Succeeding Abbas?

The latest visit of Mohammed Dahlan in Amman has triggered much speculation among pundits and politicians over what he is up to. Indeed, he is not an ordinary senior Palestinian official but a very controversial politician, one that many Jordanians and Palestinians accuse of taking a leading role in cracking down on Hamas.

Over a dinner hosted by a Jordanian member of parliament, Dahlan failed to convince those in attendance that he has undergone a political transformation. Given his history as a security man who worked closely with the Israelis against Hamas, he was hardly successful in driving his point home.

Among the invitees was a former director of the General Information Department. Empowered by a wealth of information owing to his years at the helm of the GID, he refuted much of what Dahlan had to say. He was startled by Dahlan’s vacillation over matters in the occupied territories.

The reality is that Dahlan fought the militarisation of the Palestinian Intifada tooth and nail. Therefore, for him to say that Palestinians should wed negotiations with calculated violence or resistance seems bizarre, given his long-standing cooperation with the Israeli security apparatus.

Apparently Dahlan is preparing to succeed President Mahmoud Abbas who just declared that he will not run in the next presidential election, scheduled for January 24. In his bid to do that, he might be soliciting some support from Jordan. Should Jordan support him?

The problem here is the credibility deficit of the Palestinian Authority, Dahlan’s in particular.

The Jordanian former intelligence official is said to have confronted Dahlan over this issue. According to sources close to the Jordanian security apparatus, senior PA officials who have been seeking Jordan’s support tend to conceal their wheeling and dealing with their Israeli counterparts.

In other words, Palestinians officials have not been honest in revealing, to Jordan, their contacts with the Israelis. Only recently, former prime minister Maruf Bakhit warned that the PA might negotiate clandestinely with Israel and might well arrive at a secret deal that will not take Jordan’s interest into consideration.

PA officials wrongly assume that Jordan has no option but to support the embattled Abbas over dealing with both Israel and Hamas. Perhaps this is what Jordanian officials have been trying to have the Palestinians understand. The former intelligence director is reported to have told Dahlan that Jordan will not support any two-state solution if it does not take into account Jordan’s vital interests in the final status talk.

In fact, an emerging school of thought in Jordan began to reconsider the “two-state solution” formula if the outcome is detrimental to Jordan’s vital interests.

Of all Palestinians, Dahlan and like-minded senior officials are not to be trusted to negotiate some issues in the final status talk; they may sacrifice Jordan’s interest in their desperate bid to establish a state of their own.

Dahlan’s problem is one of image. A vast majority of Jordanians view him negatively. He is seen as docile to Israelis.

At dinner, Dahlan said that Abbas is not seeking reelection for fear of facing the same destiny as Yasser Arafat if he says no to the Americans. Yet, in his bid to present himself as a genuine contender for the presidency, Dahlan made the case that Arafat’s eventual destiny had to do with the fact that he changed the rules of the game when he supported a militarised Intifada. It is only then, according to Dahlan, that the Americans turned their back on Arafat.

Dahlan might be preparing himself for the presidency in case Abbas’ decision not to run is final. Nonetheless, his recent inconsistent position should be a source of concern to Jordan.