Let me clear. I am no fan of Salaam Fayad. He’s made statements like this:
“What is the essence of resistance, especially in light of the current occupation?” Fayad asked. “Does it not begin with all possible efforts to strengthen the permanence of the Palestinian citizens on their land? That is precisely the government’s agenda.”
or this:
“Jerusalem is home to the third most holy place to Islam, the place where Muhammad rose to the heavens, and the place where Jesus, the Christian, was resurrected,” the Palestinian leader proclaimed.
He has announced his intention to resign from his post as Prime Minister in order to facilitate unity talks between Fatah and Hamas. The Washington Post reports:
Fayyad, a political independent with a technocratic background, has been in the middle of that partisan divide. Hamas has criticized his involvement in a government the group considers illegitimate, while some Fatah members have been upset that party loyalists were not awarded with more top government jobs.
A spokesman for Hamas, which opposes Israel’s existence and is engaged in a simmering military conflict with it, said Fayyad’s eventual departure was “expected” because his government was “illegal and unconstitutional,” the Associated Press reported.
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But Fayyad has also been central to efforts to bolster Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian moderates who favor a two-state solution with Israel.
Western and particularly U.S. officials trust him and have increased aid to the West Bank with confidence in Fayyad’s ability to administer it. He is also the main Palestinian contact in U.S. programs to improve Palestinian security forces. His resignation could thus affect a broad set of issues.
The Post quotes one source at the end that suggests that this resignation is more of a statement about Fayyad’s indispensability.
Here’s the New York Times:
The Palestinians’ need for national reconciliation increased after Israel’s offensive in Gaza, with the international community refusing to channel any reconstruction funds through Hamas. The United States, the European Union and Israel classify Hamas as a terrorist organization and refuse to deal with it unless it renounces all violence, recognizes Israel’s right to exist and accepts previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
Egypt brokered preliminary talks between the Palestinian groups in late February. Hamas and Fatah leaders announced the establishment of committees to find formulas for a new Palestinian unity government and new elections, among other things. The committees are scheduled to convene this week and finish their work by the end of March.
“We believe that the positive atmosphere embodied by the first round of the dialogue is a precious opportunity that should be utilized to terminate the current state of fragmentation,” Mr. Fayyad’s letter to Mr. Abbas said.
(As far as the quotes from Hamas about the Fatah government being illegal, read Daled Amos.)
But the Times has this sentence, presented with no elaboration:
The resignation announcement was widely seen as a conciliatory gesture to Hamas.
Given how much observers of the Middle East are up in arms about the possibility of an Israeli government that includes Avigdor Lieberman and is headed by Binyamin Netanyahu, there is not much mentioned about how unacceptable Hamas included government is. The Times uses the weasel language that Hamas is “classif[ied]” a terrorist organization. And the Post couldn’t even bring itself to associate Hamas with terror explicitly.
There’s another angle that both papers ignore completely. Fayyad may not be all that popular withh Fatah either. (h/t Israel Matzav)
Many Fatah members have long been demanding the removal of Fayad from power, saying that his efforts to reform the PA were being carried out at the expense of Fatah’s standing.
What bothered Fatah was that most of the international aid was going directly to Fayad’s government and not into the bank accounts of its leaders in Ramallah. Fatah needs a lot of money to buy loyalty and maintain its grip on the PA, and that’s where Fayad was not being cooperative.
Barak Ravid put it like this about two years ago:
Fayyad also left Likud MK Silvan Shalom with a relatively positive impression. “We found him easy to deal with and Ariel Sharon believed that if money is being transferred to the Palestinians then at least it should go directly to him,” he says. Nevertheless, a political figure who was in contact with Fayyad at that time says the latter had to give in to Arafat from time to time. “He said that was his way to survive. That a little corruption was better than a lot of corruption.”
With Fayyad out of the way, there will be no way to ensure that the billions pledged for Gaza will go for reconstruction. Fayyad realized that until now, he provided a fig leaf for the West to aid the PA and ensure that it was being used properly for the most part. But now he figures that the West is determined to aid the PA in reconstruction regardless of controls. Thus he’s no longer needed. Israel Matzav concludes:
Anyone want to take bets on whether the West will be foolish enough to put all those billions in Hamas and Fatah’s coffers? I’m betting that they will be foolish enough.
UPDATE: Omri sees the resignation much the same way that I do.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad