POSSIBLE NEW PALESTINIAN LEADERSHIP?
by DEBKAfile, 15 April 2002
"Israels triumphant capture of Marwan Barghouti,
41, the Secretary General of the West Banks Fatah-Tanzim and the most
vocal Palestinian leader, gave a strong impetus to the Sharon governments
campaign to delegitimize and replace Yasser Arafat.
DEBKAfiles military sources reveal that Israeli security leaders, including
prime minister Ariel Sharon, have been telling US secretary of state Colin
Powell that, since the Palestinian Authority and its security apparatus has
buckled, the only real fighting force left on the West Bank is the Tanzim.
Because Barghouti rules the Tanzim, he is by definition the strongman of the
West Bank.
Our sources, looking for the battles in which Barghoutis Tanzim was
engaged, turned up empty. The Jenin refugee camp was the only place where
the Palestinians showed real resistance. But the fighters there were the Jihad
Islami, together with Hizballah and al Qaeda elements who had been scattered
round the West Bank and mustered in Jenin for the showdown with Israeli troops.
However, the casting of Tanzim in a heroic light is part of a wider maneuver.
At the outset of the Israeli operation on March 29, the fiery Tanzim leader
reportedly went into hiding in the West Bank Security Headquarters of Jibril
Rajoub at Betunia, near Ramallah. When Israelis stormed the building, Barghouti
was not to be found. It was said he had gone to ground in a big bunker under
a nearby hill, from which he was running terror operations. The IDF was described
as bulldozing the hill - but again, no Barghouti. That the Tanzim leader was
so thoroughly lost defies belief. The Shin Beit, which monitors all telephone
traffic going in and out of the West Bank, cannot have missed Barghoutis
telephone interview to the al Jazeera satellite network last week. But knowing
where he was, Israel still held off picking him up for one important reason.
It had big plans for the Tanzim leader. But first he was allowed to evade
and outwit his Israeli pursuers in order to build him up as a legendary figure
of the people.
His capture Monday, April 15, was a badly needed morale boost for Israelis
preparing to celebrate the national memorial and independence days this week.
Mentioned in the past as a possible Arafat successor, Barghouti has seen the
inside of Israeli jail before now. At the age of 18, he was arrested for membership
of an armed Fatah squad, served six years in prison where he became fluent
in Hebrew, and was deported in 1987. He returned home in 1994, an ardent supporter
of the newly signed Oslo accords.
For the Israeli secret service, the Shin Beit, Barghouti is not only the highest-ranking
Palestinian terror activist to fall into their hands, but also the richest
source of intelligence on the Palestinian terror machine, from top to bottom.
But he retains choices.
He can spill all he knows about some of Arafats top henchmen and their
culpability as terror masterminds particularly his leading rival for
the succession, Col. Tawfiq Tirawi, West Bank intelligence chief and supreme
commander of the al Aqasa Martyrs Brigades, which is run by Arafats
Fatah as a factory for suicides - as well as smaller fry.
Alternatively, he can finger Arafat in person as directly involved in Palestinian
acts of terror at large, and the suicide offensive in particular. The captured
Palestinian knows enough to blow the close operational ties Arafat maintains
with Tehran, the Hizballah and the notorious hostage taker and bomber, Imad
Mughniyeh, who is on the FBIs list of 22 most wanted terrorists in connection
with the September 11 attacks.
If the Tanzim leader goes for option one, he can expect a long stretch in
jail or expulsion from the country.
But if, at some point, after the hue and cry over his arrest dies down, he
decides to burn Arafat, he will have bought himself a good chance to bid for
the succession and a seat at the regional peace conference Sharon has asked
the United States to host.
Since only moderate Arab and Palestinian leaders will be invited, Arafat is
disqualified.
The data coming from Barghouti if it does will strengthen the
case that Israels Attorney General, Eliyakim Rubinstein declared Monday,
April 15, a few hours before Barghoutis capture, he intends bringing
charges against Arafat as a war criminal.
Later on Monday, Powell said on the plane taking him back to Israel from Damascus
that in his view a regional conference could go ahead without Arafat.
In the light of Mondays rush of events, climaxing with Barghoutis
arrest, a new lineup is taking shape on the Palestinian side of any future
peace conference table. Its members are Barghouti, Gaza Strip security chief
and strongman Muhamed Dahlan, West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub and veteran
Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erikat, with Abu Mazen, Arafats official
deputy, providing a more venerable presence.
This group would constitute the middle-generation Palestinian team the United
States and Israel are hoping will to take over from Arafat and his clique.
The maneuver might not work Arafat is still a force to be reckoned
with. But if it does, the new leaders will eventually step forward to center
stage, although Abu Mazen may need to fill the top mans shoes for a
period as a stabilizing interim figure."
CUTTING EDGE NOTE: Even if Arafat is replaced by more "moderate"
Palestinian leadership that will cooperate with Israel instead of trying to
destroy her, how will this more moderate leadership deal with the intense
hatred on the streets? For decades, Arafat has built an educational and mass
media establishment that inculcates intense and lively hatred toward the Jew
first and his country second. One cannot just turn off this hatred; moderate
Arab countries all across the Middle East are very afraid of their populations
and are forced to walk a fine line between placating the West and mollifying
their own people. Nowhere is the hatred against the Jew more explosive than
in the Palestinian territories.