Arab rivals grab for power


Palestinian security chiefs flex muscles in fee dispute; Hard problems for Tenet mission

By Peter Hermann
Sun Foreign Staff
Originally published June 3, 2002


BEITUNIYA, West Bank - A truck stop that is little more than a sandy parking lot adjacent to a sprawling Israeli army base seems an unlikely place for a power struggle between rival Palestinian security chiefs.

But it is at this crossroads, about six miles northwest of Jerusalem, where the security chief of the Gaza Strip, Mohammed Dahlan, has tried to muscle in on the territory of his West Bank counterpart, Jibril Rajoub, according to Palestinian truck drivers.

With Israeli trucks barred from the West Bank and Palestinian trucks barred from Israel, drivers from both sides converge on the parking lot, unload their wares and carry them across a barrier of boulders set up by the Israeli army.

Last month, according to interviews with truckers and Palestinian businessmen, Palestinian drivers were ordered to pay fees of up to $75 for the transfer of each load. They said the money went to representatives of a company called al-Aqsa Shipping.

The Palestinians, distrustful of officials of the Palestinian Authority, assumed that the fees were part of a scheme to wrest authority in the West Bank from Rajoub. Drivers said Rajoub became sufficiently concerned about losing influence to Dahlan that he ordered police to tell drivers not to pay.

This squabble over trucks and the freight they carry hints at some of the problems that CIA Director George J. Tenet will face when he begins meetings this week to press Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to reform the tangle of Palestinian security forces. Tenet is expected to meet with Dahlan and Rajoub, officials the United States has courted as possible successors to Arafat.

Seeking reforms

U.S. officials hope to persuade Arafat to put rival Palestinian security agencies under a united command, one with the resources and political influence to rein in Islamic militant groups that attack Israeli civilians. Tenet must persuade security officials to reform their organizations if they are to regain the trust of the Palestinian public and to arrest the militants to regain the confidence of Israel.

"The Palestinian security forces are the least credible of all the government institutions," said Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian political analyst in Ramallah. "But they carry significant weight in society. They have a lot of resources."

Arafat could announce this week a reorganization of the police force, with Dahlan as head of a new "security council" responsible for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to the newspaper al-Quds.

Dahlan did not respond to requests seeking comment, and officials said that he would make no statement until Arafat announces a new Cabinet. The Palestinian Authority has scheduled a news conference for today to discuss political reforms.

Dahlan and Rajoub are considered pragmatic leaders. Both are fluent in Hebrew, which they learned during long stints in Israeli prisons, and generally kept their police forces out of recent fighting against Israel. The CIA helped them build their police forces and train their officers in the mid-1990s.

Until this year, Israeli and Palestinian security officials met regularly. But Israel abandoned those contacts after a wave of suicide bombings, and its troops have launched daily raids on Palestinian cities in the West Bank. The military raids have rendered the West Bank security force irrelevant, harming Rajoub's reputation.

Fighting for position

"Israel has taken over the role of Palestinian security," said Khatib. "And now we're undergoing reform. Everybody who has a position is fighting to keep their positions, and everyone who doesn't have a position is fighting to get one."

Khatib acknowledged that "there is friction" between Rajoub and Dahlan, but he and other analysts said they expected Rajoub to be awarded a senior post in a reshuffled Cabinet.

For now, Dahlan seems the stronger of the two. But he has run into problems in the West Bank, where he is regarded as an outsider.

For example: When West Bank truck drivers learned a month ago about the new fees for delivering their cargoes, they assumed that Dahlan was responsible. Rajoub intervened to end the truckers' protests but did not stop the payments. The fees now go to the workers who unload the trucks instead of to al-Aqsa Shipping Co.

Saleh Hussein, the foreign trade adviser for the Ramallah Chamber of Commerce, said he has repeatedly asked the Palestinian Authority whether Dahlan and Mohammed Rashid, who is politically allied with Dahlan and is Arafat's financial adviser, were connected to al-Aqsa Shipping Co. He said he never received a straight answer.

"The company must have someone high up in power," Hussein said, adding that he and the Palestinian Authority object to the Israeli-controlled transfer point because it is located in the West Bank, and not on the border between the West Bank and Israel.

"We agree with the authority that the checkpoint is illegal, and I want them to stop Palestinian drivers from using it," Hussein said. "I don't get any answers, and nothing changes. This crossing has become incredibly political."

'Who is in charge?'

Truck drivers, too, dislike the Beituniya truck stop, but it remains the only practical way to get goods - from lumber to television sets - from Israel to the West Bank and to avoid the army checkpoint at nearby Qalandiya, where the wait to cross lasts for hours.

The drivers are frustrated with Israel because of its tight controls and with the Palestinian Authority because of what they say is corruption that costs them money. The transfer point is devoid of rules, and the drivers say they are suspicious because it exists only through cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

"Who is in charge here, the Palestinians or the Israelis?" asked Khalil Mattar, 25, an Arab-Israeli driver who arrived at the transfer point yesterday. "We don't know. I just know that it is the regular people, like me, who end up getting hurt."

Damaged goods

A few days after Rajoub reached a compromise on the fee dispute, the West Bank branch of Arafat's Fatah party seemed to send Dahlan a stern message. One of Dahlan's supporters, Hassan Asfour, the minister for nongovernmental organizations, was beaten by masked men outside his home in Ramallah. A Fatah faction claimed responsibility, saying in a pamphlet that the attack was a warning to Dahlan to stay out of West Bank affairs.

Rajoub, too, has seen his reputation suffer. In February, he refused to disarm the militant wing of Fatah, the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, and Arafat put a gun to his head during a stormy argument, according to knowledgeable Palestinian officials.

In April, during Israel's invasion of the West Bank, Rajoub found his headquarters in Ramallah surrounded by Israeli troops demanding the surrender of suspected militants inside. After soldiers shelled the building, Rajoub negotiated the militants' surrender with the help of American officials.

Rajoub has insisted that Palestinian leaders approved his actions, but he was labeled a traitor anyway. The radical Islamic group Hamas issued leaflets calling for his assassination, and he has made few public appearances since then.

Khalil E. Jahshan, the executive vice president of the Arab-American Discrimination Committee, knows both Rajoub and Dahlan. Jahshan said Rajoub will likely have a significant role in a revised Palestinian government.

"I wouldn't count Rajoub out," he said in a telephone interview from his Washington office. "He still has a political base."

Jahshan said that for any real reform to take hold, Dahlan should be made head of the Interior Ministry, a post now held by Arafat. Such an appointment would put Dahlan in charge of the day-to-day affairs of the Palestinian Authority and go partway toward fulfilling Israel's wish that Arafat be stripped of power.

The Palestinian press is speculating that Dahlan will be named deputy interior minister, leaving Arafat with final say over security and other matters.