Arafat upstages Abbas

SNIP

On Wednesday, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat publicly stated his willingness to strike at Hamas and other radical militant groups if Israel were to halt its targeted killings of their leaders and militants. Israel has already made clear the idea is a non-starter. No surprise here, but what is interesting is Mr Arafat's effort to return to centre stage.

Remember Yasser Arafat? You might be forgiven for having to search your memory; he has not been in the spotlight recently. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon managed to convince the United States and, to a lesser extent, the European Union, that Mr Arafat was part of the problem and not the solution. He had to be sidelined by all means. He was declared "irrelevant".

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They undertook to bring about a peaceful resolution of the conflict, through the road map.

But these hopes have died in the flames of renewed violence, from Israel's targeted killings of Islamist leaders to the vicious Hamas terror attack on a Jerusalem bus. Now, for Israel, a ceasefire will no longer do. It wants Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other radical organizations effectively destroyed. But under Mahmud Abbas and Mohammad Dahlan, Palestinian daily suffering has hardly diminished. So they lack the political strength to embark upon such a confrontation.

http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/pal030828.html

What do they have left in the way of resources and/or credibility?

that the lack of resources is the reason. There are a variety of factions in the PA and, when it comes down to it, they cannot agree.

There are some that continue to support armed struggle, those that cannot condone a concept of Palestinian against Palestinian and those that believe in the demilitarization of the individual groups.

Unfortunately it is hard to take positions, since people like Sharon plain cannot be trusted to sincerely pursue peace efforts. There is considerable mistrust and the perception that all he wants is the PA to do his dirty work, only to continue his policies of disenfranchisement, landgrab and dehumanization.

When it comes down to it the situation is a catch-22 either way.

It is the factionation of authority which is key to the difficulty. No one official has the authority to say do this, and expect the others will follow the directive. This structural defect is unfortunate: in one form or another it has dogged the cause of Arab Palestine throughout this conflict, even in the days of the Mandate.

I was thinking more in terms of damage to
political support in the population at large.
Political power very much derives from political
organization and services rendered to the population.
I was wondering what the results of a new (honest) election
would be.

Edit: the lack of unity you noted, which is really lack of
political power - for political power is precisely the
expectation of being obeyed, is certainly part of the
issue I raised.

all political support for the PA, both among the Palestinians and outside from the Palestinians, seems to be evaporating, aside from support for a small number of people like Abbas who don't really have that much power.

Votes would probably follow clan affiliations and patronage, as before: among the reasons for Arafat's continued pre-eminence is that he is a scion of the al'Husseinis. This pattern might be blurred a little if Hamas was able to field candidates, as Islamicist feelings doubtless motivate many among the people, and for better or worse, at the present time, that group is seen as most effectively taking the fight to the enemy.

My point about factionation, though, goes beyond the phenomenon you reference, which is indeed a real one. Such disorder is endemic to a social pattern where kinship remains the organizing principle: within the clan or tribe, after all, authority is absolute, and obedience can be reliably expected. The problem comes when differeng kins must cooperate, and neither accepts the authority of the other. Unity in such societies has only been secured throughout history by some over-arching figure, possessed not only of tremendous charisma but a ruthless energy and great good fortune in enterprises, sufficient to attach to his own person the essentially voluntary allegiance of all the kin groups. No such figure has yet emerged in this one.

That seems consistent. I was thinking esp. of Hamas.
The strength of tribal and clan affiliations would
work against the development of modern forms of political
power. I suppose one could say not much has changed (yet).