Abbas and the return of the prodigal son

The Palestinian resistance is the common enemy shared by Mahmoud Abbas, Mohammed Dahlan, and Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. However, the continued rift between Abbas and Dahlan is hindering the project to eliminate the resistance in the Gaza Strip. As such, Al-Sisi is making serious efforts to get Abbas and Dahlan back together, bringing the prodigal son back to his factional family after being banished for personal and organisational reasons. This has led to the failure of the efforts being made by Fatah to establish a peace project in order to counter the resistance efforts to liberate Palestine.

This is also one of the main reasons why the relationship between Al-Sisi and Abbas is unstable, as the Palestinian leader continues to reject a reconciliation with Dahlan despite the Egyptian president’s efforts and the serious pressure he is putting on him. Al-Sisi is expected to succeed, though, as the three are supported by other regional parties against the Palestinian resistance, as well as America and Europe. They all hope that an Abbas-Dahlan reconciliation will unify Fatah’s position in confronting the resistance, which will eventually facilitate and ease the process of liquidating the Palestinian cause.

The second factor in this matter is the fact that Abbas is getting on in years (he will be 80 in March) and it seems that the role he was assigned is coming to an end. The time has come for the transition to his successor, just as he replaced Yasser Arafat. Abbas realises that Al-Sisi has been tasked with convincing him to reconcile with Dahlan to pave the way for him to be appointed first as deputy head of Fatah and then, in due course, as the new president. In all of this, the targets are the Palestinian resistance groups, particularly in the Gaza Strip.

Abbas will not be able to resist Al-Sisi’s pressures and threats for long, but he seems to be seeking assurances that his personal interests, and those of his family, will not be affected adversely by Israel or Dahlan when he steps aside. At the same time, he is taking measures to ensure that Dahlan will have to go through at least a veneer of a legitimate democratic process to take the top position; he is not going to make it easy for his eventual successor.

Moreover, Abbas is still trying to convince Al-Sisi not to go through with the Dahlan option by offering the possibility of Egyptian forces having a presence in Palestine, probably Gaza; this is a blatant appeal to his Egyptian counterpart’s appetite for control and a serious role in the Palestinian arena. This offer has been made by Abbas alone; there has been no discussion or consultation with the people of Palestine or their factional leaders, nor is there likely to be. He will go ahead with it on the basis that he is the “legitimate” president, although he may resort to the PLO and its executive committee for it to be rubber-stamped. Above all else, Abbas wants to please Al-Sisi and convince him to let the whole thing go as he wants it to go.

Either way, all three of these men appear to have forgotten that similar moves have been tried before, and failed. In 2006 and 2007, support was given to Dahlan for an armed coup against the elected Palestinian government run by Hamas in order to seize control of the Gaza Strip. This was supported by America, Europe and the Arab world, particularly Egypt, the UAE, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Financial and logistical backing was provided, but Dahlan failed to do what he was tasked with and he had to stay outside the Gaza Strip, living in the West Bank. Abbas then discovered Dahlan’s plot to overthrow him so he used the excuse of a personal argument to expel him from Fatah. Dahlan failed as a result of rushing to seize authority before the time was right.

Will the Egyptian army enter Palestinian territory? It is not logical to replace Israel’s occupation with an Egyptian version despite the fact that both governments want to eliminate the resistance. I believe that the Palestinian people have reached a new level of maturity and will deal with any army, from any country, as an occupier and will resist against any “new” occupation. The Egyptians would do well to remember the painful experience of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s armed intervention in Yemen; it failed.

Translated from Al Resalah newspaper, 1 December, 2014

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.