JERUSALEM, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Although outnumbered by four to one by the Palestine Authority police, militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad are able to outfight them because they are better trained and motivated, claims a top adviser to Israel's Defense Ministry.
As a result, Israel should welcome Hamas taking part in Palestinian elections, since this would reflect political reality in the community, and give Israel a chance to deal with a genuinely representative Palestinian government, claims reserve Brig. Gen. Shalom Harari in a new research paper published by the Institute for Contemporary Affairs in Jerusalem.
"The ratio of armed forces is 22,000 for the PA and 6,000 for Hamas -- a four-to-one ratio -- which is enough for the PA to overcome Hamas," Harari writes. "But every Hamas and Jihad member is worth four or five or six Fatah members because he's much more committed and fanatical and has more self-discipline."
"I personally very much support the participation of Hamas in the elections," Harari adds, arguing Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization was never the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Hamas, emerging from its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, was there all along.
"Israel signed the Oslo agreements with only half of the Palestinians," Harari notes. "Some Israelis say that now that Mahmoud Abbas is PA chairman, Israel has an address to deal with. But he represents only half of an address, without the Islamic movement. Every paper that Israel signs with Abbas before the Palestinian elections is worthless because he doesn't represent the whole system. He represents perhaps 20 percent of it, if that, and that is the key problem."
"Hamas should take part in the elections, and then Israel can condition its dealing with a united Palestinian government on eliminating all the uncontrolled weapons and disavowing the idea of destroying Israel," Harari writes.
"Even if Abu Mazen wins the elections in January, he will not disarm Hamas after the elections," Harari predicts. "I foresee the situation continuing to deteriorate, and the PA is going to fail at the end of the day.
Abbas is also known as Abu Mazen.
Harari served in the Palestinian territories for 20 years as a senior adviser on Palestinian affairs for Israel's Defense Ministry, retiring in 1997. He is now a senior research scholar with the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, and is associated with the Middle East Media Research Institute in Jerusalem.
The military standoff between Hamas and the PA armed forces means the Palestinians are now living in what Yasser Arafat once called "the democracy of the rifles," Harari suggests.
"Arafat was the cement that held all the Palestinian factions together including, unofficially, the Muslim factions. This cement has now disappeared. All the divisions that we see in Palestinian society today, that have been there all along, have re-emerged," Harari's paper, "The democracy of the Rifles," goes on.
Arafat was able to control both the Fatah outsiders who came from Tunis, and those who were in the territories during the first intifada, Harari adds. Around 200,000 people came in from outside after Oslo, including a great many PLO activists. The main power of this group derived from the fact they were close to Arafat, but after his death the outsiders are in a weaker position.
Harari claims that before he arrived in the Palestinian territories, Arafat in the late 1980s held secret conversations with Hamas leaders, who demanded 40 percent representation in the PLO institutions. Arafat turned them down. So Hamas has now turned to the ballot box, seeking in the municipal elections (which they won) and in next month's scheduled parliamentary elections to stake their claim for significant representation within the governing institutions of the territories.
"However, if the Muslim movements enter the PLO, they will try to impose their Islamist agenda based on the laws of sharia," Harari suggests. "For example, in Kalkilya, where the municipality was taken over by Hamas, the annual 'Palestine Festival' was cancelled this year to avoid mixed seating of men and women. But this was not as surprising as it seemed, since before 1967, according to the archives of Jordanian intelligence, Kalkilya was the cradle of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West Bank.
"Palestinians today are primarily concerned with the loss of control in their society -- in dimensions and to depths never seen before," Harari adds. "Civilians have their own weapons, and the weapons of the security forces are barely under the control of any central authority."
Harari claims that since the first Intifada, 10 to 20 different gangs have arisen, which are found in every city: the Black Panthers, Red Eagles, Patriotic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and the Fatah-Tanzim, with further divisions such as Tanzim Balata, Tanzim Askar and the like. There are also pressure groups that come from inside the Palestinian security services, whose involvement in the economy is part of Arafat's legacy.
"Arafat may be dead, but most of the systems he created are still here. Only the names have changed," Harari suggests.
Under Arafat's system, the Palestinian Education Ministry has 28 directors-general. Arafat's system of governance was the system of families, of the hamullah. For example, he would give the first director-general position to the Abdulhabi family in Jenin. Then members of another tribe or family would ask, "What about us?" So he would give them a position as director-general, too, in the same ministry, which means one cellular phone, a car, and a job paying $500-600 a month.
"The anarchy in Palestinian society reaches into every corner of everyday life, including the hospitals," Harari suggests.
After the disengagement, there were major clashes between Hamas and the PA in Gaza, with three policemen killed and more than 100 injured, Harari recounts. Officers from the PA intelligence service brought injured relatives to the hospital, entered the operating room, and threatened to shoot the doctors if they did not operate on their family member immediately.
"Incidents like this have triggered strikes of doctors almost every month in Gaza. The same thing has occurred in Nablus in the West Bank. Unfortunately, such stories do not reach the local and foreign media," Harari notes.
"When Palestinians talk about corruption, they refer also to the management of the PA, which started badly from the beginning and became worse, but this had nothing to do with the 'occupation.' The situation in the Palestinian courts also has nothing to do with the 'occupation.' The courts are inside the cities and no 'occupier' enters the courts when they are in operation," Harari claims.
"However, since 1996 there has been shooting inside the courts in the West
Bank and Gaza, sometimes in front of the judge, because some of the families
were not satisfied with the judge's decision and they would shoot the accused in
the middle of the courtroom. Judges were also threatened at home."