The disgraceful comments on the Jews by Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority and chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), served a useful purpose for enemies of the Palestinian cause. It helped to further discredit the PLO and its main component, the Fatah Movement, at a time when Fatah is facing challenges throughout the region that may greatly weaken it.
It’s funny how the wheel turns. In the 1990s, Abbas had been a signatory of the Oslo I agreement, and was, therefore, regarded as a man of peace. Later, when PLO chairman Yasser Arafat was denounced as someone who had rejected a peace offer at the July 2000 Camp David summit (a view refuted by one of the American participants at the summit), and launched a second intifada, Abbas became a respectable alternative to the Palestinian leader. No mention was made of a book published in 1999, written by Mohammed Daoud Audeh, better known as Abou Daoud, who described how he had organized the operation to take Israeli athletes hostage at the Munich Olympic Games of 1972. In his memoir, Audeh recalled that Abbas was the person who secured financing for Munich.
The PLO and Fatah have many enemies today. What is disconcerting is that these foes are themselves hostile to one another. On the one side are certain Arab states and Israel, urged on by the United States, who have concluded or are considering concluding peace agreements, regardless of how this might affect the Palestinians. On the other, there is Iran, along with its allies or proxies Hezbollah, Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and armed groups in Iraq and Yemen, that regard ties between the Arab countries and Israel as a strategic threat, therefore are seeking to offset such dynamics by forming a coalition of forces opposed to normalization.
Caught in the middle is Fatah, which is losing ground to both sides. As my colleague Mohanad Hage Ali wrote perceptively in an article for Diwan in early August, “What may be emerging on the regional level is an Arab camp that undermines Fatah by normalizing with Israel and further damages any prospect of peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and a pro-Iran camp that backs Fatah’s foes.”
Indeed, the ongoing tensions in the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, Ain al-Hilweh, appear to be closely linked to this development. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Islamic Jihad have all denied any involvement in the weeks-long fighting in the camp between Fatah and smaller Islamist armed groups, with Hamas and Islamic Jihad even issuing a joint statement condemning it. However, a more realistic conclusion is that what we are witnessing is an indirect attempt by Iran’s allies to eat away at Fatah’s dominance in the Lebanese camps, at a time when the Palestinian Authority is in crisis and a battle over Abbas’ succession is taking shape.
The pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar played on such anxieties in an article, arguing that Fatah was “no longer the sole, legitimate representative” of Palestinians in the diaspora. According to the newspaper, efforts to pacify the camp may soon involve establishing a joint force that includes members of Fatah, Hamas, and a Salafi jihadi group, Asbat al-Ansar. This would give Hamas a central role as mediator in resolving the conflict, enhancing its reputation among the camp’s inhabitants.
For Iran and its allies, expanded influence over the Palestinian diaspora, in which Fatah retains much popularity, would represent a major gain. Within Lebanon, it would widen Hezbollah’s margin of maneuver to strike Israel, at a time when the party is talking about a “unity of the fronts” against Israeli military or police operations, while also providing it with deniability. Whenever rockets are fired from Lebanon by unidentified groups, Hezbollah can say it is not responsible. This is what happened in early April, and again in July, when an anonymous group targeted Israel. The first attack came after Israel had beaten worshippers at Al-Aqsa mosque, while the second followed Israel’s military operation in Jenin.
Hezbollah is aware of the risks involved in such a strategy, which could lead to a wider conflagration that destroys Lebanon. But that will only push it to change its tactics, nothing more. This should serve as a reality check for all those who assumed that the agreement a year ago over Lebanon’s and Israel’s maritime border would pacify the south. Hezbollah wants to ensure that Lebanon can profit from its oil and gas reserves, if indeed they are proven, but seeks alternative ways to maintain pressure on Israel that don’t necessarily lead to direct conflict. Small-scale attacks by shadowy armed groups give Hezbollah and Israel latitude to avoid a major clash. If successful, this could impose “rules of the game” allowing Hezbollah to retaliate for a range of Israeli actions in the occupied territories, Gaza, and Syria.
On the other side of the equation, Israel would like to bury the Palestinian problem permanently, while the United States and a number of Arab states have been contradictory in their relations with the Palestinians. Many of these states have repeatedly affirmed their support for Palestinian rights, while ignoring them in their policies. As for the Americans, the Biden administration has reopened the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem that Donald Trump had closed, though it renamed it the Office of Palestinian Affairs. Washington has also increased funding to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, after the Trump administration had cut all financial support. However, its pursuit of separate Arab-Israeli peace settlements, most recently with Saudi Arabia, only contributes to fracturing the regional political backing that sustains the Palestinians.
Nor is Washington’s position on the refugees reassuring. Taking advantage of this, Ibrahim Amin, editor of Al-Akhbar and a frequent Hezbollah mouthpiece, claimed in an article on September 18 that American officials had encouraged the integration of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, as part of a wider effort to terminate the Palestinian problem. Amin pointed to an alleged meeting that took place in Amman nine years ago in which an unidentified U.S. official told his Lebanese counterparts that they had to stop mentioning General Assembly Resolution 194, passed in December 1948, which sought to return Palestinian refugees to Israel or compensate those who didn’t do so, and instead allow them to become part of Lebanese society. Amin is hardly a reliable source, and nothing proves his story is true, but it’s equally evident that little in U.S. behavior can prove that it is untrue.
During the post-Oslo process, the United States showed it understood that a right of return for Palestinian refugees to their homes in 1948 posed a demographic threat to Israel. In December 2000, then President Bill Clinton’s Proposal on Israeli-Palestinian Peace stated that Palestinians could return to their homeland, meaning the occupied territories returned to them by Israel, but that this constituted “no specific right of return to Israel itself.” Israel, the proposal read, “could indicate … that it intends to establish a policy so that some of the refugees would be absorbed into Israel consistent with Israel’s sovereign decision,” which likely meant that almost none would actually be allowed back. Among the alternative outcomes listed for the refugees was their “rehabilitation in a host country.”
Clinton’s proposal, which was the fruit of years of American thinking on the refugee problem—the beating heart of the Palestinian cause—was a refutation of General Assembly Resolution 194, which left the choice of a refugee return, or compensation, to the refugees themselves. But in an effort to kill Resolution 194, Clinton had the audacity to insert a clause into his proposal indicating that its acceptance would constitute implementation of Resolution 194. In light of this, and even if the Trump and Biden administrations may differ over cosmetic issues, the Americans have never shown much interest in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a way that would grant refugees more than minimal rights.
Therefore, Fatah is facing great peril—from both America and Iran and their respective allies. There is no denying the pitiful mediocrity of the Palestinian Authority, which has facilitated such an outcome. But don’t just blame the Palestinians. There are many who want to see the Palestinian cause eliminated, or who want to control it. The first barrier to eliminate in this process of political liquidation is Fatah, the embodiment of the Palestinian national movement.
