Palestinian Elections Could Worsen the MidEast Mess

It sounded like an empty threat, earlier this week, when Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that he would call unilaterally for “national” elections if Hamas refused to sign a Palestinian political unity agreement the Egyptians have been brokering for months. Now that threat has become a reality, as Abbas issues a formal announcement this morning that elections will take place on January 24.

“”Today we have a legal requirement,” said Abbas, addressing the opening session of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Council held in Ramallah. ”We have a constitution and it says we have to announce it today,” he said. “We are going to enforce this constitutional requirement.”"

This situation typifies the rock-and-hard-place that is the Israeli-Palestinian paradigm. Democratic elections should be considered a good thing. Palestinian law says the president should call for national elections three months before the obligatory election date; the current legislative council ends its four-year term on January 24.  The U.S. supports the Abbas-led Palestinian government and the fact that its leaders, though under foreign occupation and without access to 1 1/2 million of its citizens in Gaza, adheres to the principles of a democracy.

Yet the sad irony is that an election among the stateless Palestinians could slow the creation of their long-hoped-for state. Why: Absent the formal reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, elections are far more likely to degenerate into violence than bring unity. Yet for Hamas reconciliation requires enormous changes in the Gazan modus operandi – recognizing Israel, renouncing violence. How likely is this to happen?

The international Quartet overseeing the peace process has been nudging Fatah and Hamas to try to bridge the philosphical chasm between them; it’s an essential prelude to the formation of a Palestinian state. However, the very idea of unity between a political party and a terrorist organization – whose platform seeks the destruction of the state of Israel – sounds implausible because it is. Hamas has no interest in seeing its power in the Palestinian legislative council diluted by joining Fatah in the Western-backed mainstream determined to make peace with Israel. Its leaders have said they will try to prevent the elections or hold a separate election in Gaza.

Without political unity, elections face numerous landmines: The West Bank and Gaza aren’t contiguous, no Palestinian state yet exists, and about 250,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem dwell in a political limbo.

- In Gaza, how could fair elections be organized  - where Fatah operates only as a clandestine operation and few international election observers are likely to be allowed in? Say they were allowed in; would Hamas cooperate with or kidnap them?

- In East Jerusalem, Palestinians are under Israeli annexation – eligible to vote in Israeli elections though most don’t, and the international community considers this annexation illegal. Would the current hard-line Israeli government – which U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice deftly described this week as giving only “lip service” to the peace process – allow this group to vote?

- Overall, the elections would require lots of coordination with Israel’s thus far intransigent, hawkish prime minister  - whom many observers believe is dedicated to exploiting the differences between Fatah and Hamas to avoid ending the occupation and pulling some of the half million settlers out of the future Palestinian state.

With all the negatives, why push this now? Besides the legal requirements, “…some Fatah representatives suggested that calling the election would increase pressure on Hamas to reach a deal with Fatah,” notes Isabel Kershner in today’s New York Times:

““We will declare elections,” said Jibril Rajoub, a Fatah Central Committee member, in an interview in his Ramallah office hours before the presidential decree was issued, “but we will leave the door open for them to come.””

And this analysis from the highly respected George Washington University professor Marc Lynch:

“For all the intense ill-will and mistrust between the two sides, most Palestinians want to see the political reunification of the West Bank and Gaza.  Most want to see an end to the blockade of Gaza.   Most want to see a single, functioning Palestinian government.  And most understand that only a unity government of some kind would be able to negotiate any binding, end of conflict agreement with Israel.  If this is the endgame — giving up on reaching a deal in order to pin blame on Hamas — then all those hopes recede.”

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