Abbas-Dahlan conflict and possibilities of winning and losing 

Fatah is at a serious turning point with the escalation of conflict between its two main poles: the movement’s President, Mahmoud Abbas, and ousted leader Mohammed Dahlan. This comes at a time preparations for the Seventh Conference are in full swing. Dahlan’s supporters regard this conference as a weapon that targets their continued presence not only in the Fatah movement but in the entire Palestinian scene.

Intensification of the conflict, which is leading to near daily arguments between two people who were companions in the near past, is overshadowing issues that are more important for the Palestinian political scene, and is distracting attention from issues that are related to the core of the Palestinian cause and the future of the conflict with the occupation. This leads us to ask questions about the reality of the conflict and its background, and most importantly, who is benefitting from it and who is aggrieved, and to which result it will lead in the end?

The conflict, or rather the division, which is affecting the biggest movement on the Palestinian arena, will necessarily be negatively reflected on the presence and the future of the Palestinian cause, and will add one more division at a time Palestine is in so much need of uniting all efforts to confront the occupation and its escalating aggressive policies.

Let’s agree to the fact that in their battle, both men continue to use the name of late President Yasser Arafat and his legacy, although together they were like a spearhead in the project to politically strangle him, and even oust him, before his siege in the headquarters of the administrative centre in Ramallah.

At some point, the two men even formed an alliance against Arafat, and it is no secret that it was Abbas who put pressure on Arafat, with regional and international support, to appoint Dahlan as minister of internal security in 2003, after late Arafat rejected this demand repeatedly.

So, what is this conflict based on? Is it a conflict of political programmes adopted by each of them? Or is it based on personal interests that aim at gaining power and the monopoly of Palestinian national decision making?

To answer this question, we must confirm Abbas and Dahlan’s positions regarding the settlement process, final status issues, the Palestinian state and even security coordination with the occupation are very similar and contain only minor differences.

In terms of national relations and dealing internally, both men have a very rich history of ignoring Palestinian factions and considering them to be on the sidelines of political life. They also refuse the principle of partnership with others, whether in the file of reconciliation with Hamas – as is the case for Mahmoud Abbas – or in rejecting to deal with the government that was formed by Hamas after winning elections as was the case with Dahlan at the time.

Regarding their position on armed resistance, Abbas’ view is well-known and he declared it saying that he is against armed resistance and against the militarisation of the intifada. Although Dahlan supporters promote the idea that he is with armed resistance and against dropping this option, his experience dealing with armed resistance when he was head of the Preventive Security Service in Gaza, where it was evident that he was against members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, can easily refute this claim.

So, the conflict between the two men does not seem to be based on any difference in political agendas or programmes, as they both work under the official Arab umbrella, which is obviously beginning to take the side of Dahlan’s interests for many considerations.

Of course we cannot ignore the personal backgrounds of both men as another factor in escalating the conflict, but there is one more factor which is that such conflicts were taking place between the various groups even in the presence of late President Yasser Arafat.

For example, there is a historical conflict between the so-called internal Fatah stream and the external one, or Fatah movement in the West Bank and Fatah in Gaza, where each group attributes achievements to itself and accuses its opponent of failures. For instance, we remember very well when the military takeover in Gaza took place Fatah leaders who fled from Gaza to the West Bank were received and accused of cowardice, to the point that some of them, including top leaders, preferred to go back to the “rule of Hamas” in the Gaza Strip rather than stay under the command of members of their own movement.

In terms of winning and losing, Palestinians and their cause are the only losers from such conflicts which can only add to the misery of the Palestinian reality, and deepen division. There is no use in having one side win over the other, because the consequences will inevitably be part of a regional arrangement and not an internal Fatah consensus.

At the level of Fatah internally, this conflict, whether it continues or it ends in favour of one side over the other, it will lead to deepening the division, and it will not unite the movement but will increase its fragmentation, keeping it as an outer frame with no substance whose false presence benefits the official Arab regime and regional and international powers.

At the national level, there is no doubt that the presence of Fatah as a divided movement will represent a new challenge and an additional obstacle in the face of liberation and confronting the occupation and its policies, and in the face of reconciliation which is already stalled. We will move from conflict of legitimacy between the PLO and resistance groups to a conflict of legitimacy between rival groups within Fatah itself.

Some may say that Fatah’s conflict will give a chance to its opponents to gain more popularity internally, on the grounds that people always trust unified political entities and not divided ones. It is an assumption that may not be logical in the Palestinian situation as experience has proven that partnership, whether in resistance or ruling, is a necessity and that no one can monopolise decision making.

Regarding the Israeli position regarding the on-going conflict, it would be naïve to believe that the issue is of any importance for decision making circles in the occupation. The main standard for the occupation’s leaders in terms of how to distinguish one Palestinian leader from another is how many concessions he’s willing to offer, and I don’t believe that Abbas is much different from Dahlan in the amount of concessions each can offer, perhaps the difference is in the mechanism and timing.

This description of the reality of the conflict and its nature leads us towards talking about possible scenarios for the outcome of the conflict, especially in light of an old-new Arab keenness to tamper with Palestinian internal affairs. This is not the first time Arab regimes would constitute a dividing factor for Palestinian political elite rather than being a uniting one, and the split witnessed by Fatah in 1983 is only one example.

Exploring declared positions, one can see that there is an Arab tendency to replace Abbas with Dahlan to lead the upcoming stage, not because of him personally, but rather due to his direction. This seems to be the strongest scenario in light of practical steps witnessed in decision making circles in Egypt and Jordan, which together form the backbone of the Arab quartet that is taking responsibility for handling the Fatah division.

For example, it seems that the official Egyptian stance has been made in favour of Dahlan through privileges granted to him and his group by the country’s leadership recently, mainly concerning the Rafah crossing and showing that the slight easing of conditions at the crossing is through efforts made by Dahlan personally.

As a result of this scenario, it is possible that in the upcoming stage, these countries would resort to intensifying pressure and temptations on Fatah figures and cadres who are pro-Abbas, or those who decided to remain neutral, in order to strengthen the Dahlan group and give it more legitimacy.

The other scenario is based on the success of a particular party, whether regional, international or even internal, to reach a reconciliation between the two men, which seems to be an unlikely option in light of the daily escalation between the two men, and in light of on-going preparations to proceed in holding the seventh conference of the movement.

These procedures, and the on-going war between the two parties may lead in the end to a third scenario which is based on converting the Fatah division into an on-going process and not resolving the conflict in favour of any side, in order to keep the movement, and its leaders weak, which is an Israeli wish to keep Palestinians divided and busy with their own factional conflicts at the expense of their fateful issues.

Translated from Arabi21, 24 November 2016

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