its first national elections in which Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was elected president of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas declined to participate.
Upon assuming office, Abbas declared his commitment to enter into peace negotiations with Israel. He also announced his intention to convince the Islamic rejectionist groups to sign a truce and allow negotiations to move ahead. But he was not entirely successful. The Palestinian militant groups restrained themselves only intermittently.
On his part, Sharon was preoccupied with political struggles within the Likud Party. Led by Benjamin Netanyahu, a majority of the party leaders rejected Sharon’s plans. This resulted in Sharon leaving Likud to create a new party committed to advancing his Disengagement Plan and the peace process with the Palestinians.
Concurrent with the political developments in Israel, the Palestinians were also involved in a disruptive political process. Their commitment to the Bush Road Map was conditioned on initiating a program of institutional reform under the rubric of multi-party elections for a Palestinian legislative council to be held in January 2006.
From the outset, Hamas and the Fatah party, led by Abbas, were engaged in organizing against each other in a political race for control of the legislature, and therein the policies and governing entity of the Palestinian Authority. The fact that neither Bush nor Abbas objected to the participation of Hamas was surprising. In retrospect, each – for different reasons – ignored the consequences of Hamas’ participation. Hamas, an Arabic acronym for “Islamic resistance movement” was defined by the US Department of State in April 1993 as a foreign terrorist organization.
Abbas was certain that his Fatah party had a substantially larger base of support than Hamas. Bush was no less certain that the election results would be heavily in favor of Fatah. Bush’s conviction was based on his neo-conservative ideological principle that given the opportunity, people throughout the world would favor democracy over any other ideological form of government. And in the case of Palestine, the Americans were certain that the electorate would not vote for a proven terrorist organization.
In an article in The Washington Post published in October of 2005, it was noted that president Bush chose not to tell “Abbas that militant groups should be prevented from participating.”
And, as noted by Martin Indyk in his book Innocent Abroad, “President Bush wanted the election to go ahead as scheduled.” This was one of the examples supporting the theme in his book, namely that Americans are the innocents, seeking to make the Middle East over in America’s image.
Contrary to popular expectations, Hamas won a decisive victory, with 74 seats in the legislature against Fatah’s 45.
The loss by Fatah was due to significant internal problems and the popular conviction that Fatah officials were incompetent and dishonest. Thus the preparations for Fatah’s electoral campaign were chaotic. One example was in the process of selecting candidates. There were many cases in which Fatah fielded more than one candidate in the same district. One candidate was an independent Fatah candidate, while the second was an official Fatah candidate. The result was that the Fatah vote was split between multiple candidates, while the singular opposition Hamas candidate was able to win a plurality of the votes.
The newly elected Palestinian legislature was dominated by Hamas, which refused to recognize Israel or to disavow violence or to recognize previous agreements made between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Above all was the intention to strive for peace, based on a two-state solution.
The Bush administration was shocked by the election results. Neither their ideological position that “democracy would by itself produce an enlightened electorate” was proven, nor was their certainty that an Islamic terrorist group could not win control of the Palestinian legislature.
On their part, the Fatah members of the legislature refused to cooperate with the Hamas members and decided to function in the opposition. Nonetheless, Hamas was in control and appointed a government composed solely of its own members.
When, on March 29, 2006, the Hamas-led cabinet was sworn in, the United States announced that it prohibited its diplomatic officials from having contact with Hamas appointed ministers. Along with the guidance dealing with the work of official personnel, the US withheld most of the donor funds committed to support the Palestinian Authority. The lack of funding severely affected social and economic conditions in the territories. And it provoked a bitter and volatile struggle between Hamas and Fatah.
The Bush administration was not satisfied with a mere boycott of the new PA government. It decided to remove Hamas from its controlling position in the PA government. The US strategy was first to convince Abbas to use his power as president to disband the Hamas-led government and call for a new election. Failing this, the plan was to “starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections.”
Abbas chose to ignore the US request. Instead, he undertook a process of negotiations with Hamas with the objective of creating a coalition government. Knowledge of this provoked the personal involvement of secretary of state Condoleezza Rice who, on October 4, 2006, traveled to meet with president Abbas in Ramallah.
Rice firmly explained to Abbas that the US expected him to act by dissolving the Hamas government and holding new elections. Abbas agreed to fulfill the request. But Abbas chose not to cooperate with the American administration, in spite of subsequent reminders.
Instead, he sought to find a way to sustain the PA while gaining a degree of authority for Fatah. His efforts peaked when, after months of negotiations, the two sides met in Saudi Arabia under the auspices of Saudi King Abdullah. On February 8, 2007, an agreement to establish a government of national unity was announced by Fatah and Hamas.
Ministerial portfolios were distributed between the two partners. Hamas, however, did not revise its positions regarding the legitimacy of Israel or its refusal to renounce violence.
The response of the United States and the European Union was to cancel their support for the PA, with the exception of limited humanitarian aid and earmarked support for Abbas’s office.
The result was a substantial deficit in the budget of the PA. To fill in the gap, Iran committed financial aid, which peaked at some $250 million promised to Hamas PA prime minister Ismail Haniyeh following his visit to Iran.
The US was now determined to remove Hamas from its role in the Palestinian Authority. To that end, Bush approved a plan to force the downfall of the “unity” government. In other words, a coup. The plan was devised by Rice and deputy national security adviser Elliot Abrams. It focused on the role of Mohammad Dahlan, the head of the Fatah Preventative Security Service in Gaza.
Dahlan agreed to the plan on condition that his forces would be significantly strengthened with additional thousands of security personnel secretly trained and equipped with new weapons.
The plot was an unofficial secret plan, and the administration could not openly request support from Congress. Instead, funding support was secured from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Training of the new forces was conducted by Egypt and Jordan.
The first 500 new security personnel entered the Gaza Strip through Egypt. This event naturally gained the attention of Hamas.
So too did a leak to a Jordanian newspaper of part of the draft Action Plan to Remove Hamas from the PA. In addition, comments were made by an Israeli personality on a radio program asserting that the arms from Egypt would give Abbas “the ability to cope with those organizations…”.
It did not take long for Hamas to understand what was happening. And when Dahlan left the Gaza Strip to undergo surgery on his legs, Hamas took advantage of the opportunity to preempt the Fatah plot.
In June 2007, Hamas launched a surprise military attack to prevent the planned Fatah coup. Within a week of bloody fighting, all of the Fatah strongholds in Gaza were destroyed and the stores of Fatah armaments were taken. The Gaza Strip fell into the sole control of the Hamas Islamic movement which now called the territory “liberated.”
In response, on June 14, 2007, Abbas belatedly dissolved the Palestinian government, declared a state of emergency, and issued a decree firing Hamas prime minister Haniyeh.
In effect, what occurred was a reversal of the planned coup by Fatah against Hamas. In the words of David Wurmer, who resigned as vice president Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East adviser a month after the coup: “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was preempted before it could happen.”
The American-conceived plot was not made public until nearly a year later. An investigative report was published in the American magazine Vanity Fair as was an article in the British Guardian newspaper. The information about the failed plot and coup was corroborated with documents and the personal testimony of US officials. ■
Stanley Ringler is the author of The Arc of Our History: A Social and Political Narrative of Family and Nation.