In his zeal to punish Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for assorted affronts real and imagined, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be Hamas’ most important benefactor.
The Islamic terror organization has many friends — Iran, Syria, Hezbollah — but none is doing as much to expand Hamas’ power and popularity from the Gaza Strip to all of the West Bank as the Netanyahu government.
It finally dawned on Netanyahu this week that he may have been making a mistake — to say nothing of violating signed agreements — by withholding upwards of $100 million in funds that actually belong to the Palestinian Authority and is needed to pay salaries for government officials and security forces. It was yet another move by the Netanyahu government that seemed almost designed to weaken Abbas and strengthen his Hamas opponents.
Finding himself under pressure from all sides, the prime minister decided “to come down from his high horse” (as the Israeli daily Ha’aretz put it) and release the funds. Immediately his ultranationalist foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, denounced the move as “irresponsible” and declared his “adamant” opposition. But he backed away from an earlier threat to bring down the government.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had been pressing Netanyahu to adhere to Israel’s commitments and release the funds.
The most persuasive opposition to the freeze came from Israel’s security establishment. It maintained that a fully functioning P.A. is in Israel’s interest. It doesn’t want to see the P.A. collapse or give Abbas an excuse to carry out his on-and-off threats to shut it down.
Netanyahu tried to save face by declaring victory, claiming that the Palestinians have suspended their “unilateral moves” at the U.N. and pulled back applications to join other U.N. agencies.
The mercurial Abbas doesn’t help matters himself with his repeated threats of resignation, dismantlement and reconciliation plus his refusal to talk peace with Israel until his conditions are met.
The biggest danger facing both Netanyahu and Abbas is that they may get carried away with their own politically motivated rhetoric and step off the proverbial cliff.
When Abbas raised dismantling the P.A. at a Fatah Revolutionary Council meeting in October, Council members responded by forming a study committee. They knew he was bluffing again and they understood the risks of going through with it, according to diplomatic and media sources.
A decision to shut down the P.A. could prove disastrous for Palestinian aspirations for statehood because it could easily be interpreted by many as an admission they are not ready to govern themselves.
“It’s not a realistic threat,” said Robert Danin, the former head of Tony Blair’s Jerusalem Quartet mission. “The P.A. won’t dissolve itself because Palestinian leaders don’t want to deprive themselves of the tax revenues that the P.A. generates and they have too strong a vested interest in preserving power.”
For Israel, the P.A. eases the burden of occupation. Without it, Israel would have to assume all the aspects of occupation as it did prior to the 1993 Oslo accords, including a return of the civil administration that was responsible for everything from garbage collection to administering municipal governments.
The IDF doesn’t want to send its soldiers back to patrolling the mean streets of the West Bank like cops on the beat. But most important, it is pleased with the job P.A. security forces are doing in enforcing public safety and especially in preventing terror attacks from the West Bank.
When the P.A. cannot pay salaries of its employees and security forces, it loses its standing in the eyes of the people, and that only
benefits Hamas.
Netanyahu’s anger and frustration with Abbas not only led to the freeze, but also contributed to the decision to boost Hamas’ popularity by releasing 1,027 of its followers in exchange for a single Israeli soldier. One unintended consequence of the prime minister’s action could well be a Hamas victory in next year’s elections.
Then again, this scenario is not out of the question: A Hamas victory would not disappoint Netanyahu because it would give him the excuse he thinks he needs to avoid negotiations.
The Netanyahu government’s reactive approach has failed to meet the challenges posed by the P.A.’s diplomatic offensive by producing creative and daring initiatives of its own.
“The whole history of Israel has been one of taking the initiative, not playing defense, and that is what makes the current situation so hard to understand,” Danin said.
Douglas M. Bloomfield is the president of Bloomfield Associates Inc., a Washington, D.C., lobbying and consulting firm. He spent nine years as the legislative director and chief lobbyist for AIPAC.