Independence' will topple Abbas

[GabysPoppy]

The Palestinian public is no longer asking if the
government of Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud
Abbas is going to fall, but when it will happen.
Its very raison d'etre was to achieve a
cease-fire. During the weeks of cease-fire, the
government was supposed to reorganize the
Palestinian security services, conduct reforms in
the government and start implementing the road
map. If there is no hudna, the government doesn't
have much to do.

snip

The question of which Palestinian leadership is
loyal to the interests of their people has been
a theme throughout the history of the
Palestinian national movement. During the 1948
war, and after it, Arab states nurtured
Palestinian leaderships of their own that
claimed to represent Palestinian interests but
in effect used the Palestinian issue for their
own purposes. The PLO in its first incarnation,
in 1964, was established by the Egypt of Gamal
Abdul Nasser. Syria established Saika in 1966,
Iraq set up the Liberation Front in 1969, and
there were other small Palestinian
organizations. The Fatah established by Arafat
and a small group of young men in Kuwait was
known in the early 1970s for its slogan:
`independence of decisions.' The early Fatah
leaders explained the slogan in simple terms:
they do not accept external interests
intervening in the Palestinian problem and
demanded that the Palestinians alone decide
what is good and correct for them. In other
words, the Palestinians have to make
independent decisions about their destiny,
without being pawns in the hands of other
political actors.

That slogan, over the years, became the secret
of Arafat's political power. He told everyone
how he was jailed as a student in the 1950s by
Egypt, jailed by Syria in 1966, and Lebanon,
how he managed to elude the Israelis in the
West Bank in 1967, and how he hid from
Jordanian soldiers in the "Black" September of
1970. The point was always that Arafat would
not serve any foreign element. He preferred to
fight and go to jail, as long as he could be
loyal to what he believed were the interests of
his people. The best example of that was the
1983 rebellion in Fatah in Lebanon. The revolt
almost succeeded. A large number of Arafat
loyalists went over to the side of Abu Mussa,
the rebel side. But when it turned out the Abu
Mussa rebellion was backed by Syria, which even
put its army at the ready for the purpose, the
affair ended very quickly. Arafat managed to
persuade most of the Palestinian public that
the rebels were serving foreign interests and
the rebellion sank like a stone.

snip

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=335232&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y