The Palestinian Altalena

It's hard to get excited about any of the headlines produced by the Palestinians these days. There seems to be little progress on any fronts - the return of captive soldier Gilad Shalit, the formation of a unity government and certainly not on negotiations with Israel. Everything is stuck and each day the factional strife in Gaza and the West Bank brings higher stacks of corpses and deeper sectarian animosity between Palestinians themselves, which is not good for anyone.

Although many prefer to blame Israel for whatever ails our unfortunate neighbors it is impossible to ignore the colossal Palestinian leadership vacuum. While there appears to be little nostalgia for Yasser Arafat on either side(although a visitor to Israel I recently guided claimed to have driven past him in Ramallah), what's painfully lacking is a strong, popular Palestinian leader that can unify the ranks and steer the people towards statehood with a firm hand and a vision. In short, they need a David Ben Gurion.

What are the options? Well, for starters, Abu Maazen has been big disappointment. Although he's relatively moderate, it's clear he lacks the backbone and charisma to unify everyone behind him, and the enormous pressure brought to bear on him by the US to hold elections only served to weaken him even further. Ismail Haniyeh, the current prime minister, is perceived as holding the interests of Hamas over those of the Palestinian people, even though the current Hamas-run government seems to be far less riddled with corruption than the previous ones run by Fatah. In addition, he is subordinate to international Hamas, represented by Haled Meshal in Syria - the biggest obstacle to progress on any front so far, and you can bet that Israeli intelligence is flagellating itself over their botched assassination attempt of Meshal in 1998; the embarrassment it caused Israel then is peanuts compared to the damage Meshal is causing today.

Mohammed Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub are two names frequently mentioned as possible leadership material. Both were extremely powerful under Arafat but neither is in a position today to take over the show. Keep in mind that within Fatah there are numerous secondary rivalries such as West Bank versus Gaza and the Tunis exiles versus the younger, local leadership. It's hard to see a consensus developing around either one of them, especially since they each have their own loyal vanguards.

The only person who seems to be acceptable to the majority of Palestinians as a unifying force and a powerful leader is Marwan Barghouti. His main problem is that he is in jail in Israel, serving out a very long sentence for terrorist activities. His status as a local Palestinian hero has been bolstered tremendously by his sojourn behind Jewish bars; in addition, he was one of the more moderate members of the Palestinian peace camp and retains many close connections to Israeli politicians from the days before he took up arms. If Barghouti's release will significantly tip the balance towards a sustainable agreement between us and them you can bet he will be sprung, and not as the first Palestinian convict with blood on his hands to be released by Israel.
However, if the best case scenario gets Barghouti out of jail and into the Rais' office in Ramallah, the tough work for him (or anyone else, for that matter,) would just be beginning.

If he's going to be Ben Gurion then in addition to doing headstands on the beach, expecting a miracle once in a while and recognizing that the people don't always know what's best for them , he's going to have to unify the ranks under his leadership with some blood. It was, unfortunately, unavoidable for us and seems inevitable for the Palestinians. Identifying the parallels between the birth of Israel in 1948 and the birthpangs of the Palestinian state is a fascinating intellectual exercise. In this case, the event I'm referring to is known infamously as the Altalena Affair, the Altalena being a ship loaded with weapons and ammunition and destined to arrive on the shores of Israel in June, 1948, during a truce in the fighting of the War of Independence. The ship belonged to the Etzel, a right-wing Jewish military organization led by Menahem Begin, who demanded that a percentage of the ship's cargo be delivered directly to Etzel units, which did not consider themselves subordinate to the main Jewish military organization the Haganah, which at this point had become the fledgling Israel Defense Forces with the birth of the State a few weeks earlier. Ben Gurion understood that he could not allow neither the fractionalization of the army by politics, nor the authority of the government to be underminded by yielding to Begin's demands. With Tel Aviv about to be taken over by the Etzel, Ben Gurion ordered his troops to fire on the ship. The end result was eighty-three Jews killed, not to mention a large loss of precious cargo, the immediate cessation of further arms shipments and a bitter factional dispute that has lasted in Israeli government until this day. It was a heavy price to pay for unity and discipline at all levels of the Israeli military, but in retrospect it most agree it was the right decision.

The complicated Palestinian factionalization, often rooted in tribal loyalties, and the massive quantities of arms circulating in the West Bank and Gaza together create an almost impossible situation for a visionary Palestinian leader. If he chooses to lay down arms and sign an agreement which will inevitably require painful compromises with Israel, another monumental struggle awaits him at home. In truth, the price of continuing the armed struggle against Israel might be less costly in individual human lives than a final showdown between the multitude of armed gangs and a Palestinian leader seeking to centralize Palestinian military authority. It will be a bloody confrontation and it will most probably be unavoidable.

Who will be that Palestinian leader, and what will be the Palestinian Altalena? No one knows yet for sure. If only we could convince them to learn from our bitter experience and to take the road not travelled; to look towards the future and sacrifice ideals for the good of the entire nation. But even a realist like Ben Gurion would never imagine a miracle as great as that.