Analysis: Abbas weakened by Israel's Gaza war

[January 12, 2009]  RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Mahmoud Abbas hasn't been in this much trouble with his people in four years as Palestinian president. Never very popular, he is widely dismissed here as ineffective and now he seems to have misread popular sentiment regarding Israel's war on his Hamas rivals in Gaza.

With continued international support, the Western-backed moderate will likely be able to stay on, despite Hamas' insistence that his presidency ended Friday. But his declining popularity at home does not bode well for the inevitable next round in the battle between Islamic militants and Palestinian moderates seeking a peace deal with Israel.

At the start of Israel's offensive, Abbas, widely known as Abu Mazen, said the territory's Hamas rulers were at least partly to blame, because they provoked Israel with constant rocket fire.

Many West Bankers, even those who oppose Hamas' violent ideology, view the war in Gaza as an assault on all Palestinians. Israel says it's targeting Hamas strongholds in Gaza, but hundreds of civilians have also been killed. In West Bank homes, TVs are obsessively tuned to Arab satellite stations which run the brutal pictures of Gaza's dead and wounded that Western audiences are less exposed to.

"When it comes to Israel, we are all Hamas," said Nablus resident, Hanan Izzat, 42.

Abbas has since hardened his tone toward Israel, describing the unprecedented bombing from air, land and sea as "brutal aggression."

However, in recent meetings with advisers and Palestinian activists, he rejected more dramatic steps, participants said. Ideas raised included halting security coordination with Israel, suspending already dormant peace talks or releasing hundreds of Hamas security prisoners as a goodwill gesture.

Instead, Abbas' security forces have been trying to contain pro-Gaza rallies in the West Bank, fearing Hamas will turn them into vehicles of revolt against Abbas. Hamas wrested control of Gaza from Abbas' forces in June 2007. Abbas, determined not to let it happen in the West Bank, has closed Hamas institutions, dried up the movement's funding and arrested scores of activists in the last 18 months.

Since the start of the Gaza offensive, helmeted Palestinian riot police have barred marchers from approaching Israeli checkpoints. On Friday, baton-swinging troops in the West Bank city of Ramallah broke up a march of hundreds of Hamas supporters, after they scuffled with pro-Abbas demonstrators.

Khalil Shekaki, a respected Palestinian pollster, said he has no updated surveys on Abbas' approval ratings since the Gaza crisis, but that there are signs that Hamas' popularity in the West Bank is on the rise.

"The big political loser in this (Gaza war) is Abbas," said Robert Blecher of the International Crisis Group, a research center. "He is increasingly seen by his own constituents in the West Bank and Gaza as unable to represent and protect his own people."

The outpouring of sympathy for Hamas comes at a time when Abbas' own legitimacy is being questioned. Abbas was elected to a four-year term in January 2005, and Hamas says his presidency ended on Friday. Abbas' aides, citing subsequent legislation, say he has another year, but that he is ready to call new presidential and legislative elections as soon as possible.

Holding such elections would depend on an elusive power-sharing deal between Abbas and Hamas. Since Hamas' victory in 2006 parliamentary elections, the rivals have repeatedly tried and failed to reach a compromise.

A unity deal would also be a prerequisite for any durable cease-fire on the Gaza-Israel border.

Egypt and Israel have said they will only lift their blockade of Gaza, imposed after the Hamas takeover, if Abbas' troops staff Gaza's border crossings. Hamas says it won't agree to a truce unless the siege ends. Abbas cannot deploy his forces inside Gaza without Hamas' consent.

Hamas' negotiating position depends on how it emerges from the war. Shekaki said Hamas' threshold for claiming victory is low -- survival of the leadership and continued ability to fire rockets at Israel.

For now, it appears Hamas can keep going. Israel says it has killed hundreds of Hamas fighters, out of an estimated 20,000, and the militants have been hitting southern Israel with rockets without letup. Hamas' leaders are in hiding, and it's unlikely Israel could track them down without a widened ground offensive.

Hamas hasn't said clearly whether it's going to force the issue of the end of Abbas' term. Leaders of the movement in Damascus say they now consider Abbas an ordinary Palestinian citizen.

However, Hamas government spokesman Taher Nunu said in Gaza this week that in light of the fighting, Abbas' term has become a secondary issue. Hamas has also refrained from naming a temporary replacement for Abbas, as it threatened to do in the past.

Yet Abbas' time seems to be running out.

His promise that moderation pays rings hollow in the West Bank, after a year of failed peace talks. If he can't translate the Gaza fighting into an agreement with Hamas, he'll be sidelined.

He's also becoming the target of jokes. "Available in the market, a U.S.-made product whose date has expired -- Abu Mazen," reads a text message circulating in the West Bank these days.

"Abbas' term is up," said Ala Abul Gheir, 35, a university lecturer. "We are now in a constitutional vacuum, and we need to go to elections immediately after the Gaza offensive."

[Associated Press; By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH]

Mohammed Daraghmeh has covered the West Bank since 1996. Additional reporting by Dalia Nammari in Ramallah and Ali Daraghmeh in Nablus.

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