Campaigning Softly
In run-up to the Palestinian election, Abbas navigates a political minefield.
GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jerusalem
n his campaign for Palestinian
Authority president, Mahmoud
Abbas hasn't so much been sprint-
ing to the finish line as walking ca reful-
ly along the political tightrope leading
to election day.
Abbas, the PLO chief and former
prime minister who is all but certain
to win Sunday's election, has been
working hard to appease the radically
Islamist and rather popular Hamas,
while at the same time not provoking
Israel.
On a recent campaign swing through
the Gaza Strip, Abbas — who is
favored as a relative moderate by both
Israel and the United States — criti-
cized Hamas rocket attacks on Jews as
useless" but pledged not to forcefully
disarm the terrorists who fired them.
In a BBC interview, Abbas, 69, said
he would seek to persuade terrorist
groups to agree to a cease-fire with
Israel. He also said fighting among
Palestinians was a "red line" that must
not be crossed.
"Everything can be settled by dia-
logue," he said — although under the
road-map peace plan, the Palestinian
Authority agreed to confront, disarm
and dismantle the terror organizations.
Abbas has urged his people to halt vio-
lence against Israel, but at the same
time has spoken out in favor of the
Palestinians' demand for a refugee
"right of return" to lands within Israel
proper — a move Israel views as demo-
graphic suicide.
Abbas' carefully calibrated campaign
has gone more smoothly than was
anticipated at its outset six weeks ago.
When Abbas visited the mourners'
tent for late P.A. President Yasser Arafat
in Gaza, a group of armed men opened
fire, killing a bodyguard and a P.A.
security officer. The mid-November
attack raised fears that Abbas was in for
a violent campaign.
Since then, he has strived not to
provoke any of the Palestinian factions.
But just to be on the safe side, Abbas
also left Gaya for the last leg of his
election tour.
Abbas' campaign strategy appears to
be working: His popularity has risen
I
Mahmoud Abbas, surrounded by hundreds of supporters, campaigned Dec. 30 in the
West Bank city of Jenin.
"
JN
1/ 7
2005
22
slowly but steadily as the candidate of
the dominant Fatah faction and the
heir-apparent to Arafat, who died
Nov. 11.
According to the latest polling by the
Palestinian Policy Institute, Abbas
enjoys the support of 65 percent of vot-
ers, compared to 22 percent for Mustafa
Barghouti, his nearest competitor.
Hamas, the main opposition party,
isn't opposing the elections but also
didn't present a candidate of its own
because the Palestinian Authority is an
outgrowth of the Oslo peace accords,
which the group rejects. Hamas claims
it will have a veto on any future policy
decision regarding peace negotiations
with Israel.
Hamas won nine of 26 municipal
elections in the West Bank on Dec. 24,
suggesting stronger support for the ter-
rorist group than was expected. The
elections were in communities consid-
ered strongholds of Fatah, which won
14 elections. Joint Hamas/Fatah slates
won two seats.
Recent polls predict 85 percent
turnout in the Jan. 9 elections. Abbas
believes a high turnout will bolster his
legitimacy, giving him leverage in seek-
ing peace talks with Israel and reform-
ing the Palestinian government.
In another attempt to boost his pop-
ular support, there was speculation that
Abbas would campaign in eastern
Jerusalem. Israeli sources said they
would not oppose such a visit as long as
Abbas refrained from visiting the
Temple Mount.
Two major factors have contributed
to Abbas' rise in popularity: the fact
that many Palestinians are tired of the
fighting and the fact that there is no
real alternative.
For a while, the popular Fatah militia
leader Marwan Barghouti, serving five
life sentences in an Israeli jail, threat-
ened to challenge Abbas. But Barghouti
backed off when he was warned that
his candidacy could split Fatah in two.
When Abbas visited Rafah last week,
he was given a hero's welcome by thou-
sands of people carrying his portrait
and another of Arafat. Militants from
the AI-Aksa Martyrs Brigade, Fatah's
terrorist cadres, carried Abbas through
the crowd on their shoulders, firing
guns in the air in celebration.
Abbas denounced Israel's counterter-
rorist operations in Gaza, telling the
crowd that "the incursions, the assassi-
nations, the destruction of houses will
not break" the Palestinian residents.
The Israeli army lifted roadblocks to
allow Abbas to travel through the terri-
tory unhindered, but reinstated them
after he passed.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
for his part, is taking pains to avoid
missteps that occurred during Abbas'
short term as prime minister in 2003,
when Sharon met with Abbas but made
only some of the concessions Abbas
demanded to boost his political status.
This time around, the two leaders have
not met at all since an embrace by
Israel can spell political doom for a
Palestinian politician.
Israel has said it will do its utmost to
facilitate the elections, despite the
ongoing military confrontation in
Gaza. On the eve of the elections,
Israeli forces will withdraw from a wide
swath of Palestinian areas to permit
unimpeded voting.
Last week, high-level officials from
the two sides met in Jerusalem to dis-
cuss the elections. Dov Weisglass, a
senior aide to Sharon, headed the
Israeli delegation. P.A. Cabinet
Minister Saeb Erekat headed the
Palestinian delegation. The delegations
discussed security arrangements and
the work of hundreds of international
observers expected to descend on the
territories for the elections.
The weak link in the chain was the
escalation of Palestinian violence, with
repeated Kassam rocket and mortar
attacks against Israeli settlements in
Gaza and the town of Sderot in the
Negev desert. The Israel Defense Forces
then launched incursions into Gaza in
an attempt to prevent the rocket and
mortar attacks.
Abbas has accused Israel of deliber-
ately trying to undermine the election
by launching military operations in the
Gaza Strip. "It is true that there are
some issues regarding rockets, which
are useless; but in return there is a
grave, a very grave Israeli escalation,"
he said.
He declared that the Palestinians
would not back down until a
Palestinian state had been created with
Jerusalem as its capital.
Renewing a call for a cease-fire with
Israel, Abbas said rocket attacks against
Israelis were counterproductive because
they drew Israeli retaliation. Abbas did-
n't call for such attacks to stop, but
said Israel uses them as an excuse to
launch reprisal raids, which hinder the
election campaign.
"Negotiation is the fundamental
way to reach peace between us and the
Israelis, in order to implement the
road map," Abbas said.
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