For
more than three decades, Palestine’s long time political leader was Yasser
Arafat. He was in his mid 70’s, sick and very weak. According to The History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
by Ian J. Bickerton and Carla L. Klausner, Arafat was flown to Paris and soon
after, “Mr. Palestine was dead” on November 11, 2004 (p. 355). Arafat was a
significant political figure for the Palestinians since the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict surfaced from the late 1940’s and onward. He founded the Fatah in the
late 1950’s, which was a political organization that advocated armed resistance
against Israel. Since the death of Arafat, there have been many conspiracy
theories as to how he actually died so suddenly. Some have blamed Israel and there
have been new theories as to focus the blame on Palestinian politicians.
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| Mahmood Abbas & Mohammad Dahlan! |
The
Jerusalem Post published a new article by Reuters News, reporting that the Palestinian
Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, is accusing Mohammad Dahlan for Arafat’s death. Both men used to be in the
Fatah movement until 2011. That year, Abbas ousted Dahlan from the party and
has been living in exile in Dubai. He was not only accused of corruption but
also mentioned that President Abbas should be replaced. These two issues escalated a sense of
rivalry between the two Palestinian men. The article goes on to report that
during Arafat’s rule six people were killed under Dahlan’s authority, which was
said by President Abbas. Even though he is accused of this, President Abbas has
no actual evidence to prove this crime. While in exile, Dahlan made contacts
with Egypt’s military chief, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and also reached out to Hamas
to shore up support for his cause, which is to discredit President Abbas’s
theory that hints his association with Arafat’s death. After reading this
article it is clear that Abbas and Dahlan are political rivals with each other.
Abbas goes on to accuse Dahlan of many other corrupt accusations such as
plotting to kill the Hamas leader as well. It seems that the President’s
authority is tested by Dahlan’s presence in the Palestinian political arena.
I
felt that there was more than just “corruption” to this political rivalry for
Abbas to accuse such a serious crime on Dahlan. In another article, it can be said
that Abbas really added a lot of fuel to the fire with issues in Palestine.
Over the decades, there have been many attempts between Palestine and Israel to
come to a peace settlement. In The Telegraph, an article had been written
recently about Abbas accusing his political rival, Dahlan in the role of Arafat dying. Not only, was Dahlan
accused of money laundering and the six killings like the previous article, another
blame was bestowed on Dahlan that the previous article did not mention. He was accused of collaborating with
the United States and Israel undermining the negotiations for Palestinians at
the Camp David summit in 2000. This resulted in another failed peace deal
between Israel and Palestine. It would be a heavy blame for a politician to absorb
for a failed peace deal. If this was true, Abbas and Dahlan would have a little
more than a decade of political rivalry between each other.
The
original article about the suspicious accusations that President Abbas was
blaming Dahlan for Arafat’s’ death was published in Reuters News. On the Jerusalem Post, there is no
author stated, however, the Reuters article states that Ali Sawafta wrote the article. Sawafta is a
correspondent at Reuters who focuses his journalism mostly in the Palestinian
territory. It is interesting that this article even got to the Jerusalem Post
and that the reporter was not mentioned in it as well. Perhaps the Post was
purposely not mentioning Sawafta? I am not sure. The articles that I read and
researched all are guesses and assumptions blaming rivals. These accusations
that are bestowed on Dahlan have no evidence or support by Abbas. President
Abbas has no hard proof on the blames he is putting on Dahlan. I think that Dahlan
is a political threat to Abbas’s authoritative leadership more than anything
else. And to accuse him of being linked to Arafat’s death is just another major
news story to make Dahlan appear worse than Abbas to the Palestinians.
