Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 13.08.2024
If the US decides who will be the next governor of Gaza, it will be Mohammed Dahlan. What do we know about this person?
Last month, the Wall Street Journal wrote that Mohammed Dahlan is likely the temporary solution to a dilemma facing postwar Gaza. The Journal goes on to quote Israeli political analysts who have described Dahlan as a rare Palestinian leader who is independent of both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, making him someone with whom the Israeli government could potentially work.
Dahlan was born in 1961 in Khan Yunis in Gaza and, as a teenager, helped set up the Fatah Youth Movement. In his 20s, he was arrested by the Israeli authorities more than once for political activism, but never for terrorist activities. He used his time in Israeli prisons to learn Hebrew, which Mohammed Dahlan speaks fluently. He already planned to collaborate with Israel
After the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, Dahlan was nominated to head the Security Force in Gaza. Building up a private militia of 20,000 men, he became one of the most powerful Palestinians as a warlord. In 1997 it was discovered that he had been diverting taxes to his personal bank account. To cover up for his corruption Dahlan denounced the PA and Hamas for corruption and crime. In 2002, he resigned and, portraying himself as an outspoken critic of PA President Yasser Arafat, repeatedly campaigned on an anti-corruption and reform ticket. As a result, Dahlan and his followers won over most of the Fatah sections in Gaza.
In the 2006 elections, Hamas gained a majority in Gaza. Dahlan called their election victory a “disaster,” and in January 2007, he held the biggest-ever rally of Fatah supporters in Gaza, where he denounced Hamas as “a bunch of murderers and thieves.”
Six months later, Hamas seized power and expelled those Fatah officials it had not killed, among them Dahlan. Years later, it was revealed that Dahlan played a crucial role in an abortive US plot to remove Hamas from power.
In October 2007, the Bush administration reportedly pressured PA President Mahmoud Abbas to appoint Dahlan as his deputy. Instead, perceiving Dahlan as his rival for office, Abbas publicly charged him, in June 2011, with financial corruption and murder and expelled him from Fatah’s ruling body. Abbas went further and accused him of murdering Arafat – though he never charged him formally.
Dahlan has lived in the UAE for many years and is an adviser to the crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan. He has ties with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Syrian opposition and is closely connected with Serbia and Montenegro.He has covered relations with the US.
The WSJ claims that Hamas has softened its opposition to Dahlan, indicating to mediators in recent weeks that it could accept him as part of an interim solution to help end the war. Dahlan has said he now speaks to Hamas regularly.
The WSJ vision of the “day after” sees Dahlan overseeing a Palestinian security body comprising 2,500 personnel working in coordination with an international force once Israeli troops eventually pull out of Gaza. This force would be backed by the US, Israel, and Egypt and wouldn’t have clear loyalties to the PA but to Israel.
Polls of Palestinian public opinion do not support Dahlan as a potential leader. The latest poll, taken in June, reveals the favorite by far is Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in a Zionist jail, and Hamas demand to release him in the deal. He received 39% of the popular vote. Some way behind him was Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political leader who was assassinated on July 31. Dahlan won 8%. But He is likely to find himself in a leadership position through an appointment agreed between the US, Israel, and Egypt in negotiating a ceasefire and the release of the hostages.
Hamas may agree to such a deal because such a force will not be an obstacle to its actual ruling of Gaza.
Not Dahlan nor other traitors!
For Palestine, red and free from the river to the sea!