Massad highlights five main classes that the architects of Oslo created to ensure that the “process” survives are:
– A political class, divided between those elected to serve the Oslo process, whether to the Legislative Council or the executive branch (essentially the position of president of the Palestinian Authority), and those who are appointed to serve those who are elected, whether in the ministries, or in the presidential office.
– A policing class, numbering in the tens of thousands, whose function is to defend the Oslo process against all Palestinians who try to undermine it. It is divided into a number of security and intelligence bodies competing with one another, all vying to prove that they are most adept at neutralising any threat to the Oslo process. Under Arafat’s authority, members of this class inaugurated their services by shooting and killing 14 Palestinians they deemed enemies of the “process” in Gaza in 1994 — an achievement that earned them the initial respect of the Americans and the Israelis who insisted that the policing class should use more repression than it had to be most effective.
– A bureaucratic class attached to the political class and the policing class and that constitutes an administrative body of tens of thousands who execute the orders of those elected and appointed to serve the “process”.
– An NGO class: another bureaucratic and technical class whose finances fully depend on their serving the Oslo process and ensuring its success through planning and services.
– A business class composed of expatriate Palestinian businessmen as well as local businessmen — including especially members of the political, policing and bureaucratic classes — whose income is derived from financial investment in the Oslo process and from profit-making deals that the Palestinian Authority (PA) can make possible. (Read full op-ed)
Fatah is just holding on for dear life, and seems to get more cynical by the day, playing every “you can’t negotiate with anyone but us” card. In this odd article in the Guardian today I read that they are trying to get recognition of the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people in any negotiations with Israel (and I’m sure Israel will be happy enough to oblige so that it can keep making noises about how it’s the only democracy in the region). Seems that a PLO negotiator also took it upon himself to declare that Hamas had agreed to recognize the Israeli state.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329510857-117700,00.html
I don’t understand your position!
Hamas in the position of Allende? What a choking sentence!!!! Allende was not a bigote and did not want to erase a state and a nation from the map as well as he was not a fascist!!
Aboutt he necessity for Hamas to recognize the previous terms with Israel, this is a basic in the relationship between states: let imagine that Le Pen take the power in France, next year, and decide not to recognise the agreement between Egypt and France and England after their trial to take the Suez Canal? I.e let imagine the Suez Canal, built by the french is french!! Let imagine the extremist right take the power in Israel and decide not to recognize the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt?
Now about the Hamas: you certainly know they are linked to the egyptian Islamic Brotherhood. What will happen with your blog when or if these will take the power in Egypt? I understand that democracy is not the real state of Egypt policy however under a Ilsamic brotherhood governement you will have to find othe ways to exprime yourself or to shut down
This is the reality the author of the article you cited, and the left in Europe do not want to see: Hamas and others are purly fascist movements So not Allende is to be compared to them but Franco and Mussolini!
Ohterwise, I enjoy to read your blog: you have to know that some people, here in Israel, read it as they read other in the arab worlde
CU
RZ, you may not remember this, but Communism was the Islamism of the seventies, Communists were presumed to be on a mission to take over the world and destroy democracy, and Allende was kind of a baddie for the American govt.
Khaled Amayreh has an interesting article in Al-Ahram. about the Hamas-Fatah negotiations.
RZ, how Islamist parties govern depends on a lot of external factors. If groups like Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are integrated into a political process that has widespread acceptance, they are far more likely to act moderately than if they are excluded. I’m not apologizing for Hamas’ terrorism or anti-semitism, but in terms of internal Palestinian politics, they’ve been far more tolerant of political opposition than Fatah ever was.
In regards to Oslo, there are many non-fundamentalist Palestinians (like Mustafa Barghouti) who opposed Oslo not because they didn’t want a 2-state solution but because it sold out Palestinian rights while leaving every issue subject to endless rounds of negotiations, with every concession depending on Israeli generosity. The problem with Hamas is not that it opposes lopsided agreements but that it lacks any strategy of winning Palestinian rights beyond blowing themselves (and Israelis) up.
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Sorry, the link to Al-Ahram didn’t work:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/800/fr1.htm
Also, I should point out that Ariel Sharon, despite his fierce antagonism to Oslo during the 1990’s, was never asked to repudiate his opposition to Oslo once he became Prime Minister. This is from an account of a meeting of PM Sharon with Israeli rabbis in January 2002:
http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2002/010402b.htm