by Dr. James M. Dorsey
Muhammad Dahlan has lurked for several years in the shadows of Palestinian politics.
Muhammad Dahlan, image via Twitter
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,279, September 5, 2019
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: A controversial former
security official and Abu Dhabi-based political operator, Muhammad
Dahlan, has lurked for several years in the shadows of Palestinian
politics. It is possible that he will emerge in an attempt to pave the
way for US president Donald Trump’s much maligned “Deal of the Century”
to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
President Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestine Authority, and Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, have
condemned President Donald Trump’s proposed, yet-to-be-published “Deal
of the Century.” They boycotted a conference in Bahrain in June organized by Jared Kushner, Trump’s negotiator and son-in-law, that focused on economic aspects of the proposal.
The Palestinian boycott followed Abbas’s earlier rejection of the US as a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after the Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, cut off funding, and closed down the Palestinian representation in Washington. Trump has since recognized the occupied Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel.
At the Bahrain conference, which was attended by
government officials and businessmen from the Gulf, the US, Europe, and
Asia, Kushner unveiled a $50 billion investment plan, $28 billion of which would be earmarked for the creation of Palestinian jobs and reduction of poverty.
The Trump administration has said it would release political details of the peace plan only after the September 17 Israeli election so
it does not become an issue in what appears to be a tight electoral
race between PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party and former
military chief Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party.
The Saudi and UAE crown princes, Muhammad bin
Salman and Muhammad bin Zayed, have quietly sought to support the US
peace effort that in Kushner’s words will deviate from the 2002 Arab
peace plan by not calling for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Dahlan, who is believed to be close to the UAE’s Prince Muhammad as well as former Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman, has played an important role in that effort, particularly with regard to UAE efforts to clip Hamas’s wings.
Dahlan went into exile in the UAE in 2007 after Hamas defeated his US-backed efforts to thwart the group’s control in Gaza. US President George W. Bush described Dahlan at the time as “our boy.”
Dahlan has since been indicted by Abbas’ PA on corruption charges.
In his latest move, Dahlan is reported to be considering establishment of a long muted political party, a move that would enjoy UAE and Egyptian support but could divide his following in Gaza.
Some of Dahlan’s supporters in the Democratic
Reform Current, which remains part of Abbas’s Fatah movement, have
argued in the past that a party would further fragment the Palestinian political landscape.
The revived talk of a party appears to be fueled by Israel’s facilitation of hundreds of millions of US dollars in Qatari support for Gaza’s health and education services as well as reconstruction.
Qatar, with its close ties to Islamist movements,
has long supported Hamas, while Prince Muhammad’s visceral opposition to
any expression of political Islam has pitted the UAE against the
movement.
The two states’ diametrically opposed views of
political Islam lie at the core of the rift in the Gulf, with the UAE
alongside Saudi Arabia leading a more than two-year-old diplomatic and
economic boycott of Qatar.
The revived talk follows a failed 2017 effort to
negotiate Dahlan’s return to Gaza in talks with Hamas and
representatives of Egyptian intelligence.
The deal would have involved Hamas sharing power
with Dahlan in exchange for a loosening of the Israeli-Egyptian economic
stranglehold on the impoverished Gaza Strip at a time when Abbas was
refusing to pay the salaries of Gazan civil servants and Israel was reducing electricity supplies in a bid to force Hamas’s hand.
The talk of Dahlan’s making a political move comes
against the backdrop of a broader, sustained UAE-Saudi effort to
facilitate the US peace plan, despite the two states’ official
insistence that East Jerusalem should be the capital of an independent
Palestinian state, as well as counter-maneuvers by Qatar and its ally
Turkey.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE sought to weaken Turkish
efforts to exploit opposition to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem to
bolster its claim to leadership of the Muslim world and weaken Jordan’s
role as the custodian of the Haram esh-Sharif in the city that is home
to the Al Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site.
Speaking earlier this year to an Arab media outlet
believed to be close to Qatar, Kamal Khatib, an Israeli Palestinian
Islamist leader, asserted that Dahlan, working through local
businessmen, had unsuccessfully tried to acquire real estate adjacent to the holy site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, where Judaism’s two ancient temples once stood.
With approximately half its population of
Palestinian descent, Jordan has walked a tightrope balancing a
reluctance to endorse the Trump administration’s approach to
Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking with its complex ties to the UAE and
Saudi Arabia.
Unlike Jordan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are not
shackled by Palestinian demographics. They still need to tread
carefully, however, in supporting an initiative that is widely believed
to be designed to deprive Palestinians of independent statehood –
domestic public sentiment might be volatile, and the plan could backfire
and strengthen Hamas.
A formal re-entry into Palestinian politics by
Dahlan could help resolve the UAE and Saudi dilemma that is accentuated
by concern that too much pressure on Abbas to reverse his rejection of
US mediation could boost Hamas, which is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Said one Gulf official: “We are trying to strike a
delicate balance. The key in doing so is to strengthen moderates, not
extremists” – the official’s code word for Hamas and other Islamists.
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/muhammad-dahlan-deal-century/
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