Damage Control for Fatah in Lebanon

“The Palestinian National Liberation Movement’s (Fatah) is unraveling in Lebanon as Mahmoud Abbas seeks to consolidate regional allies.”

Mahmoud Abbas’s visit to Lebanon last month comes at a time when Fatah’s leadership is steadily unraveling inside Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps. The disintegration of the Fatah-led Palestinian Joint Security Force (JSF) last month is indicative of the movement’s fraying position at the grass-roots level. What is more, Abbas’s visit coincides with the Lebanese army’s final touches on the controversial “security wall” around Ain al-Hilweh, the country’s largest Palestinian refugee camp. If there’s any indication of just how far Fatah’s political center has removed itself from the “on-the-ground” struggles, look no further than in Lebanon’s cantons of contestation.

Recurrent armed clashes in the camps continue to deprive the estimated 450,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon any modicum of normalcy. While the collapse of the JSF and the resumption of the wall’s construction in Ain al-Hilweh have left a power vacuum that extremist networks will ultimately compete to fill, many Palestinians have pointed to Fatah’s dormant leadership in Lebanon as emblematic of the movement’s receding political capital in the region.

Following the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) expulsion from Beirut in 1982, and particularly after the renunciation of conflict with Israel pursuant to the 1993 Oslo Accords, Fatah began its transformation into a party of government. Primarily concentrated in the occupied territories, the party has institutionalised its central role within the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). As such, for over two decades Fatah has been the uncontested representative of a Palestinian diaspora in Lebanon whose national status has been in limbo since 1948.

In light of his arrival in Lebanon two weeks ago, 2017 has already proven to be a contentious year for Palestinian Authority (PA) president and Palestine Liberalisation Organisation (PLO) chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Amidst a burgeoning lack of confidence in the newly elected Fatah leadership, many Palestinians at home and abroad have called for Abbas’ resignation. Further, the PA government is cash-strapped after only receiving half of the foreign aid expected for the 2017 budget. Funding shortages have forced the PA to enact austerity measures, cutting subsidies to public sector institutions and reducing the wages of its salaried members. And with what appears to be a reversal of the US’ long-standing support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, leverage to halt the creeping annexation of the West Bank through peaceful negotiations with Israel is rapidly dissolving.

With domestic and external fronts closing in on all sides, Abbas moved to solidify his decade-long hold on power through Fatah’s ceremonial party conference convened on 29 November – 4 December, 2016. As Carnegie Middle East Center’s Yezid Sayigh opined, the 7th General Conference signified “Fatah’s mutation from national liberation movement into a party whose primary purpose is institutionalising its hold on power.” Repeated violations of press freedoms and the creeping authoritarianism of PA authorities in the West Bank have thus monopolised Fatah’s hold on public office.

Once the cross-cutting political platform of yesteryear, Fatah is now dangerously fractured. As Abbas continues to consolidate the party’s power base from above, Fatah’s capacity to revitalise the national movement from below becomes increasingly beleaguered. Indeed, the disconnect between Fatah’s political center and the grass-roots level is no more evident than in Lebanon. After two-and-a-half years, the Fatsh-led Joint Security Force (JSF), which brought together an assemblage of seventeen armed factions ranging from communists to Islamists, crumbled last month. Despite lingering criticisms over the JSF’s ability to exert control and stability inside the camps, the alliance was nonetheless essential to linking the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) with the Palestinian authorities. Moreover, civil-military coordination between the LAF and the JSF had served as an important backchannel to the older jihadi groups within the camps, including Islamic Moujahid Movement, Ansar Allah and Usbat al-Ansar.

In July 2016, a brokered agreement between the Lebanese army and religious figures in Ain al-Hilweh led to more than 60 wanted suspects hiding in the camp to hand themselves over to the Lebanese authorities; and in September, increased intelligence coordination led to the arrest of Imad Yassin, an Emir of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Camp governance in Lebanon has become atomised. The demise of the JSF has undoubtedly left behind a power vacuum for negotiating security organisation inside Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian camps. Supra-extremist networks, including the Islamic State, will ultimately seek to exploit this security dilemma. And despite local and international outcry against the wall in Ain al-Hilweh, which many residents inside the camp have equated  to Israel’s Separation Wall in and around the occupied Palestinian West Bank, its construction continues apace. Moreover, the “un-Popular” Committees, who are tasked with local municipal functions and coordinate with state and local NGOs, lack political neutrality. This proves particularly problematic in times of internal conflict.

The months ahead will thus bring new challenges in the unsolved power struggle between the Fatah factions and a number of smaller militant Islamist groups found in the camps. While Abbas seeks to consolidate regional support for Fatah vis-à-vis its central position in the PA from the milieu of Baabda Palace, the serial failures of his party to deliver its declared national goals have left many Palestinians on the Lebanese periphery adrift and politically isolated.

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