No Longer Israel’s Best Bet for Peace

Israel’s government hasn’t officially decided to topple Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, but it apparently no longer fears that it would be worse off without him.

The government says it hopes that by attacking his symbols of power, it will force Arafat to dismantle Islamic organizations that have carried out a series of deadly bombings in Israel. But politicians and analysts here now openly speculate about who might succeed Arafat. One minister said that even a government run by Islamic militants would be preferable to Arafat’s leadership.

At least if the militant Islamic movement Hamas were in control of the Palestinian Authority, the world would understand what Israel is up against, Finance Minister Silvan Shalom told Israel Television as Israeli airstrikes against Palestinian targets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip got underway Monday evening.

Shalom belongs to what is so far a minority within Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government that favors actually driving Arafat from power. Although the Cabinet decided Tuesday morning to declare Arafat’s regime a supporter of terrorism, it stopped short of labeling him an enemy. The center-left Labor Party threatened to quit the coalition government if such a step is taken.

But Arafat can no longer rely on the concern--most frequently voiced by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres during the past 14 months of fighting--that chaos and extremism would reign in Palestinian-controlled territories if the 72-year-old Arafat lost his grip on power.

“I don’t think that the government cares,” said Gerald Steinberg, a political scientist at Tel Aviv University. “It’s already all-out war. We already have anarchy and chaos” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Speculation About Arafat’s Successor

Arafat has proved to be unwilling or unable to thwart large-scale terror attacks in Israel, Steinberg said. “So Hamas and Islamic Jihad are already controlling our daily lives,” he said.

For weeks now, Israeli media have reported on who the intelligence services believe is most likely to succeed Arafat, should he fall from power, die or be forced into exile by Israel. Despite the surging popularity of Islamic militants with the Palestinian public, intelligence sources calculate that the mainstream, secular Fatah movement that Arafat founded decades ago would most likely maintain its grip on power, possibly through some sort of collective leadership of senior political and security figures.

Arafat has never named a successor or established a succession mechanism. Among Palestinians, he remains the unquestioned leader of both the Palestinian people and the political-security establishment he has constructed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Legislative Council passed a law of succession in 1995 that would elevate the speaker of the parliament, Ahmed Korei, better known as Abu Ala, to the presidency for 40 days in the event of Arafat’s death, until elections for a new president could be held. But Israeli security sources point out that Arafat never ratified the law.

Should Arafat somehow disappear from the scene, Israel’s political-military establishment sees a peaceful, orderly transition as unlikely, given the growing power of armed militias and the weakening of Palestinian legal institutions and political parties as the fight with Israel continues.

“One can only assume that the upcoming succession battle will be a violent affair,” said one senior defense source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There will be some kind of a struggle between personalities, between factions.”

The Palestinian leader’s presumed heir apparent is Mahmoud Abbas, 66, also known as Abu Mazen, one of the last founders of Fatah still alive. Abbas lives in Gaza and is one of the few men close to Arafat who is thought to have the political stature to bring the myriad security forces under his authority.

Korei, 63, the Palestinian architect of the 1993 Oslo peace accords with Israel, is considered to be a potential rival to Abbas, as is Farouk Kaddoumi, the hard-line head of the Palestine Liberation Organization political department. Kaddoumi opposes a negotiated settlement with Israel and did not return to the West Bank and Gaza Strip with Arafat.

Security Chiefs’ Support Is Crucial

For any of the three Fatah leaders to rise to the position of president, Israeli security sources say, he will need the backing of the heads of the security services, Mohammed Dahlan, Jibril Rajoub and Amin Hindi. The three control thousands of armed men in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and are considered by Israel to be both fed up with Arafat’s leadership and more willing to reach a negotiated settlement with Israel.

In fact, some Israeli politicians and analysts believe that one or more of the security chiefs may try to bypass Arafat’s probable political successors and seize power.

“The only people with a viable enough structure to rule will be the security forces,” said Eran Lerman, a recently retired senior Israeli military intelligence officer who directs the Jerusalem office of the American Jewish Committee.

Civil society, he said, has been “seriously weakened” by the Palestinian revolt and Israel’s economic and military siege of Palestinian-controlled territories. The security chiefs, Lerman said, could also divide up the West Bank and Gaza Strip into fiefdoms, an option Israel could live with if it could negotiate security arrangements with each warlord.

“There is a range of possibilities between a unified Palestinian Authority everywhere in the territories and chaos,” Lerman said.

But he cautioned that Israel still has not given up on the possibility that Arafat will now rein in militants--and isn’t eager to topple the Palestinian leader and try to replace him with someone it prefers.

“We have learned that in the Arab world, symbols do not go away, and symbols are very difficult to replace,” Lerman said. “Even leaders who have ruined their countries persist in the most unpredictable ways. Yes, there are Palestinian officials who are disgusted with Arafat’s leadership, but their disgust will translate into telling him what he must do now to survive.”