The Thieves Hunker Down

Abbas weighs up election gamble in his 'bunker'

The Telegraph

"The headquarters of Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader and president of the Palestinian National Authority, had the air of a military bunker yesterday, its inhabitants braced for an epic political fight.

Outside, security was tighter than ever with checkpoints manned by heavily-armed members of Force 17, an elite unit of guards [trained by the U.S.], on the approach roads to the Muqata, or presidential compound.

Behind metal shutters Mr Abbas, known widely among Palestinians as Abu Mazen, spent all day dealing with a stream of political counsellors, constitutional lawyers, election officials and security advisors.

Also at work in the bowels of the Muqata in Ramallah was his confidant and chief of staff, Rafiq Husseini, a virologist who trained in Birmingham and whose family live in Leicestershire.

Mr Husseini, 54, that Mr Abbas's call for early presidential and parliamentary elections to break the deadlock with the current Hamas-controlled parliament was portentous. "A lot is at stake here, not just the future of Abu Mazen but the future of the entire Palestinian state," he said.

"We have the best opportunity in decades to create a meaningful Palestinian state [the same lie has been repeated by this Oslo gang while the number of Israeli colonists in the W.B. doubled] and we must not let extremists destroy it. If it goes wrong, then we will not go back ten years, but tens of years. The Palestinian Authority could collapse and we could all come unstuck."

Inside the president's office there was a clear sense that new and uncharted territory was being explored. The constitution, drafted, debated, and redrafted ad nauseam since the Oslo peace process created the Palestinian National Authority, does not give explicit authority for Mr Abbas to dismiss parliament.

The only reference to dismissing parliament says it cannot be dismissed by the president during a state of emergency. No state of emergency is currently in place [hence Dahlan and the gang must create this state of emergency].

But the constitution does state that the Palestinian people are the ultimate source of sovereign power and it was that legal-constitutional fig leaf that Mr Husseini and his team of advisors were clinging to.

"You can debate the Basic Law or Constitution as much as you want, but what it comes down to is this," Mr Husseini said. "Power resides with the people [suddenly the thieves discovered that there is such a thing called the people] and, at this point of crisis, Abu Mazen has said he wants to go back to the people to let them decide. It is morally the right thing to do, to put the people at the centre of the democracy [the thieves now speak of democracy! Those NGOs have finally succeeded in coaching them]." Mr Abbas spent most of yesterday talking to Hisham Ikhail, the director of the central elections committee exploring electoral logistics. Presidential and parliamentary elections have never been held at the same time in the Palestinian territories, so their co-ordination will need careful consideration.

Mr Husseini said it would take at least four months to organise polls, even if all other political events went smoothly. This appeared unlikely with Hamas, who won the January parliamentary election, rejecting Mr Abbas's electoral ploy and threatening to boycott any attempted election.

"At times like this you must think with your head, not your heart, you must strategise logically and calmly," he said. "Anything else would be irresponsible.""